Microphones & audio

• Hollyland Lark A1, £40. Good starter microphone.
• DJI Mic Mini, £70. High quality microphone.
• Rode Wireless Go, £150 to £200. Great to have onboard backup recording.

Yes. Leave the phone next to the chair, within hearing distance. It doesn't need to be on you.

Charging is the single most common hardware issue. Always check the microphone is genuinely charged before a session, because the case can read as full when the transmitters are not.

• Check for a blue plastic sticker or tab on the transmitters. On new units this blocks the charging contacts. Remove it.
• If the transmitters won't take charge in the case, try charging them individually.
• There's no battery-level readout in the app. A fully charged transmitter comfortably lasts one morning, so use the second transmitter for the afternoon.

This nearly always comes down to one of two things:

1. 1The microphone wasn't charged.
2. 2The wrong input device was selected in the microphone dropdown. Windows often defaults to the webcam or onboard mic.

The transcript comes back as nonsense, which is a known and rather odd failure mode. There are two ways to recover the appointment:

1. 1Quickly dictate what happened in the appointment. This is fastest for short appointments.
2. 2Download the audio from the microphone's own internal recording. Worth it for longer appointments, but only possible on a microphone with onboard recording, such as a Rode Wireless Go.

Loud fans and full-blast air conditioning have been tested and are fine.

If transcription quality drops, don't assume it's the room. Run a mic test and listen back to the recording. If the playback is quiet or muddy, it's the microphone or the input level, not the AI.