How To Get Quality Digital Audio Recordings for Transcription

Whether you are recording dictation, interviews, conferences, focus groups or meetings, it is important to know how to get the best quality recording, because if you are going to get the material transcribed then the better the quality of the recording, the more accurate the transcription will be.

1. Choose your venue carefully. One of the key issues when transcribing is background noise. If you record your interview in a café or pub, on a train, in a shared office or call centre, or in any other noisy environment, the quality of the recording will be reduced, so try to set up all interviews in a quiet space such as someone’s home (pet-free and with the television off!) or a private office or meeting room. Open windows and air conditioning can both cause problems for recorders, so on a hot day, check that your recorder will function OK.
2. Choose your recording equipment carefully. Minidisk players make excellent recorders BUT you will need to transfer the recordings to your PC, which can be a slow and frustrating process. Alternatively some transcriptionists will take the disks and convert them to a useable transcription format before transcribing them for you, but expect to pay more for this as it’s a slow and frustrating process for them too! You’re probably better off with a machine designed specifically for recording voice. There are a very wide range to choose from.
3. Consider an external microphone. Many people use standard ‘Dictaphone’ style recorders to record interviews, and results can be satisfactory, particularly with recent improvements in recording technology, but results will be better if you are able to plug an external microphone into your recorder, and place that between you and the interviewee. Some recorders come with separate microphones that can be clipped to your interviewee’s clothing. If you’re not worried too much about picking up your own words (e.g. if you’re using a list of standard questions), this may be ideal. Otherwise a larger microphone that can be placed between you is best.
4. Let your interviewee know you plan to record the interview. Do make sure in advance that your interviewee has no objection to being recorded. If you don’t discover an objection until you’re about to start, the whole interview may be useless to you.
5. Say all your introductory information before switching the recorder on, unless you want that transcribed too. You will probably want to explain some background information to your interviewee, such as what you are researching and why. If you are conducting a series of interviews you won’t want this information repeated on all your recordings, so cover this first and then switch the recorder on.
6. Check the levels on your recorder. Ask your interviewee to say a few words as a test (e.g. name, job title, how long they’ve been with the company). Most recorders have a level indictor that will tell you if the voice is being picked up correctly. If you don’t have a level indicator, just rewind and have a listen to make sure the words are clear. If not, adjust the microphone position accordingly.
7. Try not to talk over your interviewee. It’s natural that, when two people talk together, they interrupt each other and talk over each other without even thinking about it. But try to consciously stop yourself doing this, unless it’s to regain control when the interviewee is too talkative. Also avoid too many ‘filler’ phrases like ‘yes, I see’ and ‘uh huh’ and ‘yes, yes, yes’ -- every time you say things like this when the interviewee is talking, you are obscuring their more important words on the recording.

That's it - you're set to go. If you follow this advice you should get good-quality interview recordings ideal for transcription, which will mean they can be transcribed quickly and easily. Therefore they cost less with an outsourced transcription service than those that suffer from background noise etc., but there are some unavoidable issues that may increase the cost. (See 'cautions'.)