How to Transcribe Bad Quality Audio and Indicate Inaudibles in Transcripts

When doing transcription work, you will encounter some bad-quality dictation.

When is a dictation considered poor quality?

And what can you do when you receive a poor-quality audio file to transcribe?

Poor-quality dictation includes background noise, muffled dictation, overlapping conversations, and speakers that are recorded at different volumes.

Any background noises on audio can make it more difficult for the transcriptionist to hear what is being said and transcribe accurately.

A bad audio recording may contain too many inaudibles to get a useful transcript.

Ideally, all recordings that will need to be transcribed, including interviews and focus groups should be conducted in a quiet setting without noises from traffic, ringing telephones, air conditioners, and heaters. But recordings are often done in less-than-perfect conditions.

When an interview has background noise or the microphone is not placed near the interviewees, the interviewer's questions might be clear but the interviewees' answers may not be. This is a common challenge when transcribing group discussions and other recordings involving multiple people.

So, what should you do when you get a bad-quality recording?

When encountering a poor-quality audio, review and evaluate the quality of the recording and try some of the following methods to see if you can understand what’s said better.

Evaluate the possibility of transcribing a dictation by listening to different parts. Check to find out if the complete tape is bad or if the quality is better at different parts of the dictation.

When transcribing a bad recording inform the client upfront of the additional time it will take to complete the transcription and that there may be many gaps (inaudible) in the transcript.

If you feel that you can’t transcribe the recording at all, notify the client immediately and don’t try to do the impossible unless the client insists and is willing to pay the price for a less-than-perfect transcript.

You don’t want to guarantee turnaround times with difficult audio because it will depend on how difficult the audio is.

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4 tips to make it easier to transcribe bad-quality audio.

1 – Play the complete audio. You'll get used to the voices and become familiar with the content. Replay parts of the audio several times and try your best to make out what is said but don’t guess.

2 – Slow down and speed up the recording. This may help to distinguish the words better. Slowing the audio down often helps with clarity issues.

3 – Listen with a good-quality headset or earphones. A good quality headset will help. Headphones give you better sound, will help you hear better what’s being said, and will make it easier to transcribe as accurately as possible. The Spectra USB transcription headset and the Spectra transcription earbuds are popular headsets for transcription.

Below are some popular transcription headsets:

4 – Enhance the audio with a sound editor. You'll only need to use a sound editor in rare situations where hard-to-hear dictation must be recovered. Audio and sound editors can remove background noise and enhance the audio so you can hear the voices better and make it easier to transcribe bad quality audio. 

Audacity, a free sound editor, can remove noise and clean up the sound. The free transcription software, Express Scribe has an audio clean-up tool that can eliminate background noises but sound editors can do an even better job.

How to indicate inaudible words

How should a transcriptionist handle inaudibles?  

If a section of the audio is hard-to-hear or if you don't understand one or more words or sentences, pay attention to the context to help understand what is said, but don’t guess!

Instead, mention [inaudible] or [unintelligible] or [several inaudible words]. It's even better to add the timestamp to the [inaudible], e.g. “[inaudible at 00:13:42]” so that the reader can quickly find and listen to the inaudible part.

It is better to indicate that words are inaudible than to transcribe incorrect words. “Inaudible” means that you can't hear it, while “unintelligible” means that you hear sounds but can't make them out but most people just use the term inaudible for both situations.

Some transcriptionists use [] while others use ().  Some companies or clients may instruct you to indicate inaudibles differently. For example, one company is instructing their transcriptionists to use (“word indistinct”), (“3 words indistinct”) (“passage of about 20 words indistinct”). Another company uses [indiscernible].

Words can also be unclear if a person interrupts (put –) or tails off (put … ).

Communicate with your client

When you still can’t understand a recording when using a good headset and you’ve tried to slow down the recording, then you definitely have a poor recording.

After assessing an audio that will be hard to transcribe, inform your client of the problem. Tell them if you think that the audio is viable for transcription. Let them know that you can attempt to enhance the sound (at the client’s expense) and try to transcribe the audio but make them aware that it will take more time, cost more and the transcript will have a lot of gaps. Then ask if they want to proceed with the transcript and pay the extra money.

Some clients are aware of the bad quality audio they give you and the difficulty this causes for transcription while others are not. Some clients may want you to transcribe the poor-quality dictation and try to capture as much as you can – even if you’re only going to be able to transcribe part of the recording. Others may decide that it’s not worth the cost.

When you have to rewind and re-listen over and over again, it can take a long time and be frustrating to transcribe bad audio. Your typical poor audio will just be a little more challenging to transcribe than good-quality audio, take longer, and have more in audibles. But a few poor-quality audios you’ll receive may be bad enough to turn them down.

Transcriptionists have to calculate the extra time and effort it will take when pricing a bad recording.

To avoid getting bad quality audio for transcription, give your clients tips on how to create good quality recordings and inform them that the quality of the audio file will affect the quality of the transcript, the difficulty of transcribing an audio, and the transcription cost.

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