IMic and telephone recorder produces buzz

Question

I'm trying to use the GB3 Podcast feature to record and produce interviews for later broadcast on our town's local radio station. I've bought a telephone recorder and hooked it to an iMic so that I can record interviews over the phone onto my PowerBook G4. It's working great except for the fact that as I record the telephone conversation, I get a ubiquitous buzz on the track. I'm recording the phone conversation onto one track, and no matter how I change the settings thus far, the buzz remains. This could have something to do with an extra jack on the phone recorder, but the iMic has no receptacle for it so I just leave it dangling. The extra jack looks like a 3.5mm -- the size of a cell phone headset jack (for those of us without bluetooth headsets). I suppose it could also be due to the fact that I'm using a cordless phone: am I getting a buzz from the radio signal to the phone handset somehow? Alternatively, could I edit the buzz out in the track editing window by clipping that part of the sound wave? Any insight anyone can provide would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

Andrew, "un-buzzing" a recorded track is virtually impossible, since buzzes tend to cover a broad frequency spectrum. You can try the 31-band graphic equalizer (under the AU effects) and selectively null the affected frequencies, but don't expect too much.
As for the source of the buzz: hard to diagnose from the distance, you should try to analyse your chain step by step. Have you got another device that you can plug the phone device into, like a tape recorder or MD recorder - just to see if the buzz is already there before the signal enters the iMic? That would help finding the source.