These pages provide suggestions and guidelines for researchers who wish to create audio files for analysis with the CLAN editor and other TalkBank programs.

Warning: It is best to not rely on MP3 or similar lossy compression schemes for the archived version of your audio data. These compressed formats are lower in quality and more difficult to segment temporally. Please rely instead on 16-bit WAV format in stereo at either 22,050 or 44,100 KHz.

Working with audio involves two basic processes: recording and linkage.

1. The first step is recording. In the old days, one would record to cassettes or tapes, but now most recording goes directly to digital files. If you would like some suggestions on recording equipment and techniques, you should read this information.
   1. For recording of child subjects, here is an excellent description of a fully implemented set-up from Margaret Fleck and suggestions regarding wireless mikes from Toby Mcrae.
   2. For recording from adult subjects here are suggestions from Michael Chial.
2. The second step is transcription and linkage. If you would like to learn how to transcribe your audio files in a way that also links the transcripts directly to the files, you should read this information.

If you have older recordings on cassettes or reel-to-reel, we recommend using a professional digitization service. Prices for this service are now very reasonable. In the United States, we can recommend Canaan Technologies and blackdogmastering.com in Florida, but BlackDog only does cassettes and Canaan does both cassettes and reel-to-reel.