7 Points to Ensure for Quality Recording of Lectures and Speeches

Public speaking on different occasions is inevitable. For many people, like teachers and college professors, it is a part of work. Besides, many other professions suggest transferring the knowledge orally from the speaker to the audience. Both the quality of exposition and how well the audience saves the information determine the success.

In most cases, the audience is supposed to care about that – make notes to refer to that information further. As the technical progress brought us powerful and lightweight audio recorders, saving the information became much more straightforward.

Many students, for instance, prefer audio recording the entire lecture. Then they transcribe it themselves or turn to an audio transcription service. Numerous companies deliver high-quality audio and video transcripts, like Transcriberry.

Still, if you are that person who speaks to the audience, it’s better not to take for granted that your listeners will get equipped properly. If you are interested in reaching all the public, the most efficient way is to use additional materials. For a speech or lecture, it will be sharing the reliable transcription of the content spoken.

Adding text transcripts to audio and video materials is a common practice these days. Many reasons made this option so needed, among them:

• People can use these text transcripts as educational materials to make notes, add comments, etc.
• Transcripts can be saved for as long as needed, and you can access them from any location.
• Text files are much lighter than audio or video files, so you can take a robust library of transcripts anywhere.
• Verbatim transcription ensures that the audience gets a detailed text copy of the audio materials.

These are only a few reasons. Note one more: by providing text transcripts, you react to all needs of the audience and satisfy them. There can be hearing-impaired people and can use hearing support. Or, there might be foreigners having difficulties with auditioning speeches. Giving such people the possibility to consume that information in a more comfortable format is excellent.

Here, our next question arises naturally. If the oral speech comes first, and the transcript follows it, how can you ensure that the transcript will be of the required quality?

Whether you are going to have the content transcribed by yourself or address the third-party service, the quality of the source file is deciding. It can save you a lot of time and money or, vice versa, make you spend hours or a small fortune to get high-quality transcription. Let’s get back to our question, and now we can have the answer.

To ensure the high quality of the transcript, you need a high-quality recording.

If you plan to transcribe your speech, you have to prepare the tech means and organize the environment. In fact, the latter is even more crucial. You will see it yourself now as we are going to expose the most notable features that can affect your recording quality. Transcription can be particularly beneficial from those suffering from “hearing loss“.

This is the most obvious point here. To record a lecture, you need a proper microphone. Many lecturers rely on in-built microphones on their smartphones, but we would not recommend it. Though these devices are becoming more and more advanced with the evolution of smartphones, it is always better to have a dedicated instrument for a specific task.

Modern microphones are powerful and sensitive tools adjusted to record the nuances with exceptional quality. Besides, there are different types of these tools. Some of them are better for recording one speaker only. Others were developed to record sound from all directions and multiple people speaking. Depending on your planned environment, you should choose a suitable microphone.

Silence is crucial for quality audio recording. Though it is not always possible to ensure the required level, you should try to eliminate it where you can. If it is a lecture in a room, make sure to disable the working and noising machinery and music devices. Ask the audience to turn off their phones and keep quiet during the lecture.

Note also that one of the interfering factors is your own breath. Control yourself during the lecture and make sure you don’t breathe into the microphone loudly. Further, you can also buy low cost hearing support for those who face hearing problems.

An audio limiter is a specialized device that controls sound recording. In brief, it won’t let the signal exceed the parameters you’ve configured. Should there be random audio issues with the sounds too loud, the audio limiter will exclude it from the recording. It normalizes its overall level and makes it much easier to process the recording after.

The best equipment won’t help if you don’t make your voice and words clear enough. If you are an experienced public speaker, you should have already been trained to use your oral capabilities. If not, you should get some training.

Your voice must be easy to record. Don’t speak very fast – control the speed. Control your pronunciation, avoid stuttering, use pauses smartly. The clearer you express your ideas in an oral format, the easier it will be for the audience to get them. Also, it will be easier to transcribe audio.

When you are supposed to record an interview with several speakers or a discussion, you will certainly need a moderator. It can be you or another person. The goal is to conduct the discussion for the participants not to interrupt each other, etc. Besides, make sure to introduce all speakers properly.

Test recordings are a must. You need to be sure that the equipment works properly. Also, you have to try to record speech in the same environment. Ask some people to assist you and speak something for you to catch difficult words and check how your recording fixes them.

You might need to adjust the microphone settings, change its location, and determine the precise distance. Don’t forget that your own voice sounds different on the recording, and you have to consider it too. In any case, never start recording without thorough testing!

Inform the other people that you are going to record the audio. Share the protocols in advance so that all the participants would know what things may affect the recording. Explain the rules of behavior. Your audience should be prepared when it comes to your lecture.

Even if you have recorded your lecture perfectly, the audio is only raw material. It still waits to be transcribed. Here, the quality depends on the transcription services you’d use. Be it AI-based voice recognition or human transcription services, you’ll need to check the performance and make sure you can trust it.

Transcripts of lectures or speeches are excellent means on many occasions. Providing a text transcription for audio/video content is not only welcome – it is usually necessary.

If we deal with lectures, they are usually quite prolonged in time. Thus, making a transcript would take even more time. Fortunately, there is no need to spend those many hours listening and converting audio to text. The variety of transcription services make this job much more accessible.