Desperate Transcription Issues

[21]

i hear you, 21, and boy do i feel your pain. but here's the weird thing for me: i hate the thought of transcribing. it's the one thing i always dread about the writing process -- but it's always the thing that i find incredibly rewarding in the end. transcribing allows me to revisit how i was thinking during the interview, allows me to pick up quotes and info i didn't know i had, and gives me the comfort of having a conversation with the subject without worrying about writing down every little thing said. it helps me organize my thoughts, even the architecture of a story. i'm tempted all the time to say, fork it, i'm paying somebody to transcribe this 90 minute tape, but then i'm sure that i'll miss something - not just a fact or a great quote - but a mood, an inflection that sends the piece in a different direction, and i buckle in for hours of backspacing and screechy rewinding. ugh. i hate the forking process, but it helps me more than almost anything else. if there's a middle way, i haven't found it yet.

Yes. Everything you said, yes.

The mood and inflection....that's why I'm doing this. I know what he said the first time, but hearing the way he said it has more impact than the actual words.

I definitely wanted him to go somewhere during this particular interview, and he did. Now I realize he went deeper than I expected; I was too focused on the keeping him on the topic to really hear what he was saying. Would have missed that if someone else had transcribed...the long pause, the search for the right word, the hesitation.

And of course, realizing I'll never be able to use some of the best stuff. I don't know if there's a worse feeling.

I'm stalling. Back to work.

 

[AD]

sounds like incredible stuff -- and i know the feeling. it's really worth it; i will never, as far as i can see, pay for someone to do it for me. i just wish, knowing what i know about how rewarding transcribing can be, that i could get past the pre-transcription horror. i'm an idiot, somehow, and can't figure how to embrace the thing so i don't dread it so much....

 

[hdscribe]

Until decent voice-recognition software comes along that can handle imperfect recordings we all make, the best thing I've found is Olympus DSS software with a foot switch, which I've had for years.
The foot switch is key because it plugs into your USB port and allows you to start, stop and rewind digital sound files without taking your hands off the keyboard. Saves massive time; great on deadline.
The software has folders to store and label recordings and has helpful extras such as an auto-backspace setting so that whenever you stop it, it'll back up a tiny bit (if you want it to) so you don't miss anything. It works on Macs and PCs and I don't think you necessarily need to use it with an Olympus recorder, but you should check for compatibility with your recorder.
Maybe there are other such foot switches out there, I don't know, but if you're interested, one such package is $200:
https://emporium.olympus.com/innards/empproddetails.asp?sku=147588-410

(And no, I don't work for Olympus. I am indeed a writer.)

 

[old_tony]

Transcribing isn't so bad.

Transcribing is the worst part of the job.

 

[clutchcargo]

21, Mizzou, etc. Transcribing is a bear. For anyone who writes books, it is a necessary evil.

I tried using some early form of Dragon software about 8-9 years ago, and it was a total waste.

I have hired court reporters at reduced rate of $20 an hour, and waste of time. Half the stuff they refused to type because it wasn't perfect quality and left me with more queries than usable transcript.

One deal that worked well for several books was finding a friend of a friend who was simply a good typist and we worked out a payrate that was something like $15 per hour of taped audio, meaning she was probably making $8-10 an hour.

I also spent about $200 for one of those transcribing machines with foot pedals that allows you to control start/stop, fast forward and rewind, but got only about two years' use out of it before some stuff quit working---like the rewind. Not good.

I don't know anything about stuff like VLC or Audacity, but downloading software has never been kind to me. I usually end up spending two-three hours on a helpline with someone in India.

So I have just gone back to putting the Sony recorder on the desk in front of me and starting/stopping/fast forwarding/rewinding by hand and just grinding it out for 2-3 hours at a time until done.

You can thank me later. Or not.

 

[BYH]

It's a forking beast, but it feels sooooooooo good when it's done.

Of course, by that point, your mind is lost and your neck and shoulders are wrecked and you're a babbling mess, but hey, it's done!

 

[Jim Halpert]

Try ExpressScribe (http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/). You can set hot keys for things like play, pause, fast forward, rewind, even fast forwarding or rewinding in 5-second increments. You can also slow down the playback of the audio, making it easier to keep up.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

There is an art to it. And the more you do it, the more you're basically working on short-term auditory memory recall.

I know people who have been paid upwards of $500 for transcribing a few 30-minute interviews for medical journals. If you type quick, have good spelling and grammar and absorb/synthesize the words coming into your ears in a rapid manner, you're talking $20-$30 an hour.

 

[copperpot]

Try ExpressScribe (http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/). You can set hot keys for things like play, pause, fast forward, rewind, even fast forwarding or rewinding in 5-second increments. You can also slow down the playback of the audio, making it easier to keep up.

I also use Express Scribe, and I have a foot pedal. I've transcribed by other methods, and this is definitely my preferred way.

 

[Charlie Brown]

Another great feature of the Olympus DSS software is you can create index points to mark the best quotes and later go straight to them if you don't have time for a full transcript.