Mastering for Telephone...

[DwaneHollands]

Hi Guys,

Any tips for preparing my music for telephone. It's not a sales thing. I've just been sick of having silence on our hold music for work when i've got all this recording equipment. lol.

The stuff I've got for there makes no sense. It's just some of my orchestrated stuff - probably not the most relevant. But it's better than silence. (BTW, what isn't better than silence is classical music played by what sounds like a touch phone tone. Seriously I've considered handing up when people have that on their hold music. How can anyone think that's a good idea!)

But I digress...

I went to WOW site and sound and bought a cheap CD player and plugged in the stereo mini jack into the head phone output and into the line in on the phone system we have. Is there a better way that this?

It's not very loud over the telephone line. But internally at the office when I punch Background Music On it's plenty loud.

Anyone have any tips on prepping my music for it or anything....anything will do : )

[jkhuri44]

cut heaps of bass out, and cut some highs out...

limit more than u would normally....but make sure its not too loud, coz some companies have their shit at ear tearing levels...

other than that remember music sounds like shit on telephone...its not meant for the phone :P so, dont expect miracles.

[DwaneHollands]

Hey Jamil!

Thanks man. Any ideas at what frequencies I should be shelving at, at the bottom and top. What would you do?

Yeah It's so depressing listening to it through the phone. It's been massacred.

[chris p]

Don't sweat it Dwayne - I just play my elevator music CD straight into the on hold input jack and the technology does the best it can. Its not like you're going to blow up the handset speaker (unless its too loud).

[JulienG]

The short answer is level it pretty well, make it mono, and don't bother doing any more.

You find putting in a high-pass at ~150-200Hz helps get a better level, but it isn't needed.

As for a low-pass, traditionally the answer would have been 4k for an 8k sampling rate, however higher quality phone links are in occasional use and 11k for a 22k is now a safe amount.

But as it all gets SRC'd anyway there's no major reason to bother.

[chribble]

its important when mastering for telephone to add a conga track

cut at 5k and 400hz i'd guess.

[Futureman]

its important when mastering for telephone to add a conga track
.

And lots of cabassa's / shakers.

[chribble]

[quote="Futureman"][quote="chribble"]its important when mastering for telephone to add a conga track
.[/quote]

And lots of cabassa's / shakers.[/quote]

agreed. also mix ocean sounds to taste. seagulls or waves are popular

[DwaneHollands]

its important when mastering for telephone to add a conga track
.

And lots of cabassa's / shakers.

agreed. also mix ocean sounds to taste. seagulls or waves are popular

Ha ha guys. Yeah I know. All the usual suspects.

Nah, Mine is a little more 'movie soundtrack'. Which no doubt is totally against the rules of what you put on telephone music. But pffft. I'm going to do something a little different! haha.

JulienG thanks for the info about the sampling rates and where I should shelve the top end.

I'll experiment with limiting the track too after I've done some cutting with the EQ.

[Mickstape]

can you post this epic thing when you are done please Dwane, i'd be interested to hear it.

[DwaneHollands]

can you post this epic thing when you are done please Dwane, i'd be interested to hear it.

Hey Mick! Yeah No problems.

I've been playing around with it today. Cut from 11K and above and about 300 and below. (might be 350). I couldn't help myself, I had to add some other parts to it. It's not that polished.

Here it is:
http://www.hollands.com.au/R21Studios/A ... 001_LQ.mp3

[chris p]

After all that effort you give us an MP3? Give us a phone number and stick us on hold!

[JulienG]

After all that effort you give us an MP3? Give us a phone number and stick us on hold!

Because I'm insane...

Try 03 9660 5003

This is louder then you'd actually get in real life as hold music is usually cut by 10 or 20 db, but should give you an idea.

[Mickstape]

haha yeh thats what i was kinda hoping for, a phone number. i used one of my old fisher price toys and sent it thru to get it as close as. needless to say now the toy does not work at all. i think the speaker cone went bye byes after about 8 seconds. but it sounds like you def got the shelving right, i never really contemplated this kind of thing. on another note you have some pretty cool ideas Dwane, i have that all is forgiven track on my itunes and it pops up every now n then, i wish i could come up with super epic stuff like that.

[DwaneHollands]

After all that effort you give us an MP3? Give us a phone number and stick us on hold!

Chris,

Sorry mate, I'm in the NT and I wasn't going to presume to get people to spend their money making a long distance call for little ole me : )

My phone number:

(08) 89 327 400

It's Hollands Print Solutions. You can ask for me if you like. lol. If you're after business cards let me know. ha ha.

I'm currently using a CD player to play the tunes, but it's not very reliable. Stops all the time. So I've ordered a little MP3 player which automatically plays, even if power goes off - restarts itself etc.

But yeah, it's depressing and to be expected that it sounds so bad over the phone...

[DwaneHollands]

After all that effort you give us an MP3? Give us a phone number and stick us on hold!

Because I'm insane...

Try 03 9660 5003

This is louder then you'd actually get in real life as hold music is usually cut by 10 or 20 db, but should give you an idea.

Ha ha....You are insane Julien! You didnt have to do that! I called the way!

Thanks man. You can take it down any time you like!

[DwaneHollands]

haha yeh thats what i was kinda hoping for, a phone number. i used one of my old fisher price toys and sent it thru to get it as close as. needless to say now the toy does not work at all. i think the speaker cone went bye byes after about 8 seconds. but it sounds like you def got the shelving right, i never really contemplated this kind of thing. on another note you have some pretty cool ideas Dwane, i have that all is forgiven track on my itunes and it pops up every now n then, i wish i could come up with super epic stuff like that.

Sorry to hear about your toy dieing!

Thanks for the compliments Mick! Glad you like the Much is Forgiven track. Incidently my Solid State Hardrive in my Macbook died a few months ago and I lost my old work. (yeah smack on the hand for not backing up!). So I don't have the original session files for Reaper which I created it in.

I might re-create that some day. (I'll have to re-learn it from the MP3. lol)

Kinda not too worried about losing the data though, since it's forced me to move on and create new pieces. These pieces are not complicated. I'm working on greater depth to the orchestration and progressiveness, but it's a long road ahead!

Oh, I couldn't create these pieces with my hardware - without Reaper. I have PT LE 8 and it could not give me the amount of instruments I need to make pieces like this.

About 16-20 tracks of virtual instruments with IK-Multimedia 670 Comps on most tracks to add colour.

I'm still working on the real-ness of the instruments. Anything to get them sound more real.