7 Best Audio Transcription Software in 2023 – just that? And yes: as you probably know, requests for audio transcription are booming right now. Audio transcription, what is it? This involves making a text version of a voice recording.
What is the point ? The uses are actually multiple. They can range from subtitling a video to text recycling a podcast.
Or, from the transcription of interviews to the voice dictation of a document to save time or to the minutes of a meeting.
This is why there is a demand for audio transcription in business, education, journalism or academic research.
Audio transcription, as we will see, provides valuable services. The problem is that it is unfortunately very time-consuming in its artisanal form.
Saving you time: this is the whole point of the 7 Best audio transcription tools that we are going to present to you in this article.
Table of Contents
What good is audio transcription?
What justifies the proliferation of audio transcription Software is both the diversity of fields of use and the positive effects that are expected from them.
In the case of journalism or academic research, audio transcription can be a real professional necessity: an interview or an in-depth study requires a precise account of the words exchanged with the speaker interviewed, the reliability of the final article.
We also know how much, today, a “little sentence” of a badly transcribed personality can have disastrous consequences on his image…
In the case of companies, the audio transcription can be used for official communication purposes, for example in the case of minutes of board meetings or CSE meetings.
Here again, the error is not allowed, since this document then prevails with the employees not present at the meeting.
In the case of a site seeking to diversify its content marketing, the audio transcription of a podcast, for example, makes it possible to obtain a practical textual form since it consumes little data and can be recycled in many formats (long article blog type, short publication on social networks, white paper, etc.).
This makes it easy to diversify the communication channels for its prospects.
From an ethical point of view, audio transcription is not to be outdone, since it makes it possible to reach a wider audience, including people who are hard of hearing.
To these must be added the increasing number of viewers reading subtitled videos in silent mode, especially in a professional context or on public transport, for example.
Finally, audio transcription activates significant SEO issues. Indeed, the transcription of audio into text allows Google robots to index the content of your videos when crawling your site.
Best Audio Transcription Software Tools
Happy Scribe
Make way for the second audio transcription Software: I named Happy Scribe ! This is ideal for subtitles.
It comes with a solid project management platform: this enables a seamless collaborative workflow and facilitates teamwork.
For large volumes, it is possible to file its transcriptions in internal files.
Happy Scribe offers the possibility to integrate its own personalized vocabulary and to synchronize third-party tools. It works with all existing subtitle formats.
Happy Scribe has two distinct types of prices: 0.20 euros per minute recorded for a transcription by AI, with 85% accuracy, or 2.20 euros per minute recorded for a transcription by a native transcriber with 99% accuracy.
Trint
Trintis the first of the 7 audio transcription Software tools that we will introduce to you in this article. It is an AI based audio transcription software resulting in an editable text file. 31 languages are available on Trint.
This has several very practical features, including the possibility of naming the speakers present, listing technical words and adding reminder markers to certain more complex passages.
Trint makes your life easier, since you have the possibility to follow the transcription process in real time and easily edit the text because you can listen to the audio file as the transcription progresses.
Additionally, Trint offers a real-time transcription service for live events. The resulting file can be exported in .doc and .csv format, and sending by email is possible directly from the platform.
Rev Speech to Text
Rev Speech-to-Textpresents itself as a gigantic platform of professional human transcribers. The advantage of this gigantism is for you a remarkable reduction in costs, around 1.25 USD per recorded minute. Subtitling is also available, at a higher rate.
For a human and non-automatic transcription, the deadlines make you dizzy as they are fast: 2 hours for texts of less than 10 minutes, 24 hours for texts of more than 60 minutes. The resulting files are compatible with Google Drive to facilitate document sharing.
Amberscript
Last in our selection of 7 audio transcription tools, Amberscript is an AI-powered speech recognition software specializing in English transcription.
It has a GDPR compliance label for the confidentiality of the audio data entrusted to it.
Like some other tools, it distinguishes between automatic transcription (resulting in an editable file), which is inexpensive and ideal for occasional transcription without major issues, and high-precision manual transcription, ideal for a long-term partnership.
Dragon
Dragon is a speech recognition tool developed by Nuance Communication. It goes further than many of its competitors: it presents itself as a global solution to be integrated into all its peripherals.
Not only does it help with audio transcription, but also to make your voice your best work tool to save time, for example with dictating documents, publishing posts on the networks or mastering your computer alone. by voice.
The Dragon software is available in a “home” version and a “professional” version. It integrates with the Office Suite, Messenger and allows dictation under Open Office. Its continuous adaptation to the voice, operating on the principle of deep learning, allows it to improve constantly.
Additionally, you can create a glossary of technical words, automated tasks, and acronyms. Dragon is compatible with a bluetooth headset and a headset with microphone and earpiece.
Disadvantage: A downside however: before using it, you have to install it via a CD (which takes about twenty minutes), then go through the learning session (which takes several hours).
A very cumbersome start-up process, therefore.
Dragon will therefore be reserved for professional use, for very recurrent audio transcriptions or for those whose voice has other uses than audio transcription.
Express Scribe
Express Scribe is professional software, particularly suitable for journalists. It supports CDs and more than 40 audio and video formats, has keyboard shortcuts for mouse-free playback, is compatible with professional transcribers’ USB foot pedals. In addition, it is compatible with FastFox, a developer of text listing common phrases in the medical and legal fields.
Other advantages of this fifth audio transcription tool: playback at variable speed, reduction of background noise, interface giving a good user experience since it combines a left window for audio file listened to with a right window for typing the text heard.
Finally, Express Scribe can send the final text directly to the client after transcription is complete, if you enable this mode.
Dictation
Dictation is an online voice recognition tool. Special sign ? It can only be used in Google Chrome, as it requires the voice recognition system of the browser. Its default setting is in the language used in your browser.
The advantage of Dictation? Its extreme ease of use: just activate your microphone and start dictating.
It’s very practical for taking voice notes, and building up a virtual notepad capable of saving you time while noting all your ideas that arise.
Admittedly, Dictation needs internet access for voice recognition, but the texts thus created remain offline, stored in the cache memory of your computer.
Transcription does not mean writing
This review of 7 audio transcription tools has allowed us to detail the characteristics of each, and to note the interests of each according to the type of professional use required. However, it must be said what is: technology does not mean miracle. Indeed, where a software, as powerful as it is, only hears wavelengths, sounds, a human transcriber hears meaning.
In the end, it can therefore be counterproductive to want to save time and money by entrusting an important transcription to a purely automated service.
Indeed, you will then have to resort to a meticulous human service provider to carry out the necessary rework.
Only a human ear and, moreover, a professional one, will be able to distinguish which language tic to remove, which punctuation to add, which innuendo.
And it is these apparent details that in fact make all the value of a text, whether it is a subtitle, the minutes of a meeting or the text version of a podcast.