Drown on the cellphone, two new D.R. songs

I have always had this obsession of recording a high quality outgoing voice mail message for my cell phone. Those who called me anytime in the last three years have probably heard some sort of cell phone jingle consisting of me, my guitar, and a well placed cell phone, but I’ve never been able to capture that full Drown Radio sound via voicemail.

When I bought my iPhone last month I thought “I’m sure there’s a simple one click mp3 upload to my voicemail and I’m done”. A quick search showed no such feature, nor any 3rd party apps to produce the desired effect. Then I started looking at the hardware itself, although the casing is slightly different, the headphone/mic is just a 1/8th inch jack with 4 connectors (left, right, microphone, and ground). So my first plan was to buy a 1/8th inch cable with four sections on the tip so I could capture external audio into the microphone channel. I found a cable intended for iPod Videos to be plugged into a tv set via Amazon. The cable is an 1/8th inch to RCA, so all I had to do was find the mic line and plug my four track device (or if you have an RCA to 1/8th” adapter, you can use your mp3 player) into the RCA side.

That worked okay, but obviously there is a big difference between a mic level and an amplified audio source. Even with my 4 track playing at the lowest level possible, the VM recording was highly over driven. Technically, it was a success, but I kept searching for an all digital alternative.

Luckily, I found this article on iPhone Alley with analternative method of file uploading. The author says that you have to convert your audio file to an AMR (they provide a link for converting), then record a dummy message on your iPhone but don’t save it. Instead, find the “greeting.amr” stored on your phone using SFTP and replace it with your own “greeting.amr” file. Then tap “save” and the file will upload to AT&T’s servers.

My buddy Baz did all that stuff for me… I don’t program.

I was able to upload the file, but the quality was just not what I was looking for this time either. There is a warble to the audio, like a damaged old audio cassette… so both of these methods work, but not perfectly. I guess I would suggest the RCA to 1/8th inch method out of pure simplicity.

I’ve uploaded my original voicemail greeting, please check it out here! It’s the first song I’ve recorded since my computer crashed 5 months ago and I love it. It was fun to blow the dust of the old four track machine and crank out a jam. Some of you may recognize it as an alternative to the Northwest Nerdcore Podcast theme song I wrote in February.

Another audio project for your iPhone is uploading your own ring tones from mp3s. Luckily, this is super easy (as long as you didn’t upgrade to 1.1.1) via a 3rd party app called “Send Song”. It’s easy to upload, all you need isNullriver’s “Installer” app on
your phone. Send Song, which is included in the Installer.app, let’s you go through your iPhone’s iTune playlist and grab any song for use as a ring tone. You can even assign certain ring tones to certain phone numbers.

I’m sure you probably want to hear the Hyphy Ring tone I wrote, check it out here.

Are you an audio/iPhone geek with suggestions for my voicemail problem? Leave a comment.

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7 responses to “Drown on the cellphone, two new D.R. songs”

  1. theredgrape Avatar
    theredgrape

    i love the Hyphy ringtone! puts a smile on my face with each & every call!!

  2. doc Avatar
    doc

    Hey thanks! I know what you are saying, every time someone calls me and I hear that song I just want to let it go on and on.

    Do you have an iPhone? If so, how did you get it on? I just updated to 1.1.1 and the send song ringtone isn’t working for me anymore.

  3. theredgrape Avatar
    theredgrape

    sadly, i do not have an iphone. i have an old boxy nokia flip phone that happens to have blue tooth!

  4. fly ringtone Avatar
    fly ringtone

    your upgrades all sound so complicated. I was hoping the same as you, that the iphone would have made this all easier somehow.
    daren

  5. doc Avatar
    doc

    my ideal iPhone app (or at least one of them) would be a voicemail app that lets you upload mp3s to your outgoing messages or download messages as mp3s. How cool would that be?

  6. Juliana F. Avatar
    Juliana F.

    We are attracted by the new products offered in the market. Some of us are meticulous. We want the best service provider. How about the expenses? Choosing the best company having quality services is good idea. The stock markets have plummeted, and America, and most of the world, is embroiled in a recession. It is getting harder and harder to tell just when or if it is going to come out of it. It doesn't help that so many workers have been laid off, especially when AT&T, one of the largest communications companies in America, has just laid off 12,000 of its workers. It seems like the worst thing to do, at the worst time, but it is the lesser of two evils since it would be worse to let the company fall into bankruptcy. The Treasury has stepped in and pledged over $700 billion in tax payer dollars to save the banks and Wall Street. The banks have even begun their own measures to weather this downturn, by making credit harder and harder to obtain, even to those with good credit scores. They've even stepped up their fee structure, on ATM's, overdrafts, and late payments, in essence taxing those who paid to keep them employed. Click to read more on payday loans.

  7. Juliana F. Avatar
    Juliana F.

    We are attracted by the new products offered in the market. Some of us are meticulous. We want the best service provider. How about the expenses? Choosing the best company having quality services is good idea. The stock markets have plummeted, and America, and most of the world, is embroiled in a recession. It is getting harder and harder to tell just when or if it is going to come out of it. It doesn't help that so many workers have been laid off, especially when AT&T, one of the largest communications companies in America, has just laid off 12,000 of its workers. It seems like the worst thing to do, at the worst time, but it is the lesser of two evils since it would be worse to let the company fall into bankruptcy. The Treasury has stepped in and pledged over $700 billion in tax payer dollars to save the banks and Wall Street. The banks have even begun their own measures to weather this downturn, by making credit harder and harder to obtain, even to those with good credit scores. They've even stepped up their fee structure, on ATM's, overdrafts, and late payments, in essence taxing those who paid to keep them employed. Click to read more on payday loans.

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