A Yuletide Apocalypse

O’Reilly: Turn Your Mac into an Audio Transcriber

That’s when I hit on the idea of converting my Mac into a virtual Dictaphone, the kind of remote-controlled tape deck that professional transcribers use. Typically, these systems (which cost hundreds of dollars) play analog cassette tapes under foot pedal control. When you tap the left pedal, the tape will rewind slightly and then resume playing. That’s much more convenient than taking your hands off the keyboard and hitting Stop, Rewind, and Play; and the rewind length is consistent. Holding the pedal will usually rewind the tape further, and the right-hand pedal will stop playback, fast-forward the tape, or perform other functions. Newer Dictaphone-style machines use digital signal processing to maintain the speaker’s pitch while playing back faster or slower.