Soundboard Project - Talk to Jeff and Jer - Bits - Cracky McClure
Talk-to-Tuesdays

San Diego radio station DJ's "Jeff and Jer" used to do a bit every Tuesday called "Talk-to-Tuesdays". The idea is simple: Will people talk to recordings of celebrities and other people?

Jeff & Jer used "soundboards" of celebrity voices found all over the Internet. A soundboard is a Flash-based movie, typically consisting of one frame that is full of buttons. Each button represents a single sound bite that, when pressed, plays the audio clip through the PC's sound system.
 


The "Jeff and Jer" Show
(now on Star 94.1!)

 I have listened to their show since they started in San Diego at Y95.
 

Here is a good collection of soundboards...

 http://www.ebaumsworld.com/soundboards.shtml

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the clear favorite amongst the Internet community of prank call enthusiasts.

Once I started playing with the soundboards, I could not believe how fast Jeff was keeping up with the caller by pressing just the right buttons without any noticeable delay. I wanted to see if I could do it too, so I gave it a shot.
 

The Project

I have always wanted to do something extraordinary on the air. I never had the courage to call a radio station for some reason. Then, I realized what I could do that would be anonymous and fun: Will Jeff and Jer talk to... Jeff and Jer? To find out, I decided to start collecting sound bites from each DJ during the radio show broadcast and construct my own soundboard. After months of work here and there in my spare time (a few minutes each day), "Talk To Jeff and Jer 1.0" was completed and ready for a test.

While I was working on the soundboard, I knew I would need a way to inject the computer-generated audio directly into the phone line, while eliminating any background noise and interference that is there when simply holding the phone up to the computer speakers. I did some research on the Internet and found the TeleTool 2000 PC-to-Telephone audio interface cable. This device did everything I needed:

  • It can inject the soundboard audio directly into the phone line.

  • It can record both links of the conversation directly to the same host PC that is running the soundboard (or to a different one)

  • It is easily transported between PCs.

  • It does not require any software (even though it includes a crappy WAV recorder, which I promptly threw away). You can use any audio editor you wish with this device, since it provides an elegant hardware solution to interfacing your PC with your telephone.

Here are some answers to questions folks have asked me about this device:

How can you hear what the victim says, via the phone's speaker?

Yes, you can mute the phone and set it on speaker to hear the conversation and laugh all you want. Or, if you want privacy and have a cordless phone with a 2.5mm headset jack in the house, use a headset on the phone while your hands do the work on the PC. The phone your TeleTool is connected to will have to be off-hook on speakerphone with the mute enabled so nobody can hear you.

Does it come with the 3.5mm splitter cable?

Yes, it does come with a male to dual female 3.5mm splitter so you can keep using your PC speakers with the device plugged in.

How much does it cost?

About $70... and worth every penny. Lots of people complain this is too much money, but if you are serious about hooking up any PC to a phone line, there is no better way than this device.

Why do you connect the receiver to the TeleTool??

The TeleTool is an in-line RJ-11 interface. If you do not connect the receiver, you won't be able to use the phone for regular calls.

I pick up the handset to check the PC volume to make sure that it is not too loud or too soft over the phone line. You can use another phone in the house for that, I suppose. Having the handset connected also allows you to pick up the phone and take over the conversation if you must abort the prank, or join in as a third party. For example... "Hey Mom, you'll never believe who I have on the phone with me! It's Arnold!"... <<Arnold speaks... "How are you?">>

The TeleTool 2000 allows me to record the phone-perspective audio directly to my computer. Both links of the conversation are recorded on to a WAV or MP3 file at the bit rate I choose. The RJ-11 end of the device is designed to be mounted on a wall or underneath a desk, so it is not seen. I chose not to mount mine, since doing so will not allow me to move the cable to different location, along with the laptop computer I use to run the soundboard (see image below).


The Teletool 2000
To obtain the high-quality radio-perspective audio clips from the show itself, I used a computer located at my office at work (in Sorrento Valley) to take an input audio cable directly from a stereo clock radio tuned to 100.7 MHz. I used a male-to-male 3.5mm stereo cable to connect my clock radio to the computer, left the radio on (which is silent, since the headset plug is in use) and then set my audio recording program (GoldWave) on my computer to record the audio from 6:00am to 10:00am (the show's scheduled time). Since my office is located very close to the broadcast location of the radio station, the signal is clean and there is no detectable static.


The four hour long show is saved to an 80kbps monaural MP3 file which is about 137MB in size, and I listen to the file for useful clips after work (I can skip commercials, which is another benefit of recording the show). When I hear something that can be a useful clip to add to the soundboard, I isolate it, save it to a file, import it into the soundboard's Flash project file, create a button for it, and then place it on the grid according to type of sound (Questions, Answers, Exclamations, etc.).

This is the most time-consuming part of the project.
 

Here is a picture of the soundboard I created, while it is running on my laptop. You can see part of the TeleTool2000 device interfaced with the 3.5mm stereo headphone and microphone plugs in the front of the computer....

...and this is a picture of the RJ-11 end of the TeleTool2000 device while it is connected to my home office phone on my desk.

The Calls
I decided to make my first call once I had enough clips to hold a decent conversation. The soundboard as it exists today is four times as big as the one I used for the first call, and now has 11 characters (the original just had 3, now there are 7 exposed and 4 hidden characters, including a special character used on the show from time to time. I made a call to the station's advertised phone number and the show's producer, Tommy Sablan, answered the phone. Right away, I played some "Jeff" clips and he immediately figured out what was going on. He put me on the air after about a 5 minute commercial break. Jeff loved the call, but Jerry did not really play along that much. 
 
5-27-2003 Here is the first phone call I made to the "Jeff and Jer" morning show. This file was edited for time, and mixed with both phone-perspective and radio-perspective recordings. Notice that their producer, Little Tommy Sablan, figured it out immediately.

 

 
5-27-2003 Here is the second phone call. This one was made to the "Greg and Jen" afternoon show. This file is complete, from the phone phone-perspective only. I did not record the broadcast version, which was edited for time by Greg before he put it on the air. Only the Jerry part was put on the air during the broadcast.

 

 
7-8-2003 Here is the third phone call. This one was made to the "Jeff and Jer" morning show. This file begins with a person playing a Bill Murray soundboard with Jeff and Jer, and then Tommy puts me on. I removed most of the Bill Murray stuff from the file for time, but you will notice the sound quality between the Bill Murray board and mine is extremely different... and that is due to the TeleTool device that I use. The Bill Murray caller was just holding the phone up to the PC speakers. Please note that Jerry's last name is "Cesak", and it is not intentionally advertised (His on-air name is "Jerry St. James"). but I found a clip of Jeff long ago asking "Do you know the Cesaks?" This is from the radio-perspective only. The call did not end as well as I hoped, but oh well... Tommy liked it!

..and during the replay of the Jeff and Jer show in the evening, Rick Moorten gave the segment a very good introduction... 

 

 

 

 
7-8-2003 Here is the fourth phone call. This one was made to the "Greg and Jen" afternoon show. This file is complete from when Greg answered the phone, from the radio-perspective only. This went perfectly, and was not rehearsed. Greg did edit out some silences before they played it on the air. Greg always records his phone conversations with listeners beforehand. This guy has some skills... he used it for a smooth intro into the Jeff and Jer Prime Time, and I didn't even know it!

 

 
9-9-2003 Here is the fifth phone call. This one was made to the "Greg and Jen" afternoon show. This file is complete from when Sara answered the phone, from the radio-perspective only. In previous calls to Greg and Jen, I used other characters. This is the first call I made using the Greg and Jen board.

 

 
9-30-2003 Here is the sixth phone call. This one was made to the "Greg and Jen" afternoon show. This file is complete from when Sara answered the phone, from the phone-perspective only. They enjoyed the call, but did not play it on the air for whatever reason. Perhaps it was too risqué towards the end.

 


Aftermath
Since the calls are no longer a surprise to the DJs, I started putting the soundboard to work in other ways. At home, I set up the soundboard to answer incoming calls from telemarketers. Here is an example of when I used Jerry to participate in a survey about my cable TV service! Here is that call... survey_jerry.mp3 and here is another call using Jeff... jean_jeff.mp3.

Since the "Do not Call" registry came out, I have not received any telemarketer calls, so that project was stopped.

Mini Boards
During the first week of October 2003, I sent mini versions of the board to Tommy, Jeff, Greg and Jen. I called them... Make Jerry Snort and Make Jen Laugh. These were very simple to make, since I had all the source material already. I just had to shrink it down and include only a few buttons. I sent them both to each show to use, and Greg thanked me for the Jen mini-board with a brief e-mail, but never used it for anything. Jeff found this web site later on, and did an entire segment on it (see the Star 100.7 Bits Page for that story).
 

 


Cracky McClure Soundboard
I added Cracky McClure as a hidden character on the Talk to Star soundboard, but soon spun it off as a standalone board and also posted the calls for it. Rick doesn't want this posted, so I password protected it for just us.

 

So, with the soundboard project done, I began producing material for the show, and you can read about them on my Star 100.7 Bits Page.

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