how do I play a sound recording during my call?

Dude, you just asked this question 2hrs ago. You'll have to define what "real help" is in this context, given you didn't state what kind of configuration you have, how you're calling in, even what platform you're on ...

So, start with those. If you're VoIPing in, there are solutions that use Audio Hijack on the Mac or Virtual Audio Cable on the Windows side, but it's hard to suggest anything without knowing at least the basics of your setup.

That sounds like a lot of work, Alex. I was hoping there is an easy upload sound files feature and play sounds option from the switchboard. Your tech team should check out Blog Talk Radio... they have a super easy to use system that doesn't care what your computer system is. Say I'm on a PC, Windows XP, use skype, cell or landline for my calls... then how do I play sounds during my call? I appreciate the help.

Firstly, I'm not TalkShoe tech staff. If I were, I couldn't be nearly as honest and forthright on a regular basis.

Secondly, nothing good ever starts "that sounds like a lot of work." Ever. Doing anything well takes a lot of work. Take, for example, BlogTalkRadio. With its extremely small active participant limit on live calls, minimal interfacing with the outside world in terms of control during a call, and horrendous cross-browser capability, it could have been quite a nice tool if they had not said, "Those things sound like an awful lot of work." The time they spent twiddling a crufty "barely works for five people" phone bridge and a tiny online cart system could have been put toward, oh, I don't know, things that make managing shows like mine doable on their service. You see what I'm getting at?

The real problem is it's not a simple problem. There's a reason real radio stations have a technical engineer who's conversant in the technology. And the technology shifts based on whether it's VoIP or landline in massive, non-negligable, ways.

So, here's what it comes down to:

If you want to inject audio into your stream, you need to have some means of accessing that stream.

If you're on a cell or landline, you need some kind of phone hybrid to make the bridge from the computer to the hardware and pop in the music. You'll want something like the JK Phone Hybrid here: http://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?it... ... I don't suggest going that route because it's nearly the opposite of cheap and/or easy.

If you're using VoIP, you STILL have to have some way to bridge from computer to the audio stream, but luckily it just being binary bits being flung around it basically just means you need something that can pretend it's an audio device on the output side -- mimicing a mic -- and takes multiple inputs on the top side, including a mic and whatever you choose as your cart or audio source. On a PC, you can use Ntonyx's Virtual Audio Cable (http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/va...) to act as that virtual device and then use whatever you were using to pop audio down into it to do so from multiple sources, including WinAmp if you're particularly cheap and prone to a bit of fiddliness. If you're hardcore, you can go get SAM4 from Spacialaudio (http://www.spacialaudio.com/?page=sam...) and let it take care of being the whole cart system, music library, and mic management front end, back-ending onto the VAC virtual device, which you set as the input device for Skype, Xlite, or whatever your VoIP solution of choice is (and this is actually the solution I'm using).

If you're on a Mac, doing podcasting or talkcasting and don't understand the basics of audio pathing, then Hell help you because I can't. Since Apple's been the Media Monster of Choice(tm) forever, you're clearly Not Trying(c)(tm) and should Just Quit(c).

There are tonnes (TONNES) of other DJ software, virtual cart systems, etc, that you can use, but all of them require understanding at the VERY least the essential premise of your audio path and where to insert things along it.

Everything else is just talking into a mic and recording it raw. Which very well might be enough for you if getting a grip on the rest of it "sounds like a lot of work." Podcasting is a LOT easier than livecasting because you can add in all the FX, music, whatever after the fact in Audition, Audiology, or whatever, whereas live you have, ultimately, ONE STREAM of audio going out to the world and that has to be it. The rest is management.