Asterisk and FreePBX
Music On Hold and greetings for Asterisk and FreePBX
An Asterisk system is usually a deliberate choice rather than whatever the phone company installed, so there is often a person on hand who knows it. This is what to give them, and what to check if the audio does not change.
The file
What Asterisk and FreePBX needs
The file your system expects, prepared for you. There is nothing to convert, and no setting for you to work out.
Generic Phone System
Works with most other phone systems. Pick this if you are not sure.
Asterisk is not listed by name in the studio, so choose Other / Not sure and you get the generic phone system file — prepared for a phone line in exactly the same way, just without a system name on it. It is what the great majority of systems accept.
We would rather say that plainly than invent a Asterisk and FreePBX option that is only a different label on the same file. The systems named in the studio are named because we have something specific to do for them.
Every purchase also includes an MP3 you can play on any device to check it or send it around your team, plus the full-quality original in case someone ever asks for it. Downloads are unlimited.
Music On Hold is your phone system name for the slot that plays while a caller waits. Recordings are produced voice only while the music library is closed, and a spoken recording fills that slot just as well — the levels, the timing and a clean start and finish are still handled for you.
Where it goes
Getting the file onto your system
Choose Other / Not sure in the studio, then take the download to your system.
- Choose Other / Not sure in the studio, which prepares the file most systems accept.
- Download both that file and the MP3 that comes with every purchase.
- On FreePBX, the graphical administration has a music on hold page for hold audio and a system recordings page for greetings and menus. Upload into whichever suits the recording.
- On a plain Asterisk install, the audio goes in the music on hold directory on the server, in the class your queues use.
- Reload the system so it notices the new audio, then point the queue or menu at it.
If the screens do not match
FreePBX moves its menus between major versions, and a plain Asterisk install is configured however whoever built it decided. The two paths above are the shape of the job rather than a click-by-click route; if you did not build the system, the person who did will do this in a couple of minutes.
What usually goes wrong
The things that catch people out on Asterisk and FreePBX
Almost every one of these ends with somebody deciding the file is faulty when it is not. They are worth two minutes before you start.
The file is there and nothing has changed
Asterisk reads its music on hold when it starts and does not watch the folder afterwards. Until the system is told to reload, a new file simply is not seen. This is the single most common reason a change appears not to have worked.
The wrong music on hold class
Asterisk groups hold audio into classes and each queue names the class it uses. A file dropped into the default class will not be heard by a queue pointed at another one.
Other audio is still in the same class
A class plays everything in it. If the stock hold music is still sitting alongside your recording, callers get whichever comes up. Move the old files out if you want yours alone.
File ownership on the server
A file copied in by hand can end up owned by the wrong account and unreadable to Asterisk, which fails quietly. Whoever administers the system will recognise this immediately; it is worth mentioning when you hand the file over.
Questions
Before you start
Write your script, pick one of the Australian voices, and hear five seconds of your own audio before you decide anything. Pricing is one payment for the recording you make, and the file for Asterisk and FreePBX is included in it rather than charged as an extra.
Elsewhere
Guides for the other systems
The recording does not change from one system to the next. Where the file goes does.
We'll prepare the file. You just upload it.
Start from a blank page or let the assistant draft it. Either way you hear five seconds of your own audio before you decide anything.
No account needed. Payment comes after the preview, not before.