Olympus TP-7 telephone recording device

A friend of mine, a journalist, recently emailed to tell me he likes the Olympus WS-110 digital voice recorder I recently recommended. He said:

I just wanted to thank you for guiding me to try the Olympus WS-110 digital voice recorder for interviews, using ffmpegx to convert the audio to MP3, and then Listen&Type to transcribe.

I've been using all three for a couple of weeks now, and have been very happy with the results. The recorder in particular has been great: tiny in size, it holds more hours of audio than I could ever need, and has been able to clearly record both sides of an interview.

Being able to store interviews on my computer as MP3 files is also a great benefit.

A few days ago, I bought a very useful accessory for the WS-110: The Olympus TP-7 Telephone Recording Device. You simply stick it in your ear, and make the phone call. It does a great job of recording both ends of a conversation. It will work with any recorder, not just the WS-110. It also comes with various jack adaptors.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm really set to record interviews.

Olympus TP-7 Telephone Recording Device ($16.99 at Amazon.com)

[#1 posted by BSD, July 24, 2008 9:47 PM]

Please be aware of whether you're in a single or dual consent jurisdiction before recording a telephone call. IAALBTINLA

[#2 posted by soulbarn, July 24, 2008 10:28 PM]

Listen and Type is great. But - and yes, this is real - outsourcing your recorded interviews to be transcribed overseas is also an option. I use a service called Podclerk - podclerk.com - that charges about $12USD per hour of recorded audio, returning it back to me as a reasonably accurate text document, usually within 48 hours. They're based in the Philippines, and if you have stuff that's especially technical or filled with unusual words, you can give them a "guide" with proper spellings and they'll get it pretty close to right. Very good service, too. There are others, but this one is really low priced and the folks I've referred to them have also been pretty happy with their work.

[#3 posted by Anonymous, July 25, 2008 1:29 AM]

Thanks for making me aware of the recording device for interviews. I've been looking for a sound device because it is becoming more and more necessary to record phone calls with ever-increasing "mis quoted" crap that almost always is wrong. I now have the opportunity to prove it on our severely outdated phone systems.

[#4 posted by aRtFrEeK101, July 25, 2008 5:47 AM]

I have been using the WS-310 for several years now and it has been priceless. I line in NJ and it is only a single consent state. It has helped numerous time when dealing with repairmen, dealerships and cable companies....

Very light, clear sound, easy transfer to my Mac. Highly recommended.

[#5 posted by markhaas, July 25, 2008 10:44 AM]

Olympus also offers DSS Player, which in its latest version 7 supports WMA and MP3 file playback. It also allows you to control playback via function keys on your PC while using Word or any other editor. It also supports a foot switch.

I'm also using Skype with a new program called CallGraph which records Skype calls beautifully as MP3 files, and I've configured it to place these files directly into a DSS Player folder. Very nice.

[#6 posted by Anonymous, October 2, 2009 4:21 PM]

Anyone know how to get this in Canada? Amazon won't deliver this item across the border.