Occasionally, we speak with customers who find themselves faced
with a dilemma: They need to record (or re-record) a ReminderPro
message, but the room where the computer is located is noisy and
not suitable for recording professional messages. Certainly, we
want the messages we deliver to our clientele to be of a high
quality, and background noise doesn't meet the standard.
In this situation, we often suggest using alternative software
and a microphone for the recording of the ReminderPro messages. You
see, ReminderPro stores each message in two WAV files located in
the ReminderPro program directory. For example, the greeting for
the Daily message says "Hello, this is...", and is stored
in a file named daily.wav. The closing is the portion of the
message that says "Press 1 to confirm your appointment...", and is
stored in a file named ^daily.wav. You can use other software to
record the greeting or the closing for your message, and then drop
the file into the ReminderPro directory, replacing the existing
file. ReminderPro will then use the recording you made elsewhere
for the message.
There are a couple of gotchas here. First, the recording needs
to meet certain specifications. The specs necessary for ReminderPro
to use the file(s) are as follows:
- Channels: Mono
- Bit Rate: 128 kbps
- Sample Rate: 8 khz
- File Format: Wave Sound (.WAV)
Voice recording software will generally allow you to set the
specifications before you record, or at least before you save the
recording to a file. As long as the basic specs are met, you should
be good to go.
Secondly, the files must be named correctly. So, if you have a
message named Daily, there must be a daily.wav and a
^daily.wav file located in the ReminderPro directory. If they're
not there, the program won't find them and, thus, can't play them
when calls are made. The name of the message determines the names
of the files.
Now, you may already have voice recording software you can use.
If not, there is a plethora of them. Personally, I have used Audacity, which is
free. It allows you to make recordings that meet the requirements.
If recording directly through ReminderPro won't work for you, Audacity could be an
option you'll want to consider.
If there are other freeware packages you like, please share your
suggestions below.
