Soft or muffled voices, words mumbled or spoken quickly, people speaking at the same time, background noises. Things that occur over and over again in everyday conversation - many times when we aren't even aware of it. Yet in everyday face-to-face conversations and meetings, the essence of what is being said can often be understood by the accompanying body language or written materials. Understanding can come in spite of challenges from voice projection, speech articulation, or background noises because of contextual clues.

     With audio recordings, however, the opposite is true. The more difficulty with voice projection and articulation the speakers have, the faster someone talks, the more often people speak at the same time, the noisier the environment, the farther away someone is from the microphone - the less understandable the audio is since there are no contextual clues.

      To help ensure a successful dictation and transcription project and to achieve optimal audio recordings, TTE's CEO Terry Thompson offers the following six tips:  

1. Pick a quiet area to record your meeting or conversation and minimize background noise. 
2. Give all speakers individual microphones or use a Polycom unit with large group recordings. Individual recordings can be done with transitional phone handsets. For optimal recording, speakerphones should not be used, since they only clearly pick up the voices closest to the microphone.  
3. Speak clearly and slowly.
4. Have only one speaker at a time. If several people are on the line at the same time, do not talk over each other.
5. If you are using a cell phone, you will get the best results speaking in a quiet room and not using the speaker function of your phone. Driving in a car while being recorded is not recommended; it is not only hazardous, but does not pick up well.
6. Send with your transcription request any industry specific terminology that might be used.