HOW TO MAKE A GOOD VOICE RECORDING
One of the ways of ensuring that the transcriptionist would be able to do a good job in transcribing your material is to provide good quality voice recordings. Transcription material that is clear and has minimal background noise allows the transcriptionist to do a continuous transcription without having to play the recorded material repeatedly, and ensures more accurate transcripts.
Here are a few tips to take into consideration when preparing for your recording session, during the session, and afterwards before you send your recorded material to us.
Prior to the Recording:
- Before you start recording, do a sound check on your microphone. Record yourself while speaking a few words into the microphone, then play back your recorded material to make sure that your microphone volume is high enough and that your recorded material is clear. Do this too for all the speakers who will be involved in the recording. This will help you identify those who tend to speak in a soft voice, and thus enable you to make an ideal seating arrangement for everybody. Sound testing will also help you ensure that your devices are functioning properly.
- Choose a place that is quiet and has very little background noise. Too much background noise will muffle the sound of your voice, thereby making it difficult for the transcriptionist to understand what you’re saying. Background noise can come from traffic, construction or street noise vehicle horns and motors, noise from other rooms, machinery running in the background, TV sets or radios, pets, sounds from appliances such as clocks, doors shutting or slamming, and people (or maybe you) coughing or sneezing.
- Use digital voice recorders where possible. Digital voice recorders produce better quality audio material, and digital voice recordings are easier and more cost-effective to transcribe.
- Turn off the voice-activation feature of your device. Voice activated devices shut off when the sound level goes below a certain threshold. Thus if your speakers’ voices become soft and the voice activated feature is on, the device might shut off and certain parts of the speech may not be recorded.
- Always set the recording speed of your device to fast speed. Some devices allow recording in slow speed. Although doing this will extend recording time and enable you to save on tapes, recording on slow speeds results in poor audio and an increased level of background noise.
- Use external microphones rather than the internal microphone of your recording device. External microphones can be brought closer to the speaker, and are able to pick up sounds more efficiently than internal microphones.
- If you intend to do voice recordings regularly, invest in a good quality microphone.
- If you are using cassette tapes for recording, use full-sized cassettes rather than micro cassettes. Full-size cassettes provide three better sound quality than micro cassettes. Also, choose shorter tape lengths rather than longer ones. A C60 tape is more durable than a C120 tape, and having more shorter tapes will allow the transcription company to assign several transcriptionists to your project, thus enabling them to finish your transcription faster.
- Make sure that each tape is wound ahead for about ten to fifteen seconds. You can do this for all the tapes as part of your preparation. This will help to make sure that the beginning of the recording is not cut off.
- Put the microphone on a stand in order to minimize noises that are produced when the microphone rubs against your hand.
During the Recording:
- If you are doing the recording where there are other people present, ask them to open and close doors softly if they have to leave or enter. Also encourage speakers to pause whenever the door is opened or closed in order minimize noise while they are speaking.
- If there are several people involved, ask them to avoid speaking at the same time. Doing so distorts the recorded audio and makes it more difficult to understand what is being said. If you have the speakers record one after the other, each person’s recording will be heard clearly.
- Make sure that the microphone is as close as possible to the person speaking. Ideally, there should be one microphone per speaker. If this is not possible, an omni-directional microphone, which picks up sounds from all directions, is the best alternative. Remember that for every foot that the speaker is away from the microphone, the audio quality decreases by half, and the amount of background noise doubles.
- For an interview transcription, direct the microphone to the person being interviewed. The interviewee’s answers are always more important than the questions being asked.
- In a recording where there are many people involved, ask them to identify themselves at the beginning of the recording session. This will enable the transcriptionist to correctly identify the speakers and allow for a more accurate transcript.
- If the speakers make a reference to people, places, organizations, or websites, ask them to repeat these. It will help the transcriptionist to distinguish what is being said.
After the Recording:
- Make sure you label your tapes clearly, so that it will be easy for the transcriptionist to identify the sequence of the tapes.
- If your recording session involves a lot of technical terminology, it will help the transcriptionists if you send a list of the technical terms used during the recording.
- Send us original tapes, not copies. The quality of copies is always less than the originals. If you must keep a copy for yourself, send us the originals and keep the copy.
Capital Transcription one of the pioneers of outsourced transcription services in the country, is a company that has over 150 years of experience in corporate transcription, medical transcription, legal transcription, media transcription, as well as language translation and transcription. We provide you with accurate, well formatted transcripts, whose quality no other transcription company can compare with. Capital Typing also offers secretarial services and office administration, data entry services, and online customer support for the Colorado community. We do the mundane tasks to enable you to focus on the things you do best. Contact us today to see how we can help you grow your business.
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