Category: Education

Education How to record and convert a Zoom meeting to text

Across the globe, more and more people are turning to web conferencing applications like Zoom as they are forced to stay at home as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.  These are incredibly challenging times but thankfully these tools are making things a little bit easier.

There are a number of video conferencing tools to help keep you connected with co-workers, family, and friends like Skype, Zoom and GoToMeeting. Converting those meetings to text is helpful for a number of reasons. 

This article describes how to record a Zoom meeting and have it converted to text automatically in any language including Spanish, French, German, and Chinese.

What is Zoom?

Zoom is a video and web conferencing software that allows users to connect in one central location over video. Participants can share their screens and collaborate with anyone else is in the meeting. 

Why convert a Zoom meeting to text?

Keeping track of everything that is said and every decision that is made on a conference call is next to impossible. When you record a Zoom meeting along with automatic transcription software like Sonix you can convert audio to text, so you get a complete and accurate record of everything that was said in the meeting. 

It is essentially like having a live note-taker. This makes it much easier for each participant to contribute to the call rather than getting distracted by jotting down action items and notes. Having an automated transcript also speeds up the distribution of the action items to your team as well as maintaining an accurate log of what was said so you can always go back and verify any areas where team members weren’t sure.

Once you have transcripts of your meetings it’s easy to create training tools, webinars, company-wide emails, and even press releases. And lastly, once you have all your meetings centrally stored and transcribed, it’s fast & easy to perform keyword searches on hundreds of meetings and videos. This is particularly great if you are trying to identify key themes or find decisions or action items across numerous calls.

7 easy steps to record and convert a Zoom meeting to text

1. Open your Zoom account

Open Zoom. If you don’t have a Zoom account, you can set one up for free at https://zoom.us/signup

2. Click on ‘Schedule a meeting’

Click “Schedule a meeting” and enter the details of the meeting (topic, description, date, time, duration, and time zone)

3. Enable “record meeting”

Scroll down to “Meeting Options” and select “Record the meeting automatically”. With a free account you’ll only be able to record locally. With a paid account you have the option to store the recordings in the cloud which frees up space on your computer.

Once you have that selected, be sure to click “Save”.

4. Start the meeting

When you are ready to meet log into your account and click on “Meetings” in the left navigation. Locate your meeting and click “Start”

4. Convert and save

Zoom will automatically convert the recording to an audio file and by default will place the file into one of the following folders depending on your operating system.

PC: C:\Users\User Name\Documents\Zoom,

Mac: /Users/User Name/Documents/Zoom

5. Create Sonix account

If you already have a Sonix account, you can skip this step. If you don’t have an account you can sign up to Sonix here: https://sonix.ai/accounts/sign_up

6. Convert your Zoom meeting to text

In Sonix, click “Upload” and then locate and select your Zoom meeting. Sonix will convert your Zoom meeting to text in less than 5 minutes.

7. Edit & share

Sonix has a built-in editor for you to make notes, edit, and highlight key sections of the transcript. Once you’re happy with it click “Share” to share it with your colleagues.

That’s it! It’s super easy to record and convert a Zoom meeting to text. Good luck!

Education Convert Vimeo video to text

There are many reasons why you’d want to convert a Vimeo video to text. The good news is that converting a Vimeo video to text is really easy.

So how do you get a full text transcript of a Vimeo video quickly? All you have to do is copy & paste the Vimeo video link into Sonix and you’ll have a full transcript in less than 5 minutes.

Education Read-aloud stories with follow-along transcripts: Hello, fire truck!

The full transcript highlights as you read along. Follow along with the highlights as the book is read to improve your reading!

Click the player below to watch Reid A. Long (the reading puppet) read a story out loud.

Reid A. Long stories | Hello, fire truck! transcript powered by Sonix—the best automated transcription service in 2020. Easily convert your video to text with Sonix.

Reid A. Long stories | Hello, fire truck! was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your video to text. Our automated transcription algorithms works with many of the popular video file formats.

Reid A. Long:
Hi, my name is Reid A. Long and I love to read stories. Are you ready to read?

Reid A. Long:
Hello fire truck. Look, smoke and flames, fluff is in trouble. Call 9-1-1. Quick on the double.

Reid A. Long:
Sirens and lights say out of my way. Firefighters race to help save the day. Hello, fire truck.

Reid A. Long:
The truck is red and shiny and bright. The team is brave and ready to fight.

Reid A. Long:
Hurry, hurry. The fire is growing. Hoses and pumps get water flowing.

Reid A. Long:
Rescue ladders climb higher and higher. No fluff is down safe from the fire.

Reid A. Long:
The fire is out. The crew packs the gear tired and dirty. They wave as we cheer. Goodbye, fire truck.

Quickly and accurately convert video to text with Sonix.

Sonix uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence to convert your mp4 files to text.

Thousands of documentary filmmakers and journalists use Sonix to convert mp4 file to srt or vtt to make their media content more accessible to the viewing public.

Sonix is the best online video transcription software in 2020—it’s fast, easy, and affordable.

If you are looking for a great way to convert your mp4 to text, try Sonix today.

Education How to automatically transcribe podcasts

Manually transcribing podcasts is awful. Plain and simple. And it can take an awful lot of time  especially if you have episodes that are over an hour long. If you have guests on your podcast then you’ll have to deal with multiple speakers which makes things even harder. 

Good news, you can save yourself all the hassle by automatically transcribing your podcast. And once you have a full transcript you can easily repurpose that content to reach new listeners.

Why Should You Transcribe Your Podcast?

The number one reason is because Google and other search engines can crawl text much, much better than they can crawl audio. Having transcripts alongside your podcast allows search engines to index your podcast for better search rankings and in turn improve your ability to get found. Not only that, repurposing these transcripts can provide an added boost.

Your episode’s transcript has a ton of shareable content. When you convert your transcript into shareable posts for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram you increase the likelihood of your podcast getting discovered. And with enough exposure, these social media posts will turn into new regular listeners.

Below are four ways you can use a podcast transcript to improve discoverability of your podcast.

  1. Social Media: Taking a snippet from your show and giving listeners a little taste is a great way to attract people to your podcast. Share key quotes on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook.
  2. Show Notes: Providing a summary of your show and the ability to skip to certain parts makes it easy for listeners to find their favorite part.
  3. Blog Posts: You can actually turn entire shows into full blog articles. This makes it consumable for people that want to read rather than listen.
  4. Website Optimization: Simply putting your transcript on your web site will Improve discoverability.

All these things (blog articles, show notes, and social posts) will increase your chances of being found online. Yes, it takes a little extra work, but you’ve already done the hard part of creating an amazing show. Why not put in the extra effort to help your show reach more listeners.

In addition to getting more listeners, your content is now more accessible for those that are hard of hearing. 

How to Automatically Transcribe Your Podcast

Automated transcription makes transcription fast and easy. Sure there is a little clean up required but given all the benefits of transcripts, it’s a small price to pay.

Here are the four steps: 

  1. Login to your Sonix account
  2. Click upload and choose your podcast audio file
  3. Edit any areas that need some polish
  4. Export your transcript

That’s it! That’s how you can automatically transcribe your podcasts. Now you can leverage your transcript in as many ways as you want to drive more listeners.

Education How to record great audio on your mobile phone for accurate transcription

With a mobile phone, you’ll always be able to record video and audio whenever and wherever you are. It’s the fastest and easiest way to capture an interview or a spontaneous conversation.

Unfortunately, the sound quality on a mobile phone can be sub-optimal. This is problematic if you want to transcribe that interview as you may miss words and phrases.

So what can you do? Good news! There are several options and they don’t require you to carry around a full sound studio with you. 

These three simple changes you can make a huge difference to your phone’s ability to capture high-quality sound.  

1) Capture better audio

The mics in mobile phones aren’t studio-grade as you would expect, but you can take a few steps to maximize the quality of the incoming audio.

First, make sure you know where the mic is located. It is usually at the bottom of the phone where you speak. 

Second, make sure that no mobile phone cases, fingers, or other stuff is in the way of these inputs when you are recording. You want a clear space between the mic and your subject.

Third, try your best to record in a quiet space. If there’s any way to reduce interfering sounds like wind noise or car traffic, do it. It will certainly help with the audio quality.

Lastly, make sure you mute the mobile phone or put it in airplane mode before recording. You don’t want notifcations or other apps interrupting your recording.

2) Tweak your mobile audio sound settings

Some automated transcription services provide an app to capture audio, but they don’t have the advanced audio quality features. If you want the best audio quality, then download an app that specializes in audio capture.

For iOS devices, you can download Voice Recorder. To adjust and optimize sounds settings you simply select the settings wheel in the bottom right.

For Android devices, you can download Titanium Recorder. To adjust the settings you simply select the menu button (three dots) and go to Settings.

3) Use a microphone

Using an external microphone when recording is the single most significant way to improve the quality of the sound your phone captures. The better the quality the audio, the better quality the transcription.  If you’re serious about your videos and voice recording, you’ll need to invest in a microphone.

The most versatile microphone is a lavalier mic like this one: Rode smartLav+ Omnidirectional microphone. It works great for interviews and allows you to attach it to a shirt or hold it without being intrusive. If you primarily plan to save the sound of a person speaking, this lavalier mic is a great option. 

In order to use this mic you’ll need an Apple lightning connector if you want to use it with an up-to-date iPhone, and it needs a Type C audio jack connector to work with most modern Android phones. 

Bottom line, if you only buy one device, buy a microphone. It will drastically improve your audio quality when recording on a mobile phone and will make your transcripts infinitely better.

Want to transcribe your interview for free? Click here for 30 free transcription minutes with Sonix!

Education How to download a podcast from iTunes

Apple doesn’t make it easy to figure out how to download content from iTunes. If you are trying to download a podcast, it’s actually very easy. The steps below show you exactly what you need to do.

1. Go to iTunes and select the Podcasts menu item

2. Choose the podcast you want and click “Get”

3. Click on Library at the top / middle of iTunes

4. Click the 3 little buttons to the right of the podcast

5. Select “Show in Finder”.

iTunes automatically stores your download in Users > your username > Music > iTunes > iTunes Media > Podcasts

If you want to access it right away, then you can simply drag it onto your desktop. If you want to transcribe it, you can do that by simply dragging it and dropping into your Sonix Upload page: https://my.sonix.ai/upload

New to Sonix? Click here for 30 free transcription minutes!!

Education Convert YouTube video to text

If you’ve ever wanted to convert a YouTube video to text, you are not alone. Many people don’t have time to watch & listen to a whole video and could read the transcript much faster.

So how do you get a full text transcript of a YouTube video quickly? The answer is simple. Just copy & paste the YouTube link into Sonix and you’ll have a full transcript in less than 5 minutes.

Sonix provides 30 free transcription minutes to test out. And there’s no credit card required.

Education Tips on how to increase podcast listeners

We recently spoke with Blake Oliver from the Cloud Accounting Podcast about some of things he’s done to build his listener base. He explains the importance of engagement and how that propelled their podcast. He also talks about having influential industry people on his podcast drove a lot of new listeners. And lastly, he speaks about how the Sonix Media Player DOUBLED his listener base overnight.

You can see the Sonix Media Player below in action. Note the sandwich icon on the top right of the player. If you click that you can quickly navigate to any part of the transcript!

Lots of great insights in here. Enjoy!

How the Cloud Accounting Podcast DOUBLED its listeners (transcribed by Sonix)

Intro chat with Blake Oliver

Jamie: Hi, you’re here with Sonix and we’re talking to Blake Oliver today about his podcast and why he’s been able to double his listeners using the Sonix Media Player.

What is the Cloud Accounting Podcast about?

Blake: We are a weekly news update for accountants and bookkeepers who are interested in cloud accounting technology.

Jamie: I just got a couple of questions. The first one is how is your podcast going?

How is the Cloud Accounting Podcast going?

Blake: It’s going pretty well, I think we’re at something like 60 plus episodes now. So, in the current form, we’ve been doing it for a little over almost actually almost exactly a year. And it takes a while to get traction. Right. The first 50 episodes, I don’t know. You know, maybe a few hundred people were listening to each one of those. We’re in a niche right in the accounting world. But we just stuck with it and kept doing it and I think that’s what it takes. So, now we’re I think the last 4 episodes are a 1,000 listens each. So just onward and upward from there.

Jamie: Awesome. So what are your biggest challenges as it relates to podcasting?

What are the biggest challenges as it relates to podcasting?

Blake: So, initially it was just learning how to do it, because I do all the production. For something that wasn’t revenue generating for the first year I didn’t feel like going out and spending money on somebody to record it and produce it for me. And, you know, I’m kind of a stickler so I wanted to be able to pick which sections I’m going to cut and all that stuff.

How Blake learned how to create, produce and publish a podcast

Blake: I had to learn how to use the software–I use Adobe Audition. We use a tool called Zencaster to record the audio. You know, it took me like a solid day to figure out how to do an episode. And then I’ve got it down to a point where I can edit a 30 minute episode and post it in a couple of hours. So I just you know, we’ll do that on a Friday afternoon or evening with a beer or something like that.

Blake: Yeah. And the other challenge was figuring out the format. So we tried an interview style format and then we realized every podcast was doing that. And it got boring because if you had a bad guest, then you know the episode’s shit.

Blake: So, we decided we were gonna mix things up and do a weekly News Round-Up. And just sticking with that as our format I think has has really helped us grow the listener base because now they know what they’re going to get. And we’ve been really consistent about recording and and putting out an episode every week just trying to figure out the format and how to make it work. That was the biggest challenge. And now I think if we just keep doing it and we’re consistent with the quality, then hopefully we can grow to 10,000 thousand listeners.

Jamie: You’ve always been an entrepreneur and that’s almost like a pivot you created for your podcast. And I guess the question I have, with that, is as other podcasters look for listeners. What did you do to increase your listeners?

How did Blake grow and double his podcast listener base

Blake: Engagement is really huge. So, that’s that’s part of the reason we did the interviews in the first place. We figured, OK, if we interview somebody like Guy Pearson from Practice Ignition, who is known thought leader in the accounting world, then he’ll promote it and that’ll get us more listeners. So that that worked really well. But then we were having trouble keeping them because not every interview is going to be that good. And we were starting to run out of people to talk to.

Jamie: So you’re saying engagement was one or other things that you did to help grow your base from hundreds of listeners to thousands?

Using social media to grow the Cloud Accounting podcast listener base

Blake: Being active on a particular social media platform has been great. David and I have sort of keyed in on Twitter as being our best channel for this show, because I think the very quick rapid discourse on Twitter mirrors the way we like to handle stuff on the show. It’s very quick, like, here’s a news story that was important to accountants and we’ll talk about it for two to five minutes and then we’ll move on to the next one. So not these long, drawn out episodes that people are used to in our industry. They’re really boring.

Blake: And so then Twitter is great for that. So we will share out the stories that we talked about in every episode on Twitter throughout the week and say: “As discussed on the Cloud Accounting Podcast”, we created a handle for the podcast where people can go and link to the different services we’re streaming on. So that has been really helpful.

Engagement has been key to growing the listener base

Blake: And then engaging with different listeners. So listeners will tag us on Twitter with their thoughts as they listen to the episode and we will retweet those. We will comment on those. Even though our show isn’t live and it’s pre-recorded, we have a conversation throughout the week after the episode drops. And that gets people excited about it. They start talking about it. Our most loyal listeners, we will shout out to them on the show. That has been a really, really powerful tactic.

Jamie: Awesome. That makes a lot of sense.

Why Blake is inspired by Taylor Swift 🙂

Blake: So it’s funny because I heard a story about Taylor Swift when she was first starting out. Not that we’re ever gonna be as famous as she is. Right? But.

Jamie: You never know.

Blake: Yeah, well, maybe in the accounting world but apparently she responded to every single fan letter and engaged with everybody who was following her when she had a small following. And that built up that core loyal following that has become this massive following. So that’s what I think engagement can do.

Jamie: So you’re saying Taylor Swift is your role model?

Blake: Really? I think she’s probably everybody’s role model in a lot of ways. So.

Jamie: Right.

Blake: Yeah.

Jamie: Right. Ok. More specific to Sonix. We know you use Sonix. Why do you transcribe your podcast?

How the Sonix media player helped doubled his podcast listener base

Blake: So this goes with getting the show out there for more people. I find that it’s hard to convince people to go into their podcast app, search for a podcast that they’ve never heard of, and then listen. It’s a big commitment. And so the idea with using Sonix was because you guys have this amazing web player. I can have every episode transcribed, clean it up, and then post it on my episode page for every episode shortly after it goes live.

Blake: And so that way, when people who aren’t subscribed to the podcast, they find it online. Not only do they see the show notes, but they see a full transcript right below the show notes and they can just click anywhere in the transcript to play that particular part.

Blake: And to give you an example on our most popular episode to date. We had a 1,092 unique listeners to the podcast who actually listened to the episode or downloaded the episode, but because we also transcribed it in Sonix, the Sonix player had 2,387 uniques. So, basically, twice as many people were reading the transcript and playing the audio on the Sonix player as were downloading in their podcast app.

How the Sonix media player has driven more loyal listeners

Blake: And I think that episode helped us get more loyal listeners. Of course, not everybody is going to go and then subscribe to the podcast. They might just come for that one particular story. But the fact that they were able to listen to us and not just read it on the episode page. My suspicion is that that’s what helped us grow our listener base.

Blake: After that we went from like 500 listeners on every episode to almost a 1,000 now.

Jamie: Sounds like the Sonix media player is helping from a discovery standpoint. So you’re saying it’s a little bit more challenging for a brand new listener to go through the regular channels of downloading your podcast through Apple or Google Play, but they can easily find you on your web site?

Attracting listeners that aren’t subscribed to a podcast app

Blake: Yeah, and I think one reason it helps in our niche is because accountants are often on their desktop computers or laptops. So like if they’re going to listen to the podcast, they’d have to go over their phone and find it. And that’s just friction right there.

Blake: Whereas if they found us through a Google search because they’re searching about Quickbooks, then they would just click play and oh, now it’s there. And they want to get straight to the Quickbooks stuff because that’s what they’re interested in. Accountants like to get straight to the point. They can just scroll through the transcript and then click on whatever they want to hear.

“The Sonix media player is awesome” 🙂

Blake: For me, the embedded web player is awesome. There’s transcription services out there, lots of them, but nobody has a web player that works as well as yours.

Sonix is the best online audio transcription software in 2019.

The above audio transcript of “How the Cloud Accounting Podcast DOUBLED its listeners” was transcribed by the best audio transcription service called Sonix. If you have to convert audio to text in 2019, then you should try Sonix. Transcribing audio files is painful. Sonix makes it fast, easy, and affordable. I love using Sonix to transcribe my audio files.

New to Sonix? Click here for 30 free transcription minutes!

Education Automated subtitles and captions for LinkedIn videos

Problem: Creating captions is a headache

Creating subtitles and captions for your LinkedIn videos is time-consuming and painful. You could pay someone to do it for you, but that’s expensive and the turnaround time could be days or even weeks. There is a faster and easier way: An automated caption generator powered by artificial intelligence and natural language processing.

Solution: Automated caption generator

Sonix uses the latest artificial intelligence to create subtitles and captions automatically for your LinkedIn videos. Simply upload your video file to Sonix and you’ll receive a full transcript of your video in less than 6 minutes. From there you just export an SRT (SubRip Subtitle) file and insert it into your video on LinkedIn. It’s that simple.

Step-by-step: Automated subtitles & captions step-by-step

In Sonix:

  1. Upload your file to Sonix (https://sonix.ai)
  2. Click Transcribe
  3. Once you receive your transcript (approx 6 minutes), open your transcript
  4. Click EXPORT and choose “SubRip subtitle file (*.srt)”

In LinkedIn:

  1. From the LinkedIn “Start a post” box, click the video icon
  2. Once the video preview appears, click the edit icon (small pencil) in the upper right corner below the X.
  3. Click “Select file” and choose the file you exported from Sonix and click save.
  4. You can add additional text or hashtags to your post and then click post.
  5. You will get a notification once the video is uploaded, processed, and ready to view.

That’s it. It only takes a few minutes to create captions. No more headaches creating subtitles manually!

Education How to record better audio on your phone

Transcribe high quality audio from events with Sonix - how to better record audio from your phone

There’s a smartphone in your pocket everywhere you go. You can make phone calls with it using the built-in microphone. And with easy to use recording apps, you the ability to easily record in-person interviews, lectures, and meetings.

But when you re-listen to these recordings, the audio just doesn’t sound quite right. Sometimes the audio sounds muffled, or there’s a lot of intrusive background noise, or you can’t easily discern certain words and phrases. Don’t worry, this is completely normal.

Bad audio quality is something that you and your listeners can quickly detect and be frustrated about. Not only is it hard to listen to, but it’s hard to understand what is being said. Automated transcription services such as Sonix have a hard time with low quality audio recordings.

What should you do? Well, you don’t have to buy thousands of dollars of gear or book a recording studio to have great sound. It’s easy to capture great audio from your phone by simply tweaking a few key settings, changing how you record, and for the best results: invest in a portable microphone.

Tweak your recording settings:

Put your phone on airplane mode and mute your notifications.

By putting your phone in airplane mode, you prevent phone calls and text messages from interrupting your recordings. Also, most phones have a “Do not disturb” feature, this will prevent notifications and vibrations from interrupting your audio recording.

iPhone (iOS): Voice Memo app (included with your iPhone)

Improve the audio quality by recording in lossless format (which is a non-compressed audio file). You can easily do this by going to Settings > Voice Memos > Audio Quality and choosing “Lossless.”

iPhone (iOS): Voice Record Pro app (free with ads or ad-free for $7 USD)

Voice Record Pro is a more powerful version of the built in Voice Memos app. You can control the gain, sample rate, bit rate, and encode quality. You’ll need to use trial and error to see what settings will suit the environment that you are recording in. Try a short test recording and re-listen to it with headphones to see what settings decrease the environmental distortion and sounds clearest.

Android: Titanium Recorder (free with ads)

Titanium Recorder is a powerful voice recorder. Tap the menu button (it has three dots in the top right of the screen) and choose Settings. Here, like in Voice Record Pro, you can adjust the sample rate, bit rate, and gain to make sure that your audio recording is clear in the environment that you are recording in. Just like above, try a short test recording and re-listen to your recording with headphones and change the settings as necessary.

Change how you record:

Ensure that your microphones are not covered or obstructed.

First, find where your phone’s microphones are located. They are usually at the bottom of the smartphone because that’s where you’d speak into if you were making a phone call. They could also be by the camera(s). Just make sure that when you are recording, you don’t have a case or your finger covering these microphones. By uncovering your microphones, you will prevent your recording from sounding muffled or garbled.

Point your microphones towards your main speaker.

Most phone microphones are directional and if your microphones are pointed away from the main speaker, it relies on the echos or reverberations of the speaker’s voice off of the wall or table. These echos are really hard to decipher and cause the audio quality to be very poor.

For big rooms, bring the microphone closer to the speaker.

If you are recording in a conference room and want to better transcribe your meeting minutes, pass the phone around from speaker to speaker. Having the microphone closer to the speaker will make the audio sound much better. Also, if you are recording a lecture or a speech, sit in the front row if possible; do not try to record from ten rows back.

Portable microphones you should consider:

An external microphone will give you the best audio quality.

By supercharging your phone with an external microphone, you will ensure that you have the best recordings. However, it’s a challenge to choose which microphones will work best with your phone. iPhones require the microphones to have a Lightning connector, while Android phones require the microphones to have a USB-C connector.

Based on our interviews with a few of our most active customers here at Sonix, we have narrowed down the list to a few affordable options:

iPhone: Sennheiser HandMic Digital

The hand-held Sennheiser HandMic Digital is ideal for recording speeches and is great for mobile journalists, podcasters, and musicians. It is a top quality microphone with a high-quality cardioid microphone with a shockmount – which allows it to significantly reduce handling noise while recording only the speaker and eliminating any side noise. It has a lightning adapter so you just plug it into your iPhone and you’ll have instant broadcast quality recordings as long as you hold the microphone close to the speaker. The Sennheiser HandMic Digital Microphone is available on Amazon for $259.

iPhone: Shure MV88 iOS Digital Stereo Condenser Microphone

The Shure MV88 iOS condenser microphone conveniently connects to the bottom of your iPhone and provides a stereo microphone to capture more of the surrounding environment instead of just one speaker. It automatically can adjust the EQ, compression, and limiting features to guarantee that you always get the optimal results. This microphone is built for the on-the-go journalist for when you need a quick and easy microphone to record that on-the-record interview. The Shure MV88 iOS Digital Stereo Condenser Microphone is available on Amazon for $149.

Android: Beyerdynamic FOX USB Condenser Microphone

The desktop Beyerdynamic Fox Microphone is a studio grade quality microphone that you can put on a desk or a table when recording and it will give you great audio quality over USB-C. It has a large diaphragm condenser capsule that will accurately reproduce your voice and eliminate a lot of environmental noise. The Beyerdynamic FOX USB Condenser Microphone is available on Amazon for $149.

Both iPhone and Android: Apogee MiC +

The Apogee MiC Plus is a professional studio quality microphone that you can plug into both your iOS devices (iPhone, iPad), Andoid, or Mac/PC. This microphone is incredibly flexible and can record any sound from interviews to podcasts to vocals to music. It’s small enough to fit in your pocket so it is perfect for recording on the go and has flexible connectivity over both lighting and USB-C. Just plug it into your phone and you are ready to get a high quality recording with increased dynamic range. The Apogee MiC Plus is available on Amazon for $259.

Lavalier Microphone: BOYA Omnidirectional Clip-on Lapel Mic

For a more subtle approach, you might want to consider clipping a lavalier microphone to a tie, shirt, collar and then run the cable to your phone under your clothing. This is great for capturing great sound during a video without having to hand hold a microphone. A lavalier microphone helps capture high-quality, clear sounds because by clipping it to your clothing you guarantee that it is only capturing your voice.  The BOYA Lavalier Microphone model BY-DM1 is the iPhone/Lightning version that’s available on Amazon for $69.95, and the BOYA Lavalier Microphone model BY-DM2 is the Android/USB-C version that’s available on Amazon for $69.95.

One final thought:

Not only will having high quality audio recordings improve the quality of your automated transcriptions with Sonix, they will also benefit your listeners who have a higher likelihood to stay better engaged with your content. If you only were to do one thing as a result of reading this article, we would highly suggest that you add a portable microphone.

Or if you are truly rebellious, you can add a standalone portable digital recorder such as the Zoom H1n Portable Digital Recorder (available on Amazon for $139.95) and have a fully dedicated, pocket-sized device for your recording needs.