On occasion, we receive audio for transcription that can described as bad/low quality. This includes background noise such as wind, static, music, and screaming children; crowded restaurant conversations; lawn mowers, cars, and airplanes roaring by; and recordings made on cassettes or microtapes.

It’s a mystery to me why, but there are some customers who expect professional transcriptionists to have a superman/woman-like ability to transcribe audio that is humanly impossible to hear. They expect few if any blanks to be left in the transcript despite the audio’s bad quality.

Be nice to your transcriptionist. Please be realistic about your expectations when submitting low-quality audio for transcription. If you have no idea of the quality of your audio, listen closely to a 5-10 minute excerpt and determine if you can decipher 90 to 100% of the words being said. If you can, you have fair to good quality audio, which generally should produce a transcript with few blanks. If you can decipher fewer than 90% of the words being said, this qualifies as low-quality audio and you should expect numerous blanks or “inaudibles.”

Advances in technology (i.e., digital recorders, unidirectional microphones, etc.) really do allow you to produce high-quality audio consistently. Extra incentive is that you get your transcripts back quicker and avoid any fees for difficult audio transcription, as high-quality audio is easier to transcribe and takes a shorter time to turn around. For more about this subject, see “Help Your Transcriptionist Help You.”