Dictation microphone for noisy environment

[linuxizer]

This is definitely not a movie question, but similar to recording live productions I think, and given that I'm a member here I was hoping someone might chime in. I've learned an enormous amount from the expertise here over the last year or two, even though mostly I've lurked.

I am a newly-minted doctor (resident) with minor hand issues from programming so much in my youth. The hospital has a site license for Dragon to dictate charts without typing, but there aren't enough of the official Dragon microphones and being an intern at the bottom of the totem pole I basically never get one. Some people bring their own cheap mics but they don't work well.

I can rig up some of my prosumer-grade audio gear to get a pre-amp and phantom power going to a microphone, but I don't know what mic to choose. I have a decent lav which I will try soon but I suspect will work poorly due to it being an omni. I could spend around $100 on a headset mic. Is my best bet something like the OST HM-701 (which is in the same vein as a Countryman E6 I believe--electret condenser omni-polar pattern)--not sure if that fits the budget anyway since they don't list prices? Or should I try to adapt a mic made for intercom/comms use like a higher quality motorcycle or aviation headset--and if so any suggestions?

Thanks very much as always.

 

[Richard Crowley]

It is not apparent from your question whether the "official Dragon microphone" is successful or not at overcoming the ambient noise and producing useful speech-to-text performance? Since it appears that the "official Dragon microphone" costs a fraction of the price of even the OST HM-701, we don't know whether you have already rejected the official solution on the basis of poor performance or ????

The basic concept of getting the microphone MUCH closer to the "signal" (your mouth) produces a markedly higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We don't know what kind of "their own cheap mics" you are observing that "don't work well". Are all these examples uniformly poor performing? What kind(s) are they? How close are people using them to their mouths?

You will already know from lurking about here that production sound tricks, techniques, equipment, and skilled production personnel make near-perfect sound "look" so easy people dismiss the technical issues (like the basic laws of acoustic physics). The basic principles of the inverse-square law favor a microphone placement as close as practicable to the subject's mouth. So solutions like a headset mic would likely perform better than hand-held or even clip-on microphones.

Since you are going for maximum intelligibility (vs. low self-noise or wideband frequency-response, etc.) a high-price "production-quality" microphone is NOT necessarily the best solution. Some additional information about the "clinical trials" of other microphone users would aid in a "differential diagnosis" of the issues and help in selecting an ideal price-performance solution for you.

 

[linuxizer]

It is not apparent from your question whether the "official Dragon microphone" is successful or not at overcoming the ambient noise and producing useful speech-to-text performance? Since it appears that the "official Dragon microphone" costs a fraction of the price of even the OST HM-701, we don't know whether you have already rejected the official solution on the basis of poor performance or ????

Sorry, the official mic I'm referring to is the "Medical Practice Edition," (https://www.amazon.com/Dictaphone-P...N=B018CJBESC&linkCode=xm2&tag=duckduckgo-d-20) which costs about $400. It does seem to work quite well, although I'd prefer not to have to hold it.

The basic concept of getting the microphone MUCH closer to the "signal" (your mouth) produces a markedly higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We don't know what kind of "their own cheap mics" you are observing that "don't work well". Are all these examples uniformly poor performing? What kind(s) are they? How close are people using them to their mouths?

I'll start collecting brands and model numbers, but generally they seem to be the gaming-style headsets. They are using them quite close to their mouths. No one has anything good to say about them, and they don't seem to be in use for very long before people give up.

You will already know from lurking about here that production sound tricks, techniques, equipment, and skilled production personnel make near-perfect sound "look" so easy people dismiss the technical issues (like the basic laws of acoustic physics). The basic principles of the inverse-square law favor a microphone placement as close as practicable to the subject's mouth. So solutions like a headset mic would likely perform better than hand-held or even clip-on microphones.

Absolutely. Even when handheld people seem to understand that it needs to be close.

Since you are going for maximum intelligibility (vs. low self-noise or wideband frequency-response, etc.) a high-price "production-quality" microphone is NOT necessarily the best solution. Some additional information about the "clinical trials" of other microphone users would aid in a "differential diagnosis" of the issues and help in selecting an ideal price-performance solution for you.

Thanks for the ideas. I'll ask around and try to gather more data.

Since posting, I found this page which sounds like it knows what it is talking about, but who knows: http://pcspeak.com/products/microphones.shtml#accuracy

 

[Richard Crowley]

Sorry, the official mic I'm referring to is the "Medical Practice Edition," (https://www.amazon.com/Dictaphone-P...N=B018CJBESC&linkCode=xm2&tag=duckduckgo-d-20) which costs about $400. It does seem to work quite well, although I'd prefer not to have to hold it.

There appears to be nothing special about the MICROPHONE in any of those specialty medical-dictation gadgets. They all probably have the same 89-cent electret microphone capsule.

The "magic" appears to be the specialized array of buttons to control the software. As far as the microphone itself (disregarding the control buttons) I would expect that almost ANY cheap electret microphone would work as well WHEN POSITIONED UP CLOSE TO THE MOUTH.

However the convenience of the control buttons cannot be ignored. Unless you want to handle the control by some other method. I expect that the $400 price tag reflects the rather small market of physicians (vs. the larger population). And the factor that anything "medical related" has a 10x price inflation factor.

 

[Bruce Watson]

Is my best bet something like the OST HM-701 (which is in the same vein as a Countryman E6 I believe--electret condenser omni-polar pattern)--not sure if that fits the budget anyway since they don't list prices? Or should I try to adapt a mic made for intercom/comms use like a higher quality motorcycle or aviation headset--and if so any suggestions?

For hands free use for a doctor in a noisy environment, yes? What I think you need is two things. First, you need signal-to-noise ratio, which means you need the mic close to your mouth. Second, for something like Dragon to work well, you need a consistent signal -- it's much more likely to "screw up" when your voice is going out of pattern, you're having variable proximity effect, or in general being inconsistent in any way. Software wants consistency, just sayin'.

This all points to a head worn mic, like an earset. The joy of an earset is that the mic moves with your head so you can't go out of pattern. And it puts the mic at the corner of your mouth, so you maximize your signal-to-noise ratio. It's about as good as you can get.

One of the most popular earsets is the Countryman E6i cardioid. Well out of your budget, I know. But I don't know of any that are in your budget. If you're going to try to cobble something together though, this is what I'd be trying to replicate.

 

[wjauch]

This is actually fairly complex. I am a physician and use Dragon Medical in my office and for two years was one of a few physicians trialing it for the hospital (hospital ended up going with a competing product called Fluency), regularly use Dragon at another smaller hospital.
Dragon puts a cheap $20 headset mic into the box with many of their products which plugs into the computer 3.5mm socket, not very good. Most computers/laptops donot have good sound cards, much better that the mic plugs into a USB port. Unfortunately two of the hospitals where I practice have their computers so locked down the USB ports are disabled completely. So the question for the OP is where do the mics supplied by hospital plug in 3.5mm or USB? If you can use USB there used to be a $35 Andrea sound pod that was an external USB sound card for a 3.5mm headset.
Dragon Medical is their premium product, and often sold with their $450 Dictaphone Powermic II http://supportcontent.nuance.com/dragon/10/PowerMicII_Guide.pdf This mic works well even in a room with other people in backround in hospital. The buttons on the mic work with Dragon software. I can recommend also the $350 Philips Speechmic LFH-3500, as accurate as the Powermic II, but for the buttons to work you need to load drivers from a CD-Rom, probably not an option if you are using many different computers in a hospital. You may not care about the buttons, AFAIK the default it to toggle speech off and on, a huge pain for someone 50+ like me who is used to old cassette based dictation which were always set up a s "press and hold to record".
Another option, one of my partners uses some cheap Samson USB mic successfully into USB, probably sub $100. Another thought it is a bit of a pain to carry a mic around with you and not lose it, I did it for the two year trial, only lost it once.
Here is a comparison of Mics for Dragon: http://www.knowbrainer.com/index.cfm/microphone-comparison-guide/
(this company is where I bought the Philips Mic, they included some handy typed setup instructions)
I will throw out another suggestion, you are a resident so younger than me and may have or wish to consider an iPad. All my hospitals permit a Citrix remote connection to the computers, even if remote is from Wifi inside the building. Several physicians use this using the Dragon and Mic built into the newer iPads reasonably successfully.

 

[linuxizer]

Thanks for all the thoughts from many perspectives. I had been thinking the E6-style headset might be worth a try. I'll look harder into OST's equivalent.

Not sure I need the buttons, but I'll try it out more and see how much I feel like I can do without them.

It may be awhile but I'll get around to collecting the requested info and update the thread when I have a better sense, for posterity.