How to Transcribe Audio Lightning Fast

Getting speeds up to 2x as fast as professional transcriptionists

The first time you try automatic transcription there’s a decent chance it’ll make your jaw drop. The technology has begun to approach that point of being “indistinguishable from magic” — transforming audio recordings into their written counterparts in a matter of minutes.

But: that technological wizardry is still a work in progress. Most recordings are liable to result in mis-transcriptions sprinkled throughout — and if you’re working with audio recorded under poor conditions, or with speakers with thick accents, you may get a transcript with lower accuracy than you’re hoping for.

That’s why Descript is built with the assumption that you’ll want to clean up your transcript. We know you probably won’t get a perfect result right off the bat, so we’ve incorporated a powerful editor designed to help you get your transcript fit-for-print as efficiently as possible — and the tips below will tell you how.

In tandem with Descript’s state-of-the-art automated transcription, this guide will help you complete your transcript up to five times faster than if you transcribed by hand.

(This article is focused on Descript for Mac. If you’re using the recently-launched Descript for Windows, you can look forward to getting all of these features very soon. For now, don’t miss our list of Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows.)

Step 1: Get your automatic transcript

This is the easy part.

First, make sure you’ve downloaded and installed Descript. Next, import your voice audio file into the app; it will use Google Speech’s state-of-the-art technology to generate a transcript faster than you can read this guide.

Once you have your transcript ready: Onwards!

Keep going.

A common approach to transcript correction is to listen to your audio as you scan the text looking for errors (makes sense!)

While you’re doing this, it’s natural to repeatedly hit the play/stop button each time you go to correct a transcription error, so that the audio doesn’t get ahead of you. Aside from being tedious, this can slow you down, big-time. That’s why Descript comes with tools for streamlining this process.

First, there’s speed control, which will let you slow down or speed up playback, from half-speed up to double-speed. To access it, click the Speedometer icon at the top of the app.

Speed Control Options

Descript also offers a unique feature called Patient Playback, which detects when you’re making corrections and intelligently adjusts the playback speed accordingly — slowing down as you fix a typo, and speeding back up when you’ve finished. This means you can leave your audio playing without having to frantically hit the ⏯ button as you make corrections. Try it out!

Patient Playback (no pausing required!)

Meet The Dynamic Duo

Descript simultaneously displays both a Text Cursor — the same sort you’d find in a normal word processor — and a blue Playhead that indicates the current position of your audio playback. Thanks to keyboard shortcuts, you can control both at the same time.

Here’s one way to take advantage of this. One of Descript’s special keyboard shortcuts is Attach Cursor to Playhead — you can invoke it by hitting the Esc key. This will make your text cursor hop onboard the blue playhead, following it as it traverses the transcript.

Then, when you spot a discrepancy between your audio and your text, you can use your arrow keys to swiftly move your cursor and correct it. Because the cursor is riding the playhead, it should be just a few keystrokes away from the text you’re after.

This can take a little practice, but once you get the hang of it it can really set you off to the races.

Attach Cursor to Playhead

Let the Editor Help

Descript has some subtle time-saving tricks baked in. You can always undo these — but usually, you won’t want to.

• Automatic Capitalization — Whenever you add a period to your transcript, Descript will capitalize the following letter.
• Speaker Label Suggestion — You can quickly add a speaker label using the shortcut Command + R. Descript will intelligently pre-populate the label with the name of the speaker whose turn it probably is (in a conversation with two speakers, it’s typical for speakers to alternate, so Descript will guess accordingly). If the app guesses wrong, you can just type in the correct speaker’s name.

Become one with your keyboard️

We’ve saved the best for last.

Pointing and clicking works fine for correcting a transcript that has just a few errors. But when it comes to more substantial revisions, there’s no comparison: getting comfortable with your keyboard is essential.

Descript offers many powerful keyboard shortcuts spanning most of the app’s features; we’ve outlined some of the essentials below, and here’s a full list of shortcuts.

If you’re working with transcripts regularly, it’s worth learning these — they can make a tremendous difference!

Audio Playback & Navigation

• Start / Pause audio playback: Option + Space
• Begin audio playback from the text cursor. This is super useful if you want to re-listen to a section: Option + Shift + Space
• Begin audio playback from a specific part of the transcript (handy for when playback is getting ahead of you and you want to bring it back to your cursor position):Option + Click on the transcript
• Attach cursor to playhead (see above for tips on how to use this): Esc
• Jump audio playback 5 seconds backwards. Useful if you’d like to go back to hear what you’ve just corrected. Option + [
• Jump audio playback 5 seconds forward. Useful if you’d like to skip quickly through a section. Option + ]

Standard Mac shortcuts. These work in most Mac apps; you’ll already know them if you’re a keyboard text editing master. They’re great for zipping around your document.

• Option + ←/→ to move the cursor one word to the left/right.
• Command + ←/→ to move the cursor to the beginning/end of the current line.
• Add Shift to either of the above to make it a selection.

Formatting

• Insert Marker: Command + Return
• Insert Speaker Label: Command + R
• Bold: Command + B
• Italic: Command + I
• Highlight: Command + Shift + H

Looking for more tips? Don’t miss Descript’s extensive documentation, and keep an eye on this blog — we’ve got plenty more time-saving features in the pipeline!

This article is focused on Descript for Mac. If you’re using the recently-launched Descript for Windows, you can look forward to getting all of these features soon. For now, don’t miss our Windows Overview and list of Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows.