Descript

Avantages

I appreciate that it is a software-based service that I can have on my laptop and work on whenever I feel the urge to do so. When attempting to detect speakers, its auto transcript performs quite quickly and accurately.

Inconvénients

Unfortunately, the transcript isn't flawless. In order to get an exact translation, human editing is necessary. It's also inferior to programs like Audacity and Adobe Audition for fine-tuning audio.

Avantages

It's very easy to use as a novice. There are lots of functionality buried within that I know I'm not utilizing, but I don't need it to get my job done. I love the ability to edit the audio by editing text and adding music onto my podcast voice files is straightforward. This is by far the easiest editing tool I've tried.

Inconvénients

There are lots of features that I know exist but that I don't see or that I don't know how or when I should use them. This is on me to learn, but I do wish tools would provide access to mini-tutorials from within the main workspace so that when you are working you could better identify whether that functionality you've never used might help to solve your problem.

Avantages

I did like that everything worked as intended. It is very straightforward and appealing to those that do not like to get overwhelmed by complicated programs with bells and whistles everywhere.

Inconvénients

Given the simplicity, Descript leaves a lot to be desired for those who are looking for a more advanced editing tool. Again, the paywall could be the reason, but why would I buy this if I can’t try the best features?

Avantages

Being able to edit text and have that automatically edit the audio is an amazing time saver. I was skeptical of the quality of edits this would provide, but 95% of the time the cross fades etc. it adds are spot on. For that 5% of the time where it's not quite right, you can easily adjust things using the waveform editor.

Inconvénients

The transcription service seems to have been primarily trained on white/European-descent speakers. I've edited several episodes with African guests and the transcription is awful. You can still use it to edit the audio OK, with some laughs at the mistakes it made. But, if you want to publish a transcript then you're basically rewriting the whole thing.

Alternatives envisagées 

Audacity, Pro Tools et REAPER

Pourquoi passer à Descript

The ability to edit a transcript (with fallback to waveform editing) is a complete game changer. I can focus on the content and just drop out to audio editing when I need to. I still use other DAWs later in the process, but Descript makes that big edit of 90+min of raw audio for each episode so much more manageable.

Avantages

Descript is a strong collection of audio tools that just weren't available when I started making podcasts. The ability to organise, collaborate and publish an audio project in the cloud with a friendly interface is great and used to be a huge pain to figure out. Editing audio with the transcript and the waveform at the same time allows you to skip a bunch of technicalities and focus on your creativity. Video capabilities expand the possibilities, and the overall suite of tools make me rethink entirely what podcast editing can or should be in a good way.

Inconvénients

Stability is the biggest problem I have with this. After working on about a lot of different projects with different collaborators, I'm still coming up against things that make it freeze, make it crash, or break a project (usually salvageable at least), and end up needing to work around issues to keep things rolling.

Also, while Descript has a lot of features, in comparison to any long-standing audio software it leaves so much to be desired. There are many missing tools that would add a lot of room for creativity and technical cleanup. Things like audio meters, noise gate, spectrum analysis, filters to automate creatively, ducking, but also the more unexpected effects like reverb, stereo delay, pitch shifting, layered FX, these are all things podcasters of any kind might want to use for effect at some point and many folks I know can't, or don't want to tell their stories without them.

This is especially true for video which misses on some basic transformations like rotation for text and images.

Alternatives envisagées 

Soundtrap

Pourquoi passer à Descript

Soundtrap as an editing-with-transcript tool was way too limited when I looked into it. Although it would fill a lot of gaps missing among the Descript audio tools, it wasn't anywhere close to a worthy comparison.

Avantages

1) I like the realistic-sounding voices
2) I like the large selection of voices
3) I like the ability to change the pitch and speed of each voice
4) I like the male and female options
5) I like the fact that you can copy and paste large amounts of text at one time to edit
6)

Inconvénients

1) The learning curve can be a bit much
2) Not enough tutorials that get right to the point

Avantages

This is a whole new way to edit audio and video content. I love the fact that there are frequent updates and new features. Simply amazing to edit content.

Inconvénients

Not much in terms of audio processing. No noise reduction, etc.

Alternatives envisagées 

Adobe Audition

Pourquoi choisir Descript 

Audition was getting to be too expensive as part of the CC Suite.

Logiciel antérieur 

Adobe Audition

Pourquoi passer à Descript

At the time I chose it because of price. But when I used the free version I was hooked and signed up for a paid version.

Avantages

I like that I can edit a video based on the visual transcription, The AI and that while I'm recording I get a transcription simultaneously.

The features I desire most are a dark mode feature, a chroma key feature so I can add light overlay and animation. I would also like a pause feature added to screen recording and voice recording because I use this to help me think in between recording without stopping the session. And please fix bugs such a lagging.

And the integrations I would recommend are Audacity, Davinci Resolve, and Anchor FM because that is what I use.

Inconvénients

Sometimes there are glitches if I am working in multiple windows and Ill get error codes. Sometimes it's hard to place tracks on the timeline, You click where you want it to go and it goes somewhere else in the project. I want some filler words to stay included and it's hard for me to figure out how to keep them. When I record audio and mess up, the overdub function doesn't pop up when I right-click. I wish the zoom and pan were smoother looking.

Avantages

It is user friendly and doesn't require much experience in video and audio editing. Filler words and word gap detection and removal are great features. The export and publish features allow for sharing and publishing the content to other applications. It transcribes very fast and it's great in identifying and assigning speakers. It is easy to cut and paste words while moving the audio waveforms. It also does a great job of matching separate audio files.

Inconvénients

Stability of the software is a great concern. Sometimes it just freezes and you can't access the project you are working on. There is also more that can be done on the sound effects.

Avantages

What I love the most is that when you delete audio from the timeline, it never actually disappears. You can easily go back in and re-add something you took out earlier. It doesn't rely on undo only, if you took out a sentence early on and decided after half an hour of editing you want that sentence back in, its right there. Incredible.

Inconvénients

I don't like the organization on the home page, I don't quite understand the folders. I like organization and not being able to archive my finished edits versus the edits I still need to do is a bit frustrating but easy to overlook!

Avantages

My favorite aspect of this software is the ability to delete filler words, shorten pauses between phrases and make my guests sound so much better than they do in the rough interview track. I love being able to edit the audio file by deleting things from the transcribed text and being able to go back and forth between editing in the text and editing in the audio file. The last episode I edited on descript cut 20 minutes off the interview. Then I bring that edited track into garage band to add intro/outro music, etc. ( i know I’m supposed to be able to do all this inside descript but I haven’t taken the time to learn how to do that.

Inconvénients

Poor transcription of non native speakers. Not knowing how to add in existing transcript and match it with the raw interview track before editing.

Avantages

I love that to edit the audio or video, you just make the edits in the transcription instead of trying to find the exact place in the audio file. Makes it so much easier! My favorite is that it can take out all the "filler words" like "um" in about 2 clicks and make the audio sound great! So much faster than how I was doing it before with having to listen and take them out one at a time.

Inconvénients

There are constant updates to the software, about 1 a week. This can be annoying since there is always a pop-up that says you need to update and restart almost everytime I open the app. Also, if you have multiple accounts (I have multiple clients I work with), it is hard to sign out of one account and then sign into another. Not sure why this isn't straightforward, but often when I sign out of one account and then try to sign into another, it just puts me back into the same account.

Avantages

I love that I'm able to collaborate with my editing team so that we can implement quick changes from clients no matter who is available. It was super easy to bring in new team members and train them on the workflow as well. I also love how the transcripts make it so much faster than other apps to edit - the combo of seeing words + waveforms (and the search/delete option) cut editing time in half.

Inconvénients

Clicking and dragging still needs some work, not sure yet about the new toolbar. I also really would like to be able to use VSTs to denoise easier, right now the workflow starts in Audition or Pro Tools for any processing (our clients honestly don't understand that they need to record in quiet spaces) and then we bring it into Descript to do the edit.

Alternatives envisagées 

Adobe Audition

Pourquoi choisir Descript 

Easier to edit with the transcript

Logiciel antérieur 

Adobe Audition

Pourquoi passer à Descript

Just ease of editing & ease of collaboration. Adobe is a significantly higher cost to collab with, and definitely doesn't have the same level of collaboration capability.

Avantages

It takes a completely unique approach to media editing, with the content and concept as focus instead of just abstract files.

Inconvénients

When I get used to a function it changes quickly with updates affecting work flow. However sometimes the changes are easier.

Avantages

The ability to record and transcribe how-to videos in real time with ease

Inconvénients

Nothing so far. Just started using it recently but it's been a really great tool that's been added for us across the company

Avantages

I love the studio sound feature that can turn my echo filled and mediocre audio into amazing audio. It also puts silence between the words spoken which makes it easier to cut and edit audio.

Inconvénients

I've had a few issues with the studio sound process slowing down significantly the more I use it in a single setting.

Avantages

Editing text instead of audio has revolutionized my company's workflow. We make podcasts and it has saved us tons of time to use Descript for highly produced shows. It doesn't really help with weekly shows that require minimal editing and fast turnarounds. But for months-long narrative projects, it is so incredibly easy to edit text linked to audio and then script around that. We then export to Audition or Protools to mix and score. But having this step along the way saves many hours of time and improved collaboration with internal and external people.

Inconvénients

It's really buggy! Things stop working frequently. Then Descript fixes it. Then there's another bug. I have faith that they'll get to a point where I'm not running into bugs every week or every few days, but it is frustrating for now.

Avantages

The features i liked about Descript are,
-it has a automatic speech to text.
-you can also change settings to suit what's best for the user
- it's friendly user
- one can edit videos as well
- it has different variety options in one software which makes it accessible
- fike documents are kept safe and its a trustworthy software which i would recommend to a beginner who doesn't know and wants to learn how to transcribe
- and also there are mini courses so one can understand the software better for which ii think it's a great feature to have.

Inconvénients

It tends to mulfunction which makes it difficult to use
Tye software can sometimes crash due to having more users on the software which i believe it has to be taken into consideration, considering that its a used software all around

Avantages

Many startups with new products use the terms disruptive, game changer, etc. But, in the end few actually are. Based on my experience, Descript is one of those products that really is a game changer. They've taken a fundamentally different approach to video and audio editing by applying a universally familiar document editing UX to video and audio editing. This removes much of the complexity of traditional editing software and puts it into a format that's accessible by virtually anyone. The integrated transcription function is really useful and the Overdub feature is very cool for being able to make edits without re-recording and splicing in audio. And the way it's all integrated with the cloud with one click publishing makes the usability very smooth and frictionless.

Inconvénients

As with any type of new software and when there's a new UX concept, there is a learning curve and things don't always work the way you would expect. Some people experienced with traditional editing software may find the UX a little limiting, but I don't think that's the type of user Descript is targeting with this solution. I've found the learning curve to be very fast at the beginning , so you can be up and running with it and creating content quickly. Once you need to access more advanced features it takes a little bit of time to figure out where the feature is and how to use it, but nothing out of the ordinary. I think it's just that the initial experience of being able to edit video/audio in a word processor is so good that you are then surprised when some of the more advanced features are not quite as intuitive.

Avantages

I'm not a video editor by any means. In fact, I've been using all sorts of different software over the past few years and I just didn't find anything that was really easy to use -- until Descript.

As somebody who is a heavy content creator, I needed to start creating video content and it was really hard because I had to rely on others to edit the videos for me. Now with Descript I can do it myself which is super powerful and saves a lot of time. My favorite features are "shorten word gaps" and "remove filler words". Everybody thinks I'm a magician when I show the my videos post-production.

Descript has changed the entire scope of my work and how I do my job. It's much easier than any other software tool that I've used. I love how easy it is to use, the interface is very intuitive, it's very quick and simple. My friends and teams love Descript too.

Don't be scared! All you need to do is upload your original video or record a video directly in the software and then edit it out later or add text or change the voice if you want. It's really great.

I also love the collaboration aspect of Descript.

Inconvénients

It takes a LONG time to download high-quality videos.

Avantages

Descript is so easy to use. It's cut down the editing time for our podcast interviews and the overall show while increasing our quality. With the ongoing new features too, like Overdub and the ability to generate Audiograms, the service continues to get better. The transcripts have also allowed us to increase the accessibility for our podcast and the generated videos while helping to keep costs down (and as the AI continues to improve, our time to correct transcripts as also gone down)

Inconvénients

The feature that needs attention is how the software deals with silence. Long silences are treated as "speakers" with the AI is deciding who it detects speaking. That causes issues with transcript correction. In addition, things that are actual silence can be removed, such as laughter or crosstalking or words the AI might not know. That adds extra editing time so those things are part of the final product. I'm hoping this aspect gets updated soon.

Avantages

What I love most about Descript is that it makes the process of creating audio and video clips (as well as editing for podcast episodes) super simple. I also love how often the team updates the software and releases new features. I feel like my trust in Descript is well-placed.

Inconvénients

I wish there was more flexibility in the export options. For example, we can do 90% of our audiogram/videogram workflow in Descript, but we still have to move into something like Adobe Premiere for that last 10%. If there were just a few more customization options, we could do 100% in Descript. That said, many of the features I love didn't exist in the beginning, so I'm confident it will eventually get there, and am not worried in the slightest about building our processes and systems around Descript.

Avantages

transcribing and editing, I like fact that it's easy to edit audio files by editing the transription

Inconvénients

I wish that there was option to automatically transcribe when you upload an audio file. also if there was an option to automatically take out filler words, that would be helpful

Avantages

I use this software everyday and with every update it becomes more powerful. My favorite feature has to be how easy editing is.

Inconvénients

The only con I have is that aligning tracks in the multitrack view can be difficult. I wish there was a snapping feature to line up video and audio clips easier.

Avantages

love that the transcripts are very accurate
the product has so many features and i am learning new features everyday
love that i can eliminate 4-5 pieces of software
love that i can create audio grams
very easy for editing text and video

Inconvénients

there are so many features, it does have a long learning curve with some of its functions
the demo videos are a little confusing and I had to watch them a few times to figure out how exactly to do certain things.