How to record a landline phone-to-phone conversation using a MacBook's audio-in port?
I need to record a phone conversation -- that will take place between two landlines.
(I have the other person's permission -- I'm interviewing them for a paper and we both want a permanent audio recording of the conversation so that the quotes can be later double-checked for accuracy. So, the legality question is not the issue.)
I could do it the old-old-old-fashioned analogue way of getting one of those 1960's-style microphone pickups that have a suction cup to put on the phone...but the audio quality of that is probably pretty low.
I'd much prefer doing it directly digitally by having the phone's audio signal go into my MacBook Pro's "audio in" port and then recording the whole thing with an application on my Mac.
I've solved various peripheral aspects of the problem already: I have a choice of at least three different applications that can make recordings of the internal audio signal on the Mac (among those applications are Amadeus and QuickTime Player 7). And I have a "portable handset" connected to the landline, and the handset has a small audio-out/in jack into which a headphone headset can be plugged. And I have a converter plug which converts a "larger" (I thinks it's 3.5mm) computer-style audio jack into a "smaller" (I think it's 2.5mm) phone-style audio jack.
My questions are: Can I just use any available random 3.5mm-to-3.5mm male-to-male audio cable (such as those that connect tabletop computer-speakers), place the converter plug on one end and insert it into the phone, and then plug the other end into the MacBook Pro's "audio-in" port?
What would happen if I tried that?
Or do I need some kind of specialty cables, or specialty plug-converters?
My MacBook Pro is from about 5 years ago and has one of those "audio-in" (also sometimes referred to as "audio line-in") ports that depict above them a symbol that looks like a circle with two triangles overlapping it (clear image of what the port's symbol looks like here: http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/MacLineIn.jpg).
Or do I have the wrong hardware/port to achieve this? If so: What steps can I take to make a digital recording of a landline phone call successfully?
Presumably, even if this scenario I sketch out above is feasible, since the audio out-signal from the phone is being redirected to the phone's out-port, I will not be able to hear the person on the other end from the phone's ear-piece itself; instead, I'd have to speak into the phone's mouthpiece but to hear the other person I must turn on the computer's volume and listen to the audio coming out of the Mac's built-in speakers. A little awkward, but doable.
Or am I barking completely up the wrong tree? If so -- what is the right tree? I'd like to do this without buying more hardware or specialty cables, if possible.
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
