Adding a New Microphone to DragonDictate
Warning! You must run an Audio Check before using any new microphone.
Adding a New Microphone to DragonDictate on Your Mac
When introducing a new microphone to your DragonDictate software, you have two choices -
1) Create a brand new profile based on the new microphone or
2) Add the microphone as a new audio source to an existing profile.
We will briefly take you through both procedures.
Adding a New Audio Source to an Existing DragonDictate User Profile
- If your microphone is a USB microphone, insert it into any dedicated USB port and allow the drivers to be installed. If you are using a Bluetooth microphone, go through the procedure for pairing it to your Mac. Do not attempt to insert an analog microphone into the audio jack on your Mac. It will not work without a USB soundcard.
- Open System Preferences and click on the Sound icon in the Hardware section.
- Confirm that your microphone is present and select it. For this example we will use an Andrea NC 181VM USB microphone. Speak into your microphone and confirm activity in the area labeled Input Level.
- Open DragonDictate.
- Open the Profiles window by selecting Profiles from the Tools menu. You will see the screen below. Note that any existing profiles are shown on the left and sound sources assigned to the selected profile are shown on the right:
- To add a new sound source to your existing profile click on the + sign under Audio Sources. You will need to select your sound source in the lower drop down menu and give it a name in the text entry box above. See below:
- Click Continue to advance to the microphone set-up procedure for the microphone. You will then be prompted to read the usual training text. Follow all subsequent instructions.
- If you have multiple profiles and multiple sound sources, when you open DragonDictate you will be brought to the Profiles screen where you will need to select the profile and audio source you wish to load.
Adding a New User Profile to DragonDictate
- Follow steps 1-5 shown above for adding a new audio source.
- Select the + sign on the left side of the Profiles screen to add a new profile. You will see the following screen in which you must choose a name for your profile and place to store it (click OK to keep the default location):
- As shown below, the Profiles screen will now show your new profile. You must select your microphone from the dropdown in the Microphone area and then click Continue.
- Follow all subsequent instructions as you set the level for the microphone and do the required training text for the microphone.
Adding a Bluetooth Microphone to a DragonDictate Profile
This procedure is very similar to what is shown above, with a couple of exceptions:
- First, you must pair your microphone to your Mac by opening the System Preferences, going to the Internet & Wireless area and selecting Bluetooth.
- Click on the + at the bottom of the Bluetooth screen to add the new microphone and follow subsequent instructions until the microphone has been successfully paired. At this point you should see the microphone in your sound device listing (as shown below for the VXI BlueParrott Xpressway):
- Once the Bluetooth microphone has been paired and chosen as shown above, you can open DragonDictate and go through the process of adding a new User Profile or new Audio Source based on this microphone, but with one important exception - DragonDictate only recognizes USB microphones and the internal microphone. So you must select Internal Microphone as noted below:
- In addition to selecting Internal Microphone as the selected microphone, you must give it a name.
- Follow all subsequent steps to add your new audio source as outlined at the top of this document.
- Note that since your Bluetooth microphone is being recognized by DragonDictate as an internal microphone, it is essential that your Bluetooth microphone is paired with your Mac and chosen as select the preferred source as shown in step 2 above. Please also note that we do not recommend the use of Bluetooth microphones with DragonDictate. If you think you need Bluetooth (because you don't like working with a base that requires plugging into an AC outlet), consider substituting the Plantronics Savi 440 which has a longer range, no syncing issues and isn't limited to 4 kHz bandwidth like Bluetooth microphones.
For more information, please refer to the DragonDictate User Manual available at Help - User Manual.
Special thanks to Jon Wahrenberger of www.SpeechRecSolutions.com for giving us permission to use this guide.