Recording Audio Posts [bestcomputersprices.blogspot.com]

Recording Audio Posts [bestcomputersprices.blogspot.com]

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So I wanted to talk today about how to create an audio file for a blog and in fact how to record an entire blog post as an audio and then have it transcribed into text for your website. I have adopted this method now for doing all of my blogging and the reason being that I find it easier to do. My thought processes come to mind and flow out of my mouth a lot quicker and a lot easier than when I sit down to type words... I get very distracted when I do that so I've decided to go down this route.

Now here's the process and here's how I do it. I have set myself up with two... actually I have a lot more but I have two particular Skype accounts and I have a laptop set up in another room of my house and it is connected to one of the Skype accounts and here at my desk I have my regular business Skype account. I have then downloaded a little piece of software called PrettyMay Call Recorder which you can buy from prettymay.net and it's about US$ 29 to purchase. You can d ownload a trial version if you like but I can guarantee you it works beautifully and what I do is I dial my other Skype account, I have a headset on, plugged into the computer... you'll need a headset to do this. If you try and talk through the speakers at the computer the sound quality's just not as good. I mean you can hear it but I'd like people to listen to the words that I'm saying as opposed to being distracted by surrounding noise and crackling and whatever else you can get from audio so a headset is really important.

One thing to note about headsets; the latest headsets, those that have been produced in the last couple of years, all have noise-cancelling. It's very difficult nowadays to purchase a headset that does not have noise-cancelling and whilst that's fantastic for listening to music and cancelling out any other noise it's not great for recording voice because it puts a hum, a white noise, over the top of the audio and it's very, very hard if not impossi ble to move in post production or editing. So if you can find yourself a headset that does not have noise-cancelling then you are going to be better off but good luck with that 'cause I have searched everywhere and I have not had a lot of luck. I have however purchased a Logitech G35 gaming headset which is a little more expensive than your average headset that you'll pick up from an electronics store and this one cost me about AUD$ 250 and it's really designed for gaming, it's got surround sound in it and the headphones actually completely cover the ears so they block out just about everything, I can almost hear my own voice which is great for when you are doing audio because you can pace yourself well when you're doing that.

And I can do a whole host of other things with it as well but for that it's fantastic and it's a USB headset and this is really important, you need to have a USB headset as opposed to one with just the audio and the headset plugs because that wo n't work with Prettymay, I've tried a number of them and they just don't work, I don't know why and the other thing that you need to make sure is that you don't purchase a wireless headset. Whilst wireless headsets are fantastic for talking on Skype, walking around the house, making a cup of tea, doing whatever else you want to do while using them, they for some reason crash Prettymay and crash Skype at the same time. They won't crash Skype by itself but if you're trying to tape the call and you're using Prettymay it will actually crash both pieces of software. So make sure that whatever headset you purchase, if you can get one that does not have noise-cancelling then it will be best and if you can make sure that you get one with a USB plug then you can be guaranteed it will work. So it's something to do with the wireless, I haven't quite figured it out and I don't seem to find anyone on the forum anywhere who knows how to do it either so think about that when you are gettin g your headset.

So what I do is I dial my other Skype account, I then mute the microphone on the other computer, the one I'm dialing so I'm not picking up any of the noise that's in the room that it's in so if my puppy dog walks through there or the door bangs or whatever, I don't hear any of that because the microphone is muted so the sound on the other side is nice and clear and then I come back in, sit down, put my headset on and I turn on the recording software and it has a duration underneath so I can keep an eye on the time and I just record. It records beautifully, it's broadcast quality and as you can hear from the audio below, this is literally straight out of the software. It records in an MP3 and then all I do is I upload this audio file to Coralie's server, my transcriber in Western Australia, in literally the same length of time as the audio is. She transcribes it for me, accurately, perfectly and then she sends me back the transcript and I've already got the audio to edit.

I now have a post that is both audio and visual so I'm catering to a very large part of the audience out there and I've been able to sit down and just do it in five to six minutes and it would take me probably an hour and a half to two hours to write that same post with all of the other distractions around me and me losing my train of thought. So it's worth thinking about. The links below are to the software which is Prettymay.net again and I've also put in Coralie's details as well if you are looking for a fantastic transcriber, especially if you are recording in English and she's fantastic, very, very reasonably priced and very, very accurate so enjoy and if you have any comments or any questions about how to do this I'd be more than happy to help you.

© Victoria Hansen 2010. All Rights Reserved.

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