If you are running the latest version of Transcribe! 9.25 (which requires Windows 10 or 11 64-bit, or macOS 13 Ventura) then you may find this page interesting but you don't need the setups we distribute here. That's because we have built some quick pedal setups into Transcribe! itself. Please bring up the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog (Application or File menu) and click the Help button there for more info.
Vidami - click here for their website - make the Vidami (wired) and Vidami Blue (Bluetooth) pedals which can be used very effectively for controlling Transcribe!. They emulate a keyboard - that is, they send text characters to the currently active application exactly as a keyboard does. This means that you configure them using Transcribe!'s "Keyboard Shortcuts" command on the Application or File menu. Vidami distribute some special drivers for using their pedals with YouTube but you don't need to install these for use with Transcribe! (though Transcribe! doesn't mind if you do). The Vidami Blue has various modes but we assume here that you are using the default "Video Control Mode" which makes it the same as the Vidami (wired) pedal.
Each button sends one character when you tap it, or a different character if you hold it for a slightly longer time, so you have ten commands available rather than just five. If you click with the mouse on the "Keystroke" box in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog and try pressing some buttons, then you will see the characters that are sent. The pedal, like a keyboard, sends a "key down" followed by a "key up" for each button press and Transcribe! can respond to both of these. We sometimes use this for generating two Transcribe! commands from a single button press.
If you want to, you can configure these pedals manually just as you would create regular keyboard shortcuts. The only thing you have to watch out for is that the pedal does use the '.' and ',' characters, and these are hard-wired in Transcribe! as "Stop" and "Pause On/Off" respectively and cannot be changed. We aim to make these keystrokes configurable in a new release soon. Also keyboard shortcuts are case-sensitive so capital 'P' and 'K' must be programmed as capitals which means they are displayed as "Shift P" and "Shift K" in the dialog.
The characters listed here are those produced if your computer thinks that the Vidami is a US keyboard. The difference between Mac and Windows/Linux is because of the different keyboard layouts : the character just above the right-hand shift key is a backslash '\' on the Mac and a hash '#' on Windows/Linux. If the setups we provide here are not working then you should check what characters the pedal is producing in the "Keystroke" box of the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. If they are different from the keystrokes listed below then you have two options. (1) Create shortcuts manually for the characters which are in fact produced, or (2) Switch your computer temporarily to a US keyboard layout while you are using the pedal. It would be nice if you could have two keyboards attached to your computer and tell the computer that they each have different language layouts, but I don't think there is any straightforward way of doing this on either Mac or Windows.
In order to make your life simpler (I hope), here we provide some keyboard shortcut files which you can import using the Import button in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog, and which will create appropriate shortcuts for this pedal. Be aware that doing this will also change the response when you use the same keys on your regular keyboard - Transcribe! can't tell the difference. If you want to restore Transcribe!'s defaults then you can press the "Default" button in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog, or if you want to you can use the "Export" button before anything else, to save your current setup so you can Import it later to restore it.
Click here to download the Vidami keyboard shortcut files for Mac.
Click here to download the Vidami keyboard shortcut files for Windows/Linux.
When you unzip the download file you will find that there are three setups to choose from. You load them into Transcribe! by pressing the Import button in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog, and select the relevant file. In order to use them most effectively, first please take a look at Transcribe!'s Preferences - Playback and ensure that:
1) "Restrict Cue/Review to the zone now playing" is not checked (this is anyway the default).
2) "Paused playback point follows selection" is checked (this is not the default - you will probably need to change it).
3) On the Play menu, you will probably want "Loop" to be checked. Unless you don't want to loop. This is anyway the default.
If the "Paused playback point follows selection" option is not present then you must be running version 8: please update to version 9 if you can (free to registered users). But it's not a disaster if you can't.
The settings for the Speed and Loop buttons are the same in all the three setups we supply here.
You can first set up some particular altered speed (e.g. 70% speed) and then tapping the speed button will switch you between normal speed and 70% speed. Holding the speed button will stop playback.
One of Transcribe!'s most useful features is the ability to create and save multiple loops (on the Misc page of the Fx window), and remember that a "stored loop" in Transcribe! can be simply a stored position (without any selection) in which case selecting that loop will play from that position until you stop it.
When you have created some loops, tapping the Loop button will cycle forwards through those loops, while holding it will cycle backwards.
Here are the specifics of the characters produced by the pedal buttons and the names of the Transcribe! commands triggered.
| Button | Tap | Hold | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key | Response | Key | Response | |
| Speed | ` (back-blip) | FxSpeedToggle | . (period) | PlayStop |
| Loop | ; (semicolon) | LoopRecallNext | / (slash) | LoopRecallPrevious |
This setup is my favourite but you must have first placed measure markers to be able to use it. See Help - Getting Started - "Starting to Transcribe" if you don't know how to do this.
Back pedal
Tap: Go to previous measure.
Hold: Go to previous section.
Play pedal
Tap: Play current selection.
Hold: Pause or Unpause.
Forward pedal
Tap: Go to next measure.
Hold: Pause or Unpause.
If you are using Transcribe! version 8 then the "Paused playback point follows selection" Preference is unavailable so when you use the Back or Forward or Loop buttons to jump to a different place, if you are playing then playback will jump to the new place immediately, but if you are paused then your paused playback point won't move. But this is not a problem because when you tap the Play pedal, playback will start from the new current point.
| Button | Tap | Hold | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key | Response | Key | Response | |
| Back | [ | Press: SelectionCollapseLeft Release: SelectionMoveLeftMeasure | Shift P | Press: SelectionCollapseLeft Release: SelectionMoveLeftSection |
| Play/pause | Shift K | PlaySelectionStart | Mac: \ Windows: # | PlayPauseToggle |
| Forward | ] | Press: SelectionCollapseLeft Release: SelectionMoveRightMeasure | , (comma) | PlayPauseToggle |
A couple of comments about this. Ideally holding the Forward pedal would take us to the next section but this is the comma key which is hard wired as "pause" in Transcribe!. This will be fixed in a future release. Also you can see that we are using single button presses to generate two commands - the movement commands are preceeded by SelectionCollapseLeft. Without this, if you have a loop playing (i.e. you have part of the waveform highlighted) and you jump to another place, the selection would move but would stay the same size.
This setup does not use markers and instead uses the Back and Forward pedals to jump a specific distance. After loading this setup you can change the length of the jumps if you want, by editing your keyboard shortcuts in the usual way and selecting different commands.
Back pedal
Tap: Jump back 3 seconds.
Hold: Jump back 10 seconds.
Play pedal
Tap: Play current selection.
Hold: Pause or Unpause.
Forward pedal
Tap: Jump forwards 3 seconds.
Hold: Pause or Unpause.
If you are using Transcribe! version 8 then the "Paused playback point follows selection" Preference is unavailable so when you use the Back or Forward or Loop buttons to jump to a different place, if you are playing then playback will jump to the new place immediately, but if you are paused then your paused playback point won't move. But this is not a problem because when you tap the Play pedal, playback will start from the new current point.
| Button | Tap | Hold | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key | Response | Key | Response | |
| Back | [ | Press: SelectionCollapseLeft Release: SelectionMoveLeftMs3000 | Shift P | Press: SelectionCollapseLeft Release: SelectionMoveLeftMs10000 |
| Play/pause | Shift K | PlaySelectionStart | Mac: \ Windows: # | PlayPauseToggle |
| Forward | ] | Press: SelectionCollapseLeft Release: SelectionMoveRightMs3000 | , (comma) | PlayPauseToggle |
A couple of comments about this. Ideally holding the Forward pedal would jump forwards 10 seconds but this is the comma key which is hard wired as "pause" in Transcribe!. This will be fixed in a future release. Also you can see that we are using single button presses to generate two commands - the movement commands are preceeded by SelectionCollapseLeft. Without this, if you have a loop playing (i.e. you have part of the waveform highlighted) and you jump to another place, the selection would move but would stay the same size.
This setup does not use markers and uses Transcribe!'s Cue & Review commands (high speed playback forwards or backwards) to move around. You can change the speeds used in Preferences - Playback.
This setup is not a good idea if you are using Transcribe! version 8 because in that case the "Paused playback point follows selection" Preference is unavailable so when you use the Loop button to jump to a different loop, if you are playing then playback will jump to the new loop as it should, but if you are paused then your paused playback point won't move. In this case the only way of making playback jump to the new loop is to stop playback altogether by holding the Speed button (so there is no paused point), then tap Play again. This is not very intuitive.
If you are using loops then it's possible that you might want to turn on the Preference "Restrict Cue/Review to the zone now playing" in this mode, because otherwise as soon as you use the Back or Forward buttons, playback will no longer be confined to the current loop. Alternatively you could step one loop forward and back again to restore the current loop.
Back pedal
Tap: Start skipping rapidly backwards ("Review")
Hold: Pause or Unpause.
Play pedal
Tap: If already playing then pause. If paused or cue or review then resume playing. If stopped then start play. If you set up a "Rewind on pause" in Preferences - Playback then playback will resume that much earlier than the point at which you paused it.
Hold: Pause or Unpause.
Forward pedal
Tap: Start skipping rapidly forwards ("Cue")
Hold: Pause or Unpause.
| Button | Tap | Hold | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key | Response | Key | Response | |
| Back | [ | PlayReviewStart | Shift P | PlayPauseToggle |
| Play/pause | Shift K | PlayResume | Mac: \ Windows: # | PlayPauseToggle |
| Forward | ] | PlayCueStart | , (comma) | PlayPauseToggle |
Recommend this page to others, on these social network sites:
Facebook
Reddit
Twitter
Digg
LinkedIn
Diigo