Tips for Accurate Transcription
Practical ways to get the cleanest audio and the most accurate transcript.
Kalima's transcription engine is accurate out of the box, but the single biggest factor in your results is the audio you feed it. This page collects the practical, proven adjustments that turn a messy transcript into a clean, attributed, ready-to-use record. Most of them take seconds to set up.
Clean audio beats clever editing every time. A good microphone in a quiet room and the right quality mode will do more for your accuracy than any amount of after-the-fact cleanup.
The quick checklist
If you only do five things, do these. Each links to a deeper section below.
- Use a good microphone, close to the speaker. A headset or USB mic beats a built-in laptop mic.
- Pick the right quality mode. Enhanced (the default) for most rooms, Studio for a good mic in a quiet one.
- Add expected-language hints when you know what will be spoken.
- Add session context for names, jargon, and technical terms.
- Encourage one speaker at a time. Overlapping speech is the hardest thing to transcribe.
Get the audio right
Everything downstream depends on what the microphone hears. Spend your effort here first.
Choose the best microphone available
A dedicated microphone almost always beats a built-in laptop mic. Pick your input device in the Studio audio settings and watch the live level meter next to each device while you talk. It confirms the right mic is selected and actually picking up sound before you start an important session.
Bluetooth and wireless headsets (such as AirPods) and virtual or loopback audio cables can add noticeable delay. If Kalima shows a device-latency advisory, consider switching to a wired or built-in microphone for the snappiest, most reliable results.
Mind distance and consistency
Stay a steady, comfortable distance from the microphone. Speaking too far away makes your voice quiet and easy to lose under room noise; moving around mid-sentence makes the level jump. Consistent, clear speech at a normal pace gives the engine the best chance to keep up.
Set recording gain if your level is off
If your input is too quiet (a far-away lapel mic) or too hot (a loud, close mic), adjust the recording gain before you record. The range runs from -12 dB to +12 dB in 1 dB steps, with a default of 0 dB, and your choice is remembered for next time. Nudge it just enough that your voice reads healthy on the level meter without clipping.
Pick the right quality mode
Kalima offers two capture modes. Choosing correctly is one of the highest-impact accuracy decisions you'll make.
The default, and the right choice for most rooms. This mode turns on echo cancellation, noise suppression, and auto-gain to tame background noise and reverb, and to lift speakers who sit away from the mic. It is the same processing your browser already applies to video calls.
Not sure which fits? Use Test modes in the audio settings to compare both on a quick sample, then keep the one that sounds clearest.
Raw mode in a noisy room will faithfully capture the noise along with your voice, which hurts accuracy. When in doubt about your environment, stay on Enhanced mode.
Tell Kalima what to expect
The engine does well on its own, but a few seconds of setup makes it noticeably better, especially for accents, similar-sounding languages, and specialized vocabulary.
Add expected-language hints
Language is detected automatically, and Kalima handles mid-conversation switches between languages. Even so, if you already know what will be spoken, add those languages as expected-language hints in the Languages step. Hints guide recognition toward the right languages without locking others out, which sharpens accuracy for accents and for languages that sound alike. You can add more than one, which is perfect for a meeting you know will be, say, English plus Spanish.
Add session context for names and jargon
Generic transcription often stumbles on people's names, product names, acronyms, and domain terms. Give the engine a head start by adding session context: a short free-text description of the session and a list of key terms. The quick-description field holds up to 2,000 characters. Keep it concise, since very long backgrounds offer diminishing returns.
Context shines in medical, legal, and technical sessions, and in any meeting full of product or company names. Save a reusable context template for recurring meeting types so you never have to re-enter it. Projects can also store default context that applies to every session inside them.
Help the engine separate speakers
Kalima automatically separates and labels speakers (Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on), each in a distinct color, and keeps the numbering consistent across multiple takes in the same session. You can make that easier and cleaner:
- One voice at a time. Overlapping or talking-over speech is the single hardest thing for any transcription engine to attribute correctly. In meetings, encourage people to take turns.
- Watch for very short interjections. A one-word reply over someone else's sentence may occasionally be misattributed; you can fix attribution and rename speakers afterward in the Studio.
Watch the live signals
While recording, two on-screen indicators tell you whether your setup is healthy.
| Signal | What it tells you | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Level meter | Whether the mic is picking up sound and at a good level | Confirm it moves when you speak; adjust gain if it's too low or too high |
| Latency badge | How fast results are arriving (green is fast, yellow is moderate, red is slow) | If it trends yellow or red, switch to a stronger network and a wired mic |
You may also notice that words appear instantly as a fast preliminary version, then settle into a slightly different confirmed version a moment later. That refinement is normal. The engine waits briefly (up to about two seconds) before finalizing a phrase, which produces cleaner, less choppy text. Fainter words in the transcript indicate lower confidence and are worth a second look when you proofread.
Clean up afterward
Even great audio produces the occasional mistake. Once you stop, polish the transcript in the Studio rather than re-recording:
- AutoCorrect+ lets you mark a word or phrase by category and resolve it manually, with AI, or by dismissing it. A confirmed fix can be applied everywhere it appears.
- The transcript editor lets you read, search, and tidy the text, and rename speakers to real names that carry into every export.
Frequently asked questions
Enhanced is the default and the right pick for most rooms, since its noise suppression, echo cancellation, and auto-gain clean up the signal. Switch to Raw when you have a decent microphone in a quiet room and want the audio unprocessed. Use Test modes to compare them on a sample.
Yes, especially for accents and for languages that sound similar. Detection works automatically, but adding the languages you expect guides recognition toward them and noticeably improves accuracy when you already know what will be spoken.
Add it to your session context as a key term, along with a short description of the session. This is the most effective way to teach the engine names, acronyms, product names, and domain vocabulary. Save it as a context template if the same terms come up regularly.
Faint words reflect lower engine confidence. They aren't necessarily wrong, but they're the words most worth double-checking before you rely on the transcript.
Not usually. Speed and accuracy are separate. If the latency badge trends yellow or red, it points to a slow network or a high-latency device such as a Bluetooth headset. Switch to a wired connection and a wired or built-in microphone for faster results.