Custom VM Greeting

@robonix 

So it's been a year since I answered  this question. You haven't clarified whether you're using android or iPhone. But upon further investigation I found that my answer is still valid and while it may not be the only answer it's the only one I did find and implement myself.
 

I use an iPhone and I go to the voicemail tab in the phone app. You can record your own greeting. The only way I have found is rather convoluted and I'm sorry it sounds like a sloppy and ill-suited answer to you, However it does work.

Things on iOS are not as easily implemented as android because of iOS limitations. There's no way to record or upload a recording through iPhone like there may be with android. So again I don't know which operating system you're using but with iPhone I basically have to go to the camera app and choose the photo option and then press and swipe to the right on the shutter button so that it records sound that is playing from the same iPhone that I'm using.

Using the voice memo or voice recording app will cease anything playing on the phone and record from the microphone only. With the photo option you can record what is actually playing on the phone at the same time.
 

I then use a separate ringtone app that can take the sound from the video. This works great for custom ringtones but still there is no way to use that file while recording a new voicemail because recording a custom voicemail greeting basically does the same thing that the voice recording app does and uses the microphone to listen to you speak.

this is why I have not found a proper way to record what you want your custom voicemail greeting to be without using a separate speaker that is playing either the music or a pre-recorded voicemail greeting that you have created through any other method.

However if you’re using an iOS device, you can use the feedback tool to send the suggestion directly to Apple. Or you may use Google or DuckDuckGo or Bing or any other search engine and perhaps find an answer none of us has found as of yet.

Jeffrey wrote:

Note, I am paying your company $870.21 a year for your service, you should be able to allow your users the ability to upload a simple mp3 file as their voicemail greeting. 

As much as I agree with everyone who wants this customized option, you have to remember that voicemail on iOS as with any other carrier is handled by Apple. This is not a T-Mobile thing. You'd have to get T-Mobile and Apple to work together on this so that the operating system would be able to communicate with some aspect of T-Mobile's overall system so that Apple could create the option to do so and even though iOS handles voicemail, the caller from whatever carrier is still going to need access within T-Mobile to hear that customized message. Obviously this is just not a high priority for either company. So it doesn't matter how much you pay T-Mobile if Apple is the company controlling it.

I'm sure most everybody knows somebody with a phone. Just about every phone on the market through any carrier or manufacturer has either a stock voice recorder or the ability to download an app that will do the same. It's as simple as recording your greeting on that voice recorder from another phone and then find a nice quiet area to replay that file while recording on your own phone. I mean if you need a particular background song or track you can play that in the background while speaking over that playing file. If you don't have access to another phone or a voice recorder of some sort, the method I use works just fine and at this point it's not really even a hassle for somebody who's done it several times. 
 

These guys do it all. They have a voice-over service (including writing the greeting script) and transfer the greeting to your phone in super high quality. I couldn't find anything better online anywhere. https://www.okcvideoproduction.com/upload-custom-voicemail-greeting-wav-mp3

vjtk wrote:

These guys do it all. T hey have a voice-over service (including writing the greeting script) and transfer the greeting to your phone in super high quality. I couldn't find anything better online anywhere. https://www.okcvideoproduction.com/upload-custom-voicemail-greeting-wav-mp3

 

This is literally the worst thing I've seen all month. Whoever is shamelessly charging people HUNDREDS of dollars to upload an MP3 file as a voicemail greeting needs to be tarred and feathered in a public square immediately. It should make any honest human being livid to learn that unscrupulous jerks have the gall to rip unwary, technologically-challenged people off like this...and are getting away with it! And you know anyone falling for this scam is, like, well over 50 years old - so this is literally elderly abuse. 

Also, how come THEY get backdoor access to my tmobile voicemail greetings?! If so, why is tmobile complicit in this?!!! 

Or do they just, like, send you an audio file and go “well your visual voicemail app debería have the option to...” 

IN ANY CASE, AN ALTERNATE (AND EXPONENTIALLY CHEAPER) SOLUTION PRESENTS ITSELF:

Apparently, the “easiest” way to do this is to use a 1/8th inch to RCA wire - but with all THREE of the RCA outputs. I don’t have one on hand to test out if it works, but what is supposed to happen is that the 3rd RCA out - the yellow one, commonly used for video - corresponds to a “hidden” mic input that is built into the headphone jack, which is how those dorky telemarketer hands-free headphones/mic headsets pipe the mic audio from the headset, overriding the built-in mic.

From there on out, it's easy peasy: the RCA output can be plugged into anything that emits sound. If you have an 1/8 to single RCA converter piece, you can run the 3rd RCA out into your computer's headphone jack, or whatever you have that plays audio out of an 1/8th inch jack. (Make sure your audio file is MONO, 'cause you only get 1 channel.)

The only thing to keep in mind is that, compared to a mic input, the line out on most devices is very very loud. So you'll have to turn your playback volume down way low and experiment until you get it nice and loud - but not clipping up past the zero DB point. (There's probably some app out there that lets you monitor the mic input level.)  

This should be a somewhat cleaner way of solving this problem than, say, trying to hold your phone to a speaker that’s playing back your custom greeting. It’s not perfect, and a simple “upload audio file” function to that visual voice mail app would have saved me hours of anger, headache, and fruitless rummaging around the basement.

Just because the world is full of dumbed-down, coddled, complacent kinder-adults doesn’t mean companies should treat their userbase as if they are all cut from that cloth. 

Headphone out on the computer to what input on an iPhone XR?

PSasquatch wrote:

Headphone out on the computer to what input on an iPhone XR?

Ahhh, yes...Apple and its walled garden of evil. 

My comment above assumes Android phones, and I guess the old iPhone models that still had the regular 1/8 inch headphone jack.

But...you iPhoners have that special dongle thing!

You know the one I mean - it’s the one that connects the proper, working-class 1/8th inch male plug used by every headphone manufacturer for the last quarter of a century to the iPhone’s dainty proprietary thunderport that Apple foisted on the world solely to peddle more proprietary, overpriced, plastic-packaged accessories (aka to make your lives miserable and difficult and to inflict further ruin and depredation upon our mother planet) -  that should still work with the above method, unless Apple’s geniuses built in some weird no-no into the system to block you from specifically doing this very thing. 

This would be somewhat challenging from a technical perspective:

Whether it's a hands-free headset mic cable or the 3-channel RCA to 1/8th inch cable I mention in the previous comment, iPhone's special dongle would still have to accept analog audio input from the 3rd rail on those special combo 1/8th inch male plugs. Realistically, it would have no way to differentiate, unless they have some failsafe thing that disables the analog mic input if there's too much gain on the signal. Basically, start playback with the volume all the way down and gently turn up by tiny amounts as you test it out.

So, in short, here’s the cord sculpture you’ll be assembling:

Laptop or other audio playback source ➡ 1/8th inch (male) to MONO RCA (male) ➡ RCA (female) to RCA (female) connector piece ➡ the YELLOW end of the 3-channel RCA (male) to 1/8th inch (male) ➡ 1/8th inch (female) to Apple thunkerbort ➡ iPhone.

robonix wrote:

As a customer I really don't consider this topic solved, as the "solution" mentioned above is really not a solution, It's more of a sloppy and I'll suited workaround. I would like to have the ability to upload a professionally tailored outgoing voicemail message. Something that I can be confident that will present me in the the best possible way to friends, family, current / potential / and future employers, and (especially) current and potential play mates ;)

 

Who's with me? Who really want's their raw voice on an outgoing voicemail recording? Or worse yet, sound like your trying too hard by using the "solution" proposed by @snn555.

 

No! I think we need the mentioned feature, right @seapea @Jeffrey?

Right!

Any change to this.  It would be great to upload an MP3