# Anyone sought a good mp3 to text conversion software, free, for pay? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 8, 2019, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462 "2019-10-08T01:41:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/1 "2019-10-08T01:41:39Z")
I’m just starting. I need to convert audio diaries. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/2 "2019-10-08T17:09:59Z")
You could try one of these. [Five Ways to Easily Convert Audio Files to Text](https://www.maketecheasier.com/convert-audio-to-text/) ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/3 "2019-10-08T17:14:41Z")
For transcriptions of recorded client meetings, I use [Trint.com](http://Trint.com) based on a few minutes of Googling the options out there. I’ve been pleased by the quality, even in meeting where multiple people are in attendance at varying distances from the mike. It’s not perfect when a bunch of people start talking at once, and it doesn’t yet to speaker differentiation, but that doesn’t sound like what you are looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/4 "2019-10-08T20:40:57Z")
[Moderating] Since you’re asking for advice, this will fit better in IMHO. Moving. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/5 "2019-10-08T23:39:29Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > For transcriptions of recorded client meetings, I use [Trint.com](http://Trint.com) based on a few minutes of Googling the options out there. I’ve been pleased by the quality, even in meeting where multiple people are in attendance at varying distances from the mike. It’s not perfect when a bunch of people start talking at once, and it doesn’t yet to speaker differentiation, but that doesn’t sound like what you are looking for. I just went on there and initiated a free trial. The first file is 1400 mb, maybe 3 hours. Boy is that upload slow! It can’t be more than 50 mb a minute. Did you find out any insider tips, maybe about using a cloud or some device to load the material up? ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/6 "2019-10-08T23:41:14Z")
BTW:If it matters, the files I have are actually Wave. I could change the setting on that I suppose, if waves are a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/7 "2019-10-09T05:20:38Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > I just went on there and initiated a free trial. The first file is 1400 mb, maybe 3 hours. Boy is that upload slow! It can’t be more than 50 mb a minute. Did you find out any insider tips, maybe about using a cloud or some device to load the material up? Well, the tools I use to record meetings aren’t anywhere near the fidelity your files seem to be. I’d guess it’s worth a transcode/compression pass locally then upload. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/8 "2019-10-09T06:18:19Z")
Trint works really well but is expensive. 3 hours will cost you $40. And it does do speaker separation at the “basic” subscription level. Definitely convert it to a mp3 or ogg or something first before uploading it. You can probably shrink it down to a couple hundred megabytes without losing much quality (if it’s just talking). VLC or Audacity can both do that for free. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/9 "2019-10-09T21:53:11Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > It can’t be more than 50 mb a minute. You’re right, it can’t. Uncompressed CD audio is only around 10 MB a minute. Compressed to MP3, voice recordings [are fine at 64 kilobits per second/8 kilobytes per second](https://www.richardfarrar.com/choosing-bit-rates-for-podcasts/)–less than half a meg a minute. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/10 "2019-10-09T21:57:18Z")
Too late to edit, I see you mean the upload speed, not the audio bitrate. Either way, your 3 hours of talking should be less than 100 MB compressed. ---
**Author:** ![justanothermike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c2a13f/32.png) [@justanothermike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justanothermike)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/11 "2019-10-09T22:03:26Z")
I looked for a long time because I wanted my podcasts transcribed and I too landed on Trint. They did good enough work, not great, as it’s just a software program doing the work, but it was passable. Wav files are much larger than mp3, as someone else stated, so convert to that and it will upload faster. So basically I’m just agreeing with others. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/12 "2019-10-10T00:29:24Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Too late to edit, I see you mean the upload speed, not the audio bitrate. Either way, your 3 hours of talking should be less than 100 MB compressed. I’m on audacity right now. Is there a choice of mp3 bitrate on the conversion? Like I could make the file really small? But then would there be legibility issues? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-sought-a-good-mp3-to-text-conversion-software-free-for-pay/841462/13 "2019-10-10T01:20:55Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > I’m on audacity right now. Is there a choice of mp3 bitrate on the conversion? Like I could make the file really small? But then would there be legibility issues? [Here](https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/mp3_export_options.html) are the settings. As I mentioned, 64kbs is pretty good for voice only (no music) recordings, and should be transcribe-able. You \*might \*could get by with 32kbs, you would have to experiment to see.