- For sure, I think most quickly and creatively when I talk out loud.
- And I express most succinctly when I type.
- Too often I have flourishes of thoughts that I wish I could reclaim.
Sometimes I’ve gone so far as to record them as audio files.
And now, I hope, I’ve found a means to blend these two worlds: MacSpeech Dictate.
We’ll see…
So I went down to the Toronto Eaton Centre Apple Store today and bought MacSpeech. Retail. (I realised that the CAD is doing so pathetically against the USD that even with cheaper software prices in the US this was less expensive to buy in Canada. And, I had to get the packaging because it includes a hardware USB noise cancelling voice-enhancer. When I bought VMware Fusion, for which I had Amazon.com post the CD + packaging to a friend in the US and then got the friend to email me the registration code and throw away the CD etc: insanely cost 50% less than buying online, but, forgive me, I digress. )
I installed MacSpeech this afternoon, tried to set up a profile and it crashed. Repeatedly. For you geeks: SIGBUS. In the background I could see it waiting to update the software, but was unable to do so until I got past the profile set up. Eventually, after giving up on waiting for a reply from @macspeech on twitter, I did discover how to update the software from the MacSpeech site. There’s no “Download” link apparent, but you can find it on http://www.macspeech.com/pages.php?pID=13
So! I have audio recordings, many of them. Some of just me, others of me talking to clients. I want transcripts. Not perfect ones, just transcripts good enough to find the piece of audio that matches a given keyword.
I determined that MacSpeech “doesn’t support” audio files created outside the context of either the supplied headset or one of a set of specific digital voice recorders. Well, I’m not looking for perfect transcripts and, given that I already have the audio files, and have an iPhone so will be using that to record (if at all possible), I want a way to input from plain audio, accepting that the higher the bit rate the better accuracy I can expect.
I’ll find out tomorrow if the following little gem works:
I installed Dictate yesterday, and tested it while recording a podcast with Audacity, using Soundflower and the “Software Playthrough” feature (look in Audio I/O prefs) on Audacity.
I first had to set up a profile with Soundflower (2ch) as the audio device, but Software Playthrough made that work just fine. I was able to read the text in the Dictate window into Audacity, and Dictate picked it all up seamlessly.
A note on practicalities: I had intended to dictate the whole of this blog post, but doing that will have to wait as I am writing this from the comfort of my bed whilst my wife and child are nearby, and sleeping. For now I am typing, inspired by the possibilities. And soon, I’ll dream them too.
