14 Jun Transcription Tips – Add an Amp to your Audio Setup

Contrary to popular belief, transcription can be a dangerous profession. Once and a while, audio gets out of control; background noise, clipping, clicks, the perils are real, and you can save your ears and a big headache by including a simple and affordable audio amp in your setup.

An Amp on Both Your Houses

By including an audio amp in your setup you can have instant control over your audio. There are many benefits to this type of analog audio control, simply dial in your volume and frequency filter preferences. Here are some common examples when an amp can come in handy.

Quiet Audio

Amps allow you to raise the overall gain of any audio source by a significant amount without the introduction of distortion or digital artifacts. This is a very useful capability either while transcribing or while using a transcription in film making or video production. Often scripts are written using the audio before it has been polished by the sound engineer. If you can hear it, you cant determine if that sound byte fits with the rest of your audio, and you wont know if its fit for the editors razor until its too late.

“Hot” Audio

On the contrary, if the audio has been mixed so loud that its deafening, you have percision control over the volume level and can thus easily find the sweet spot that wont hurt your ears and cause audio fatigue. There is no recovery for damaged hearing, so protect your valuable assets, your ears!

Unstable Levels

Sometimes audio will change rapidly in volume up or down because of poor and inconsiderate recording or mixing. Having a physical dial in front of you can save your life if all of a sudden your volume increases by 24 dB. And it can allow you to continue working if all of a sudden the volume drops by an unreasonable amount.

Control Your Frequency

Vocals usually sit in the mid to high mid frequency ranges, dropping off at the lows and the highs. With a decent amp, you can increase or decrease the volume of independent frequency bands so the audio source your working with comes through clean and the rest of the mix falls to the background. Kill; the lows and highs and save yourself some ear strain.

Plug and Play

You don’t need to run out and buy a 1000 watt professional PA amplifier for this type of application. There are many simple affordable amps out there and the simplicity will keep price down and get you working quickly. Including an amp in your audio setup  is a no brainer, for your ears sake you might want to consider this advice.