Recording Skype Calls

Are you one of the hundreds of millions of Skype users out there? And, do you have a logical reason to record your voice calls? As a freelance journalist, I usually ask phone interviewees if they mind my recording our conversation, it’s so much easier than having to continuously scribble notes (unfortunately I never got very far with shorthand) while you are trying to elicit interesting responses from scientists and others to your probing questions.

Anyway, Amit over on Digital Inspiration gives readers the low-down on third-party addons for Skype that allow you to record both sides of a call, often separating your voice into one stereo channel and your contact into the other. Very useful for transcribing.

However, is there actually any need to pay for a third-party addon when most operating systems have their own builtin sound recorder that can tap into your soundcard? Thankfully, no as Amit points out. You can build your own Skype recorder with nothing more than Windows Sound Recorder (assuming you are on Windows) and a driver known as a virtual audio cable. Amit links to a PDF with full instructions from HensHall.com

It looks like quite a heady process and involves creating a new login user account on your XP machine, logging off, adding that virtual person to your Skype contacts, logging off Skyping your original account from your second user, adding the person you are interviewing to the “conference call” and logging back….oh, it goes on…

I think I will just resort to learning shorthand instead, it would be so much easier, and it keeps you on the right side of the law when it comes to tapping phones. Meanwhile, I’m on Skype as david.bradley if you fancy a chat.