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.

Just as with every other form of electronic communication, the world of dictation and transcription is going digital.

It has several advantages over the old method of using tapes for dictation.

One that your transcriptionists are sure to appreciate is how much easier it to clean up noise.  In just a minute or two, a noisy and hard to transcribe recording can be cleaned up and be relatively easy transcribe.  If you’re using tapes, the process is unwieldy and cumbersome.

Another consideration is backup and archival.  If you need to go back and get the original recording off a tape, it can take some time to locate it and find it.

On the other hand, a 1TB hard drive (costs about $100) can store nearly 25,000 hours of audio.

Computer Software

There are a few software suites on the market so you can do all your dictation on the computer and then immediately send it to your transcriptionist whether she be down the hall or across the country (and recordings can be encrypted).

Also, you no longer have to wait for your tape to be full – just do your dictating and send it off to be transcribed as soon as your done.

There are two very good software suites worth considering – Quikscribe and Winscribe.

Best Brands

If you’d rather stick to standalone units (many still do), you’ll find the top brands in digital dictation are Dictaphone, Philips, and Sony.

Recommendations

If you need the best of the best, Dictaphone is the head of the class and the 0421 C-phone is an amazing piece of equipment.  It’s not cheap, but I’ve never head anyone complain about them.  If buying new isn’t quite in the budget, just head on over to eBay, you can pick up a used model at an excellent discount.

Two others worth considering are the Philips Desktop 9750 and the Sony M2020A.

Have anything you’d like or anything you feel I left out in the world of digital dictation equipment… let me hear it by posting in the comments below.