Hearing your own voice as you speak makes it easier to pace yourself and keep a steady volume. This page shows where InterScribe lets you hear your own microphone, and what to do where it does not.
Before you start
- Wear headphones. Never monitor over speakers: the room would hear itself back.
- Prefer wired headphones. Bluetooth headphones add a noticeable delay, and a delayed copy of your own voice makes speaking hard.
In the Interpreter Booth
The Booth does not play your microphone back to you. Your headphones carry the floor, or the channel you listen to, and nothing else. See Set up your booth audio.
To hear yourself with no delay, use hardware that plays your voice itself, before it reaches the computer:
- A headset with built-in sidetone, which feeds your own voice into the earpieces.
- A USB audio interface or a mixer with direct monitoring, which plays your microphone straight to your headphones.
If you use one, choose it as both your Microphone and your Headphones under Microphone and headphones in the Booth, so the sound you send and the sound you hear come from the same device.
In the Operator Console
When this computer's own microphone is the floor, the Console can play it back to you in your headphones.
- STEP 1Make this computer the floor
In the Source panel, under Audio comes from, choose This computer and select Start sending. See Go live from the Console.
- STEP 2Put your headphones on
Connect wired headphones. Where your browser lets you choose where it plays sound, choose them in the picker beside the headphones button.
- STEP 3Turn on the monitor
Select the headphones button beside the mute button. On a phone, open the floor microphone's options and turn on Hear yourself. Pointing at the button reads: "Monitor over headphones — you will hear yourself. Never over speakers: the room would hear itself back."
Good to know:
- The monitor plays this computer's microphone directly. It does not travel through InterScribe, so the network adds no delay. The computer's own audio devices still add a little.
- It follows the mute. While the floor microphone is muted, you hear nothing back.
- It starts off every time, and you turn it on when you want it.
Microphone type and voice processing
Both the Console and the Booth have a Microphone type setting: Sound desk or Headset. It decides how your browser cleans up your microphone before InterScribe sends it.
- Sound desk sends the microphone exactly as it arrives, with no echo cancellation, noise suppression or automatic volume. It is the default in the Console, where the floor is usually a sound desk that already processes the sound.
- Headset cancels echo and suppresses noise. It is the default in the Booth, where you are a person on a headset. Automatic volume stays off for both, because it raises room noise in every pause.
Under More settings you can switch Echo cancellation, Noise suppression and Automatic volume one by one. The line under the type then reads Your own settings. Choosing a type again puts its switches back. For a sound desk we don't recommend changing them, and the page says so while they differ.
On a Headset, Extra noise filter uses a stronger filter instead of the browser's noise suppression. It uses more of your computer's processor, only runs in this browser on this computer, and is greyed out while Noise suppression is off. If your browser cannot run it, it turns itself off and says why.
Each microphone remembers its own choice on this computer. While you are live, changing the type cuts you off for a moment. In the Console, the monitor plays the same capture, so you hear the type and its switches the way listeners do. It does not carry the extra noise filter.
Check it worked
Speak and hear yourself in your headphones. If you hear an echo or a howl, you are monitoring over speakers: turn the monitor off and switch to headphones.
If something goes wrong
- The interpreter can't hear the floor
- To tell this delay from the others, see Tell the delays apart and watch them live.