Make notes in your voice directly inside Obsidian (Without switching apps)
99% of the time I use my mobile to make notes inside my obsidian (Second Brain).
Sometimes I make notes while walking. When walking, I don’t like to glue my eyes down to my mobile and walk. if I do so I would miss the beautiful sunrise and sunset views (I can watch them for hours straight) and in the worst cases, I would fall off the walking track too.
So, I found that the way out of this problem is voice notes.
Making notes with your voice.
I tried using an in-built voice recorder on my mobile and going online to fetch the transcript and then copy-pasting into my obsidian vault. This is cumbersome and it started to create friction to make notes itself.
I also tried the Ottter.ai app too. It works great but I had to manually paste the transcripts inside my Obsidian vault.
Then I felt it would be nice to take notes inside Obsidian and get the transcript instantly there without switching apps or paying multiple apps to do this task.
Finally, one community plugin (It’s FREE!) came to my rescue to shoo away these woes
Enter Audio Notes Plugin by Jason Maldonis
It allows me to record voice notes directly inside your obsidian vault switching apps.
The Best part?
My voice (no matter how bad the voice) gets automatically transcripted online using Deepgram AI and is inserted straight into my active note. I can also edit the transcription.
There’s, even more, the best part
I also get an audio player with media controls on the top for each audio note along with the transcript below. I can play the recording while I read the transcript.
PS: A free account from the Deepgram AI website is needed for getting an API key. Under the free plan, you get 200$ credits which is more sufficient for regular usage. It will cost you only 0.26$ if you speak for an hour.
6 Unique ways to customise this plugin to make your notes more personalised
1.Quick capture in a snap.
Don’t let those fleeting ideas slip away into the darkness like catching fireflies on a summer night.
To quickly capture those ideas, I added a command on the title bar using the commander plugin so that I can do the walk while you talk without falling out.
I can specify also the file name, and folder location before I hit record so that I need not search the audio file. If left blank, it will use the default location and default file name.
Whenever I am ready, I hit the record button and express all those fleeting ideas and rambles. Once done, hit stop and the plugin automatically fetches the transcription online and inserts it into your active note.
I also make sure there’s less noise around me so that the transcription will be accurate when rendered.
Bonus: I can also connect my earphones and start speaking out.
2. Speak in your native language
I haven’t personally tested out this setting as I don’t know those other languages other than English.
The plugin has the option to transcribe in 15+ languages including Spanish, French and Hindi
Even in English you get location specific like US, UK, India, AU, NZ. I mostly used the default English US.
If you get any success in any language other than English let me know in the comments.
3. AI model
I can select from 3 of their AI models to suit my requirements.
✦ Nova ($0.26/hr)
✦ Enhanced ($0.87/hr)
✦Base ($0.7/hr).
I use the Nova model the most and that would be enough for casual use. Since I use it for just making voice notes, I don’t expect a perfect transcription.
4. Numbers
When enabled, AI will convert the numbers from written format to numerical format in your transcription.
For example, the number “nine hundred” would appear in your transcript as “900”.
This saves time in rewriting those written numbers to numericals in the transcript.
5. Profanity filter
The Profanity Filter scans my voice for offensive language and substitutes it with a more appropriate word or eliminates it altogether.
With this option I can speak out my thoughts without changing the emotions.
AI will take care of muting or removing it in the transcript.
I just vent it out without any judgements!
6. Keyword boosting
The plugin has a keyword boosting feature that comes in handy when I encounter a rare word in my audio that is not recognized by AI’s default models and I haven’t trained a custom model to identify that word.
This helps me to give more emphasis to those specific keywords in my voice so that AI will understand and make the transcription much better.
Likewise, you can also give negative keywords to avoid or emphasize less on certain keywords which you can’t avoid while speaking.
These both let’s me to keep my voice in flow without any interruptions.
Boom! That’s a wrap.
Hope this article has changed at least 1% the way you use Obsidian on mobile.
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