By Bill Spiegel, Byline Editor
Every once in a while, something happens that makes you think, scratch your head in wonder, spend hours on the line with tech support and then, well, curse.
Last month, I launched Voice Memos on my iPhone to record an interview. I’ve done it hundreds of times, just as many of you have. The interview went well, albeit longer than usual, but the quotes were magnificent; the anecdotes charming; there was even some ambient conversation that helped give more substance to my interview.
But when I got ready to transcribe the interview, just 1 minute and 15 seconds of the 2 hour interview were recorded. Oddly, the Voice Memo indicated it was recording the whole time, and in fact, I had checked it several times during the interview to note the time of key quotes. But in a weird, complex, techno-freaky way – my trusty iPhone didn’t get the whole thing.
I spent hours trying to capture the file. I consulted first Google, then ChatGPT, which gave me step-by-step instructions to try and find this file: first, spend $60 on recovery software, dive into the innards of my iPhone like I’m an engineer, deliver queries that sounded like code. And then, after I had exhausted all options, ChatGPT gave me the news I feared all along “…occasionally a voice memo doesn’t ‘write’ to the phone’s storage.”
In my mind, ChatGPT delivered this message in a meek, almost apologetic voice.
And then, it offered this helpful advice: get a secondary option to record interviews in the future.
Oof. Of course it did. Thanks for that, Artificial Intelligence. Now, it also added that users of Otter, Rev or Temi (or whatever transcription service you use) can record directly to that app during an interview, which I often do. However, this assignment was in the middle of cell phone purgatory where there was no signal…and it just felt more responsible to record directly to my iPhone. Silly me.
In lieu of using Voice Memo, here is some gear you may wish to throw in your kit to do interviews. The first two are basic, robust audio recorders which write audio files to a memory card, which you’ll have to transfer to your computer. The last, Plaud, is something I really don’t understand but a public relations friend of mine swears by it.
· Zoom H1essential 2-Track 32-Bit Float Portable Audio Recorder, $109.99, B&H Photo, Video and Audio.
· TASCAM DR-05XP 2-Channel 32-Bit Float Portable Audio Recorder, $109.00, B&H Photo, Video and Audio· Plaud Note, $159.00, Plaud.ai
-Spiegel writes for JB Spiegel Inc.