Set up transcription and AI

Syntheo ships no model and calls no cloud service. It connects to your inference servers, on your computer or your network, through standard protocols. You configure two independent things: No URL is imposed: you enter your server’s. Without a configured and reachable transcription server, Syntheo transcribes nothing, and because the audio is never kept, it cannot catch up on the transcription later.

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Before you start

You need:

• a real-time transcription server, for example vLLM with a Realtime model (Voxtral Realtime), speaches (formerly faster-whisper-server), or a Nemotron ASR NIM;
• an OpenAI-compatible LLM server, for example vLLM, Ollama, llama.cpp server, LM Studio, SGLang, TGI, or an LLM NIM;
• the base URL of each server and, if the server requires one, its API key.

Sample base URLs for a server running on the same computer, with the default ports: The ports depend on how you start each server. If two servers run on the same machine, give them different ports. Open Settings (). Both servers are in the “My servers” group: Transcription and Synthesis. A pill next to each entry shows the server’s status, repeated at the bottom of the menu (for example “Transcription · connected”).

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The server card

Each page shows a “My server” card. It works the same way for transcription and for synthesis:

• “Server address”: the base address of your server. It is saved automatically as you type.
• “Test connection”: queries the server and shows the result in the status pill. Syntheo also tests the connection as soon as an address is saved.
• “Model”: the served models, as radio buttons. Click a model to choose it. If yours does not appear, click “Enter another name” and type its exact identifier.
• “Advanced” (collapsed): the “API key (optional)” field and “Reset this server…”, which forgets the address and the key after confirmation (“Forget this server’s address and key?”).
• “Help” (collapsed): a reminder of the protocols and typical addresses.

The status pill takes one of these values: If something fails, a message under the card title says what to do, for example: “The server did not answer at localhost:8000/v1. Check that it is running and that you are on the right network (VPN, Tailscale), then test again.”

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Set up transcription

In the replica below, change the “Server address”: Syntheo saves it, then tests it. Try http://localhost:9000 (a NIM, then “Use this protocol”), a port where nothing listens such as http://localhost:8001/v1 (“Unreachable”), or http://gpu.entreprise.lan/v1 (HTTP refused). Open “Advanced” and “Help”, then click another model.

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Live transcription or file only

Syntheo transcribes meetings during the capture, and only then: since the audio is never kept, there is no transcription afterward. The chosen model must therefore be able to stream in real time.

• With the OpenAI protocol, any on-premise model (for example Voxtral Realtime on vLLM) is treated as a real-time model. The OpenAI API’s “file” model names (whisper-1, gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe…) only serve for imports: Syntheo refuses to start a capture with them, with the message “This model only transcribes after the recording, which would require keeping the audio. Choose a real-time transcription model.”.
• With NVIDIA NIM, all models are real-time. Importing an audio file then goes through the same real-time stream as a meeting: see Import a recording.

Chat voice input transcribes in batches, after the recording: it requires the OpenAI protocol. With a NIM model, it shows “Voice input is unavailable” before opening the microphone. Dictation in other apps uses the same transcription server as meetings.

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Set up synthesis

If the server answers but the chosen model fails, the card shows “The selected model did not answer:” followed by the cause. The same model serves for summaries, the chat, generated titles, and section suggestions for summary templates. In the replica below, the Synthesis page is connected to Ollama. Enter http://localhost:1234/v1 (LM Studio) to see the model list change. Choose “High” in “Reasoning effort”, then another model: the effort goes back to “Auto”, because it depends on the model.

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What goes to your servers

• The transcription server receives the audio of the capture, the dictation, or the imported file, as it streams. Syntheo does not write this audio to disk.
• The LLM server receives the text the task needs: transcript, notes, summary template instructions, question asked in the chat.
• No header identifies your device. Syntheo contacts no other inference service and never falls back to a third-party service if your server does not answer: it shows an error.

API keys are stored in the system keychain, never in plain text in the local database. Details in Data and privacy.

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Troubleshooting

To work without an internet connection, see Use Syntheo without a network.