Turn your voice recordings into clean, structured notes
Record yourself talking through a topic, capture a lecture, or save a study-group conversation — upload the voice recording and Scholarly turns it into organized, structured notes you can actually study from, with the transcript kept attached.
Free to start · No credit card · 70+ languages
Updated June 2026
How do I turn a voice recording into notes?
Upload the voice recording to Scholarly — an MP3, an M4A from your phone's voice memo app, WAV, WebM, or OGG, or even a video file. Scholarly transcribes the speech with timestamps, then rewrites it as structured notes: topic headings, definitions, worked examples, and key takeaways grouped by idea rather than by the order you said them. The transcript stays attached, so you can check any claim against what was actually spoken, and the same recording becomes flashcards, a quiz, or a chat source in one click.
- 1Upload the voice recording (or a video — Scholarly uses its audio track).
- 2Scholarly transcribes the speech, then writes organized notes with topic headings and timestamps.
- 3Review the notes, then generate flashcards, a quiz, or ask the AI chat about the recording.
Every kind of spoken material, turned into notes
If you can save it as an audio or video file, Scholarly can turn the voice in it into organized notes.
Voice memos to yourself
The recording where you explain a topic out loud to check you understand it — turned into an outline that surfaces the gaps in your reasoning, not just the words.
Lecture recordings
Full class sessions, including 2–3 hour seminars. Get notes organized by concept instead of a wall of raw transcript you'll never re-read.
Seminars & discussions
Discussion-heavy sessions where the arguments, counterexamples, and how ideas connect matter more than any single slide.
Study groups & meetings
The conversations where someone finally explains the hard part clearly — captured, transcribed, and condensed into the points that actually moved your understanding.
Interviews & fieldwork
Research interviews and oral histories transcribed with speaker turns, then summarized by theme so you can build your write-up around ideas, not minutes.
Office hours & tutoring
The one-on-one explanations that make a concept click — recorded and turned into notes you can revisit the night before the exam.
What do the notes look like?
Here's the shape of the notes Scholarly generates from a typical voice recording — a student's 38-minute exam-review voice memo on enzyme kinetics.
enzyme-kinetics-review.m4a
38:12 · voice recording · transcribed and structured by Scholarly
Michaelis–Menten model02:10
- Reaction velocity rises with substrate concentration but saturates at Vmax — the enzyme's active sites become the bottleneck.
- Km is the substrate concentration at half of Vmax; a low Km means high affinity between enzyme and substrate.
- Assumes steady state: the enzyme–substrate complex forms and breaks down at equal rates.
Competitive vs. non-competitive inhibition14:45
- Competitive inhibitors bind the active site — raising substrate concentration can outcompete them, so Vmax is unchanged but apparent Km rises.
- Non-competitive inhibitors bind elsewhere and lower Vmax; extra substrate can't rescue the reaction.
Lineweaver–Burk plots27:30
- Double-reciprocal plot turns the Michaelis–Menten curve into a straight line — easier to read Vmax and Km from intercepts.
- Inhibition types are distinguishable by how the lines pivot: same y-intercept for competitive, same x-intercept for non-competitive.
Every heading keeps its timestamp, so you can jump back to the spot in the recording when a detail matters. From here, one click generates flashcards or a practice quiz from the same voice recording.
What voice recording formats can I upload?
MP3, M4A (the format most phone voice-memo apps use), WAV, WebM, and OGG upload directly. Video files like MP4 and MOV work too — Scholarly transcribes the audio track and ignores the picture. Long recordings are fine, including multi-hour seminars, so you never have to split a file before uploading.
How is voice to notes different from a transcript?
A transcript gives you the verbatim record — every sentence, in the order you said it. Notes are the condensed version: reorganized by topic, with the definitions and takeaways pulled out and the repetition removed. If what you mainly need is the word-for-word text with timestamps and speaker turns, use Lecture Transcription instead. Voice to Notes runs the same transcription underneath, then does the organizing for you — and keeps the transcript attached either way, so you never lose the source.
How good is the result on messy, rambling speech?
Better than you'd expect, with honest limits. Spoken thinking is naturally repetitive and out of order — that's exactly what the note-generation step fixes, because it groups ideas by topic rather than by the order they came out of your mouth. A rambling 40-minute voice memo usually becomes a tight one-page outline that reads back the structure of the idea, not the false starts.
What genuinely hurts quality is bad audio, not bad delivery: a microphone far from the speaker, heavy crosstalk, or loud background noise degrade the transcript the notes are built on. For anything high-stakes, check critical numbers and terms against the timestamped transcript — it takes seconds, and you're verifying against what was actually said.
What can I do after the notes are generated?
The recording becomes a source in your Scholarly workspace, so everything builds on it without re-uploading: generate spaced-repetition flashcards or a practice quiz from the notes, ask the AI chat questions and get answers that cite the exact passage of the recording, or combine it with your PDFs and slides into one study set for the exam. Because the questions test how ideas connect — not whether you memorized a timestamp — the practice that follows builds real understanding.
New to the workflow? Our guide on how to turn lecture recordings into study notes walks through every step from capturing the voice recording to building flashcards and a practice exam.
Voice to notes FAQ
What voice recordings can I convert to notes?
MP3, M4A, WAV, WebM, and OGG audio files, plus video files like MP4 — Scholarly uses the audio track. That covers voice memos, lecture recordings, seminar audio, study-group conversations, and interview recordings.
Do phone voice memos work?
Yes. Most phone voice-memo apps save M4A files, which upload directly. Share the memo to your computer or upload it from the phone's browser — no conversion needed.
How long can the voice recording be?
Multi-hour recordings are fine, including 2–3 hour seminars. Longer files take a bit more time to transcribe, but you don't need to split them.
Does it handle multiple speakers?
Yes. The transcript separates speaker turns, so a seminar discussion, study group, or interview doesn't collapse into one undifferentiated block of text — which is why voice to notes works just as well for a multi-person conversation as for a solo voice memo.
What do the generated notes include?
Topic headings with timestamps, definitions of key terms, the examples used in the recording, and a set of takeaways — organized by idea rather than the order things were said. The full transcript stays attached for verification.
Can I make flashcards or a quiz from a voice recording?
Yes. Once the notes are generated, one click creates spaced-repetition flashcards or a practice quiz from the same recording — no copying text between tools. The questions test understanding of the concepts, not recall of arbitrary details.
What languages are supported?
Scholarly transcribes voice recordings in 70+ languages, and you can generate the notes in a different language than the recording — useful for studying in your second language.
Is voice to notes free?
Scholarly is free to start with no credit card required. Paid plans (from about $12/month) raise limits for longer recordings and more uploads per day.
How do I turn a voice recording into notes?
Upload the voice recording to Scholarly — a voice memo, lecture, seminar, study-group conversation, or interview in MP3, M4A, WAV, WebM, OGG, or a video file. Scholarly transcribes it with timestamps, then turns the recording into structured notes: topic headings, definitions, examples, and takeaways. The transcript stays attached so you can verify any detail, and the same recording becomes a source you can build flashcards, a quiz, or cited chat answers from — no copying text between tools.
Keep exploring
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Audio to Text
Get an accurate, timestamped transcript from any recording.
Recordings in Scholarly
See everything the recordings workspace can do.
Turn your voice recordings into notes
Free to start. Upload any voice recording and get structured notes, a searchable transcript, and one-click flashcards from the same recording.
Free
- 3 AI Chat messages per day
- 3 AI creations per day
- 1 file upload per day (8MB)
- 5 quiz questions per day
- 1 exam attempt per day
- 15 voice minutes per day
- 32-page PDF to flashcards
- 500 autocomplete words per day
Use it to generate flashcards, improve a deck, make a podcast, create a video lecture or infographic, build slides, make a mind map or study guide, or process a recording.
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$144 billed yearly
Everything in Free, plus:
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- 1000-page PDF to flashcards
- Export to Anki
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Your questions, answered
Is Scholarly free to use?
Yes! The free plan includes core study tools with daily limits: AI Chat messages, 3 AI creations per day, research reports, file uploads, quizzes, practice exams, and manual flashcard creation. Upgrade to Ultimate when you want unlimited AI creations and higher limits.
What uses my daily AI creation?
Generating flashcards, improving a flashcard deck, making a podcast, creating a video lecture or infographic, building slides, making a mind map or study guide, or processing a recording each use the same daily free AI creation allowance. AI Chat messages, uploads, quizzes, and exams have their own separate daily limits.
Can I cancel anytime?
Absolutely. There are no contracts or commitments. You can cancel your subscription at any time from your account settings, and you'll keep access until the end of your billing period.
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We accept all major credit and debit cards through Stripe. Pricing is displayed in USD by default, but local currency is available in the app.
Do you offer discounts for educators?
Yes, we offer special pricing for educators and educational institutions. Contact us at hello@scholarly.so for details.
What happens when I hit a free plan limit?
You'll see a prompt to upgrade. Your existing work is never lost — limits only apply to new daily actions like AI Chat messages, uploads, quiz questions, and new AI creations. Limits reset every day.
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