Support → Audio Hijack

Using the Time Shift Block for manual transcription

If you need to transcribe audio to text, Audio Hijack is here to help. The Transcribe block can handle automatic transcription, but if you need to manually transcribe audio, Audio Hijack can help there as well.

Audio Hijack's Time Shift block makes it easy for you to pause audio to catch up or jump back to hear something again. Whether your task involves live audio or a pre-recorded audio file, Audio Hijack makes it easy to turn speech into text.

Set up your session

To get started on a manual transcription, make a new session in Audio Hijack. The Application Audio template is a great place to start:

Starting with the above setup, you'll want to update the Application block to select the application which is playing the audio you wish to transcribe. For this example, we'll use QuickTime Player.

Once your desired application has been set as the source in the Application block, you'll next want to add a Time Shift block. Place this just before your Output Device block. If you already have a copy of the audio you're transcribing, you can delete the Recorder block. If not, place the Time Shift block after the Recorder block to save a copy of the audio for later review:

With your session setup complete, you'll want to configure keyboard shortcuts. This will provide the fastest way to manipulate your audio playback.

Assign keyboard shortcuts

In Audio Hijack’s Settings window, you can set global keyboard shortcuts for the Time Shift block. These shortcuts work even when Audio Hijack is in the background, so you can control playback while typing in your text editor of choice.

You can set these shortcuts to anything you like. For transcription work, using the keyboard’s playback keys thusly can be logical:

• Shift-F7: Jump Back 10 Seconds
• Shift-F8: Pause/Resume
• Shift-F9: Jump Forward 10 Seconds
• Shift-8: Jump to Live

With these hotkeys set, you can keep your text editor in the foreground as you transcribe. Start your session in Audio Hijack to get the audio playing, and begin audio playback, then work in your text editor to transcribe. To pause and resume the audio flow, or to jump back and forward, use your new global shortcuts.

Additional references

These instructions should get you started. For more depth, see these helpful posts from Six Colors and iMore.