If you’re planning on getting into the profession of trancription, you’re going to need the tools of the trade.

I’ll give you a quick run down of some of the gear you should plan to have.

I know that many transcriptionists work from home, so you may also want to check out my tips for setting up a home office.

Transcribers

You’re going to need something that can play back your recordings and, no, audio playback programs already (like iTunes or Windows Media Player) on your computer aren’t going to cut the mustard.

If you’re going to be dealing strictly with digital files, software like Gear Player or Quikscribe should suit your needs nicely.

If you’re going to be working with cassettes, then you’re going to need to get a separate machine to playback the various formats – standard cassette, micro cassette, mini cassette.

Philips, Dictaphone, and Sony all make excellent transcribers – and don’t be afraid to pick up used equipment on eBay – often times it has years of life left on it and can be purchased for up to 80% of what you’d spend getting brand new equipment.

Foot Pedal

Every transcriptionist finds that the foot pedal is often her best friend.  It allows you to keep your hands free to do the typing and to easily go back on a recording without your fingers ever leaving the keyboard.

Most cassette transcribers come with the foot pedal.  For digital transcription, make sure you get a USB foot pedal.

Headset

The key here is to get something that is going to be comfortable to wear a long time.  I’ve purchased headphones for as little as 99 cents in the past for listening to music and threw them away after a few minutes.

The headset I have now can be worn comfortably all day.

Other Transcription Equipment To Consider

• Line Counting Software
• File Moving / Encryption Software
• Spell Checkers (For legal, medical, and pharmaceutical transcription)
• Text Expanders

Dragon Naturally Speaking offers a transcription aid program that will do a lot of the transcription for you… automatically.  It can’t do all the transcribing for you, but you’ll be amazed how good voice recognition software is getting.

Mac Compatible Transcription Software

Many software suites are compatible with the Mac, just make sure you check first.  One that I know off the top of my head this will work on a mac is the Olympus AS-5000 Transcription Kit.

In the world of dictation and transcription, there is one name that is almost universally recognized… Dictaphone.

While there are plenty of other makers of dictation and transcription equipment like, Sony, Olympus, Panasonic, and Philips; Dictaphones are often considered the best you can get.

Currently the company is owned by Nuance Communications, which also makes the top speech reconition software suite on the market, Dragon Naturally Speaking.

If you’re looking for one of their transcribers, I’ll give you my recommendations for each category.

Best Digital Transcriber

Dictaphone 0421 C-phone Connexions Station

Features

• 21 Programmable Keys / Macros
• LCD Display
• External Speaker
• Complete Thumb Control
• Also A Full Featured Phone

Best Standard Cassette Transcriber

Dictaphone 2752

Features

• Adjustable Automatic Backspace
• Built-in Speaker
• Tape Counter
• Speed Control
• Tone and Volume Controls

Best Micro Cassette Transcriber

Dictaphone 3752K

Features

• Last Word Locator
• Display Window

Best Mini Cassette Transcriber

Dictaphone 1742

Features

• Tape Counter
• Last Word Locator
• Alert / Warning Tones
• Fast Play
• Speed Controls
• Auto Backspace

The real trick is finding the companies that can do a job that’s up to snuff without breaking the bank.

Keeping Transcription Costs Down

Before I get into my recommended companies, let’s cover a few things you can do on your end to keep your transcription costs down.

The better quality your recording is, the easier it will be to transcribe.  Your goal should be to provide clean, crisp recordings with minimal background noise.

One way to do that is to use high quality recording equipment.  For example, if you use a portable voice recorder, then make sure it’s a good one (the Olympus DS-4000 is a favorite among heavy users – it’s just recently been replaced by the DS-5000, though).

If your recordings are going to be made via the phone, you’ll find you get better audio quality using a landline phone than a cell phone.

Also, rates will go up if you have multiple speakers on the recording.  For example, if you’re recording a meeting with 5 participants that all need to be tracked, you’re going to pay a lot more than you would per minute for a phone interview.

Also, if you’re in no particular hurry, you can get far better rates.  One popular services, Casting Words, will do your transcription at rates as low as $.75/minute as long as you’re willing to wait a couple weeks to get your recording.

Best Affordable Transcription Companies

• Casting Words
• Verbal Ink (Formerly Escriptionist)
• GMR Transcription
• AffordableTranscription.net
• InteleANTS

Outsourcing

If you’d rather outsource and know who will be doing your work, you can try out one of these services:

• oDesk
• Rentacoder
• Elance
• Guru

Virtually anything can be transcribed these days including (but not limited to):

• Seminars
• Teleseminars
• Webinars
• Speeches
• Lectures
• Meetings
• Interviews
• Dictations
• Conferences
• Teleconferences
• Podcasts
• Videos
• Focus Groups
• CDs
• DVDs
• Tapes
• LPs

If you’re looking for business transcription services, that’s good news for you because you can get high quality work done quite affordably.

These days most transcriptionist are freelancers or home based workers so it helps keep overhead low resulting in great pricing.

Great For

• Professional Speakers
• Teleconferences
• Meetings
• Legal / Lawyers
• Insurance Companies
• Medical / Doctors
• Court
• Even Writing A Book

What To Look For

If you want a quality job done, here are a few things to look for:

• Audio listened to a 2nd time.
• Transcript is proofread
• Will take time to research names, places, terminology if necessary

Top Business Transcription Companies

• Verbal Ink (Formerly Escriptionist)
• Huseby
• GMR
• Compudex
• Modern Day Scribe
• ADS
• 24 Hour Secretary
• Ubiqus
• Transcription Wing
• SmartDoc

One thing you’ll want to decide on is what kind of transcription you need.  There are three main styles:

Verbatim - In this case, your transcript will come back exactly as heard by the transcriptionist including all the ahs, ums, coughs, and everything else.

Modified Verbatim – This is a popular choice for many as everything is transcribed as heard except that all the ahs, ums, etc are removed.

Professional - Professional level can results in a heavily modified transcript as sentence structure and grammar are all cleaned up.  This can be very useful is you’re doing something like dictating a book.

I remember when I was in high school (many moons ago… in the 90s) one of my friends let me borrow a new program that allowed you to “type” on the computer by “speaking.”

Up until that point, the only time I experienced voice commands was when watching Star Trek or some other sci fi show.

The software is actually still around today – Dragon Naturally Speaking – but back then it was a shell of it’s current self.

Back then, you had to spend a good two hours reading text to the software so it could learn your voice and even then it wasn’t all that accurate.

As it turns out, voices are pretty complex things and it requires a lot of processing power to understand them.

Current limits are still obvious when you use something like Visual Voicemail.  I use it with my Google Voice account, and the only ones it can get 90%+ accuracy with are the voicemails done by a computer.  I can usually get the gist of the message left by regular people, but there are plenty of times where it’s complete gibberish.

Even in 2010, voice recognition still works best in a closed enviromnent.  For example, if you call customer service for just about any major company now, you’ll be greated by an automated system.

In their system there are a limited number of commands available to you at any given time… frequently yes, no, help, operator, and sometimes numbers 1-10 and letters A-Z.  It’s a whole lot easier for a computer to figure out what you’re saying when you’ve got 50 or so choices vs the entire English language.

Another example is my new smartphone.  I have an Android powered phone and Google being all about “search” has a pretty good “voice search” program running on the phone.  There are still plenty of times where it has no idea what I’m saying, but if you’re careful to speak slowly, clearly, and in an enviromnent with as little background noise as possible, it’s pretty accurate.

Speech To Text – Transcription Software

Speech to text software has been making pretty big strides recently.  Right now software like Dragon Naturally Speaking can do an excellent job with software based transcription if it only has once person’s voice to deal with.

It’s still not up to the task of handling multiple voices so meetings, phone calls, or anything with a lot of background noise is still out.

However, if it has to be 100% accurate you’re still going to need a human to do the transcribing.  There are plenty of online solutions like Casting Words that can do general transcription economically.

Voice Recognition Software Manufacturers:

• Nuance Sofware – Dragon Naturally Speaking
• 3M Voicescript
• Windows Speech Recognition
• MacSpeech Dictate
• e-Speaking
• Eloquently Stated
• Wizzard Software – Interactive Voice Assistant
• ViaVoice

Companies like Google have also been spending millions on voice recognition research.  If you purchase an Android phone, you can see some of their early results by using the voice commands and voice search on the phone.

Right now, most consider Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred and Professional to be the best pieces of software in the voice recognition market.

Today, I’m going to focus on text to speech (TTS) software and how to get what’s going to be best for you.

With the enormous computing power of your everyday computer and the sophistication of software, text to speech is actually pretty easy.

Accurate voice recognition is the real challenge, but I digress.

The big thing in the text to speech world is making the voice sound “natural.”  I’m sure we’ve all heard those robotic sounding voices, but fortunately, they’re getting a lot better.

Before writing this guide, I tested the online demos from Neo Speech and AT&T’s Natural Voices and while nobody is going to mistake them for a real human speaking, they’re getting close.

Uses for TTS software

TTS software comes in handy in a variety of situations.  I think most people are familiar with new GPS devices being able to say things like street names and destinations.

For example, my previous GPS would simply tell me how far I had to drive before I needed turn.

It sounded something like this: “In one quarter mile, take, exit right.”

It was all based on pre-recorded phrases – nothing was being generated on the fly.

The current one I’m using is a lot more specific and gives directions like this:

“In one quarter mile, take exit 332, US Highway 275 Right”

It’s really handy if you’re in an unfamiliar place in heavy traffic and need to place all of your attention on the road and not on the little GPS screen on your dash.

Cell phones are becoming another big user of TTS technology – for example, many cell phones can read your text messages to you so if you’re driving and checking texts, you can stay focused on your driving instead of reading.

I remember a big hullabaloo among audio book makers who weren’t happy when the Amazon Kindle included technology that could read the book using text to speech software.

I’m not sure why they were so worried – if you’ve ever listed to the Amazon Kindle read a book vs a professional reader, you’ll notice there’s no comparison.  The professional is way better and gives you a much better book experience and you’ll likely have far better comprehension and enjoyment… the feature is cool in a pinch though.

On the web it’s easy to use if you have any type of reading issue, such as dyslexia.

You can get free add-ons to your browser so that if you need something read to you, it’s a piece of cake.  I’ve listed two below that are free – they’re not as good as some of the paid software I’ve listed below, but again, if you just need the words and don’t care about “natural sounding voices,” they’ll work just fine.

Internet Browser Add-ons

Internet Explorer

• Clean Page

Firefox

• Click Speak

Another great use for text to speech is proofreading.  Like most people, I’m notoriously bad at proofreading my own work.  I know what I meant to type, and while spellcheckers have come a long way, they still can’t differentiate when I type “you” and really meant “your.”

However, if you listen to your article or paper as a means of proofreading, you’re far more likely to notice the error because its much easier to hear the error than if you’re reading.

If you really need quality text to speech software, then here is a list of some of the top manufacturers – many of them will give you a demo to test it out first so you can see which one will work best for you before you buy.

Text To Speech Software (TTS) Manufacturers:

• NeoSpeech
• Claroread
• Nextup
• Natural Readers
• Zubaware
• Wizzard Software
• Read Please
• Expressivo
• Script VOX Studio
• AT&T Labs Natural Voices
• Text Speech Pro

Real time voice translation (Think Babelfish from Hitchhikers Guide or the Universal Translator in Star Trek) is something that up until now has been science fiction.

Once ready, the service will work just like a real professional human interpreter.  It will analyze packets of speech instead before it attempts to translate since if you’ve ever studied a foreign language you know that word for word translation will frequently result in incomprhensible sentences.

However, Google is working hard to pioneer real time speech to speech translation and hopes to have a working service up in the next few years.

Google can already do a pretty good job with translating web pages into different languages.  However, machine translation of text is much, much easier than voice translation.

The two main challenges right now are doing high accuracy machine translation and high accuracy voice recognition.

The machine translation part will probably be ready for prime time long before the voice recognition portion.

If you’ve ever used Google’s Visual Voicemail service (free with your Google Voice account) you know that voice recongition definitely has a ways to go.  It can transcribe clealry spoken Enlish from a Native speaker fairly well, but anyone with an accent tends to be mostly gibberish.

Since each person has a different voice, accent, and pitch, true voice recognition is extremely difficult.

However, if you’ve ever used an Android phone, you know Google is working hard to make voice recognition a reality.

Their smartphone operating system can do a lot with voice searches and they even have a program you can download from the Android Marketplace called “Talk To Me.”  It’s definitely limited in what it can do, but it’s definitely a cool program to play with if you need translation (both text and voice) in a pinch.

While the technology may someday support a significant portion of the world’s 6,000 plus languages, expect support for popular languages like Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Mandarin to be among the first supported.

If most of your dictating will be done from your desk, then a standard cassette transcriber may be sufficient for you needs.

In the old days before micro and mini cassette recorders were popular (or now digital), they did make portable dictation devices that used standard sized cassettes, however I haven’t seen one of those in years.   I had an old Dictaphone in my office for a while, but it was so big and bulky that it wasn’t going to go in my pocket.

If you’re going to be doing professional transcription, then you’ll probably want to keep a transcriber that will take standard cassettes even though most of your work will probably be done using micro cassettes and digital.

A good one for light duty work is the Panasonic RR-830.  It’s reasonably priced, but if you’re to be working with cassettes on a regular basis, something like a Sony BM-77T or a Dictaphone 2752 will serve you much better.

Dictaphone is going to be the most expensive of the bunch, but it’s also hands down the best.

One thing I really recommend avoiding is trying to transcribe from a tape player.  If it’s an emergency and that’s all you’ve got, ok, but otherwise get something with a foot pedal and a comfortable headset.

The foot pedal will allow you to keep your hands on the keyboard so you can type and the headset will allow you to hear words more accurately.

If you’re looking for quality legal transcription services, you’re in the right place.  I’ll give you some specific recommendations in just a sec, but first let’s cover what you can have transcribed.

• Depositions
• Hearings of Legal Proceedings
• Insurance Transcriptions
• Victim Compensation Recordings
• General Correspondence
• Interrogatories
• Briefs
• Subpoenas

And while many companies prefer working with digital recordings, some can work with anything as long as you can hear it… such as:

• Cassette Tapes(All formats – Standard, Micro, Mini)
• VHS
• DVDs
• CDs
• Even LPs

You’ll find that just about every services provides encrypted and secure file transfers to make sure you data is kept safe.

Here are some of the top providers for Legal Transcription… a few of them provide local transcriptionists if needed.

• Precise Scribe
• ADS
• WeType4U
• Keltran
• Compudex
• Ubiqus
• Huseby
• Transcription Wing
• Rely Services
• LegalTranscription.com

One great thing about technology and the internet is that is has brought the price of transcription way down in recent years, especially for those using digital dictation technology (a great personal portable digital voice recorders is the Olympus DS-5000, btw).

It allows many transcriptionists to work from home which keeps overhead low allowing transcription companies to pass the savings on to you.

Dictators vs Transcribers

Deciding which device to get really depends on which end of the recording you’re going to be one.  If you’re the one making the recordings and doing the dictating, then you’ll want a dictator or voice recorder as their feature set is best suited for capturing audio.

If you’re going to be doing the transcribing, then get a transcriber.

Digital Transcription Software

Some programs like Dragon Naturally Speaking can to a servicable job of transcribing a recording without any human intervention provided there is only once voice on the recording.

However, anything that uses technical terms, names, jargon, meetings, or phone conversations will require the expertise of a human transcriptionist.

Manufacturers

While I almost exclusively recommend going with Dictaphones, here are some of the best manufacturers of transcribers and dictators:

• Dictaphone
• Sony
• Philips
• Panasonic
• Olympus

Recommended Transcribers:

• Dictaphone 2752
• Panasonic RR-930
• Sony M 2000

Budget Transcription Equipement

If you’re on a tight budget, get used gear.  You can get up to an 80% discount by buying older models of the high end equipment.

You’re far better off getting high quality used equipment than going for the cheapest item you can find that’s brand new.  eBay is a good place to start, but Amazon has a pretty good selection of used equipment as well.

The one exception I’d make is to make sure you get a new headset – maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather not use anything that’s spent a large portion of time in someone else’s ears.