Recordings and transcription

Record

Tap Recordings (the microphone in the note’s toolbar) to start; tap it again to stop. Hold it for the menu: Record (Stop Recording while recording) and a submenu for each recording (Play, Show Transcript once it has one, Transcribe, Rename…, Delete). All Recordings… is in the note’s ⋯ menu. On the iPhone, Recordings is in ⋯ too. On the Mac, use Note ▸ Start Recording (⌃⌘M) and Note ▸ Recordings… (⌃⌘R).

While you record, a bar shows Pause, Resume and Stop. Write as usual. When you stop, the recording becomes a card on the page that you can move, and it is encrypted into the note like everything else.

Sempere needs microphone access. If you said no once, allow it in the device’s Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Microphone (on a Mac, System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Microphone). Recording continues with the screen locked or the app in the background. If another app takes the audio (a call), the bar says “Paused: another app is using the audio”.

Hear what you wrote

Strokes written during a recording remember the moment they were written.

• During playback, the strokes written at that moment are highlighted.
• Turn on Tap Ink to Play in the player, then tap something you wrote to hear that moment.
• In a transcript, tap a word to play from there.

All Recordings… lists every recording of the note, with its length, whether it has a transcript and which pages show it. Each row has Play, and an actions menu with Place on This Page, Show Transcript, Transcribe (Transcribe Again once it has a transcript), Rename… and Delete.

Transcription

Transcription is off by default. Turn it on in Settings ▸ Audio & Transcription ▸ Transcription ▸ Transcribe Recordings on This Device. Transcripts are made on the device with Apple’s speech recognition and stored encrypted in the note; no audio or text is sent anywhere.

• Preferred Language (shown once transcription is on): Automatic uses the note’s language, else the device’s. It is one control for both of Apple’s speech engines: Sempere picks SpeechTranscriber, or SFSpeechRecognizer for a language the first lacks, and a line under the picker says which.
• Download Language Model appears when the language needs a model download from Apple. The model contains none of your data.
• With transcription on, each recording is transcribed when it is saved. The Transcribe command works on any recording either way.
• To search transcripts, turn on Search Recording Transcripts.

Recording quality

Settings ▸ Audio & Transcription ▸ Recording sets the Format (AAC-LC, HE-AAC or Apple Lossless), the Quality (bit rate, 64 kbit/s by default; not offered for Apple Lossless), the Sample Rate (48 kHz) and the Channels (Mono by default, or Stereo, used only when the microphone has two), and shows about how much space an hour takes under Size. Changes apply to new recordings.

Recording without opening a note

Quick voice notes record from the Lock Screen, a widget, Control Center, the Action button, Siri or the Mac’s menu bar, without unlocking the vault. See Quick voice notes.

For a full class or meeting, see the tutorial Lecture notes with audio.