October
2008
How to get a good recording for interview transcription
I’ve had an astonishing number of transcription requests come in recently that are very poor quality recordings, and the biggest culprit is the coffee machine! It really is essential, if you want a good quality recording, to record in a quiet room, and not in a café. However nice it is to have comfy chairs, music playing, great real coffee on tap and a relaxed atmosphere, you won’t get a good quality recording in a café!One client even recorded an interview in a café near closing time - it avoided the coffee machine problem as no one was buying coffee, but two other problems emerged. The staff were rather pointedly clearing up around them, so scraping of chairs and scrubbing of tables was beautifully recorded, but sadly the voices weren’t. The other problem was that they couldn’t finish the interview because they got thrown out at closing time!
To avoid similar mistakes have a look at our website page on interview transcription and my article on transcription for research interviews