How to Get the Most Out of Descript: A Review of the Best Audio and Podcast Platform

How to Get the Most Out of Descript: A Review of the Best Audio and Podcast Platform
Photo by Soundtrap / Unsplash

Descript is an audio and video editor. It makes editing as simple as a word document. Descript allows you to upload media files or record directly to Descript. The program will instantly convert your file to text and allow you to edit the text. You can easily remove filler words or silences with one click. Make sure to record your screen and webcam so you can edit mistakes and publish them

What Is Descript?

Descript is a collaborative audio and video editor with capabilities including transcription, screen recording, publishing, complete multitrack editing, and even AI technologies. All of this software can be used alone or as a member of a Descript media center, combining functionality with tools like an e-mail client, file manager, audio editor, and more. It’s free and open-source software, but you can use it for commercial or even personal projects. Descript have been used by big companies, well-known independent journalists, and even military personnel, so they’re paying attention. What Are the Benefits of Descript? It can turn a normal microphone into a high-quality machine-learning audio recording.

What Can I Do with Descript?

Descript can take recorded audio or video, and edit it down to a manageable and clean format. Then you can publish the audio or video to a variety of social platforms and share the finished product with your audience. Descript comes in two flavors: the free public app and the commercial app. The free public app has all the basic features of the commercial product, plus social integration. Related Article: 4 Ways Machine Learning Is Changing the Future of Marketing Video Post Recap Video content is becoming a key part of any business's marketing strategy. But for many brands, video creation is a complicated task. After all, there are a ton of different platforms, add-ons, plugins, developers, third-party services, and more to take care of.

Descript | All-in-one audio/video editing, as easy as a doc.
Record, transcribe, edit, mix, collaborate, and master your audio and video with Descript. Download for free →.

How Does It Work?

Descript uses the services of a human editor to transcribe the audio or video content. Transcribers can either work in a team or independently if they’re comfortable doing so. Every word is recorded to an audio file and transcribed separately into a text file. If an original video or audio recording is longer than 16MB, a desktop client that syncs with the transcript can be used. Every text file in the transcript is uploaded to a URL. Anyone with an account can read it or have it printed in an article. No client is needed. The system works offline and sends out notifications if new content is added or an article is viewed. How Does It Score? The Transcribing Engine Descript’s audio transcribing engine has been in the works for over two years.

Best Features

No VST plugins, no pre-built projects, no giant software suites, no desktop clunkiness — all you need to get started is the Text Tool, which loads up the entire catalog of audio, video, and photos you need for a project and creates a simple text file that includes the audio/video tracklist, a timestamp, and any tags that might be important. In the Text Tool’s sidebar, you can access various audio-focused tools including trackcut, trim, and preview as well as numerous video-focused tools. These include image grabs, video opening and closing, audio trim, and video cropping. Finally, you can capture video clips directly from the sidebar and insert them directly into the project as clips, tiles, or compilations.

Pricing and Plans

Descript offers plans with options for commercial use. Its creator plan is $15/month. For that price, you get access to Unlimited screen recordings and 10hrs of transcription/month. The next step up is called Pro ($30/month), which gets you unlimited HD recordings, unlimited editing, Unlimited Overdub, and 30hrs of transcription/month. The highest tier is Enterprise, which costs based on users and adds copy-and-paste and drag-and-drop sharing.  Descript comes with text-to-speech transcription but is missing the search and track forwarding for U.S. content. Descript does not support podcasting, nor does it publish to platforms such as SoundCloud and PodcastBlast.

Descript | All-in-one audio/video editing, as easy as a doc.
Record, transcribe, edit, mix, collaborate, and master your audio and video with Descript. Download for free →.

Conclusion

It's no secret that, as new technologies continue to come and go, the options for enhancing the user experience of the traditional user interface of Windows and mobile devices continue to dwindle. It is often difficult for developers, both for the small businesses and more established businesses, to know where to begin and which direction to go. In an effort to make it easier for business professionals, I thought it might be helpful to put together a short list of things you can start looking into in the coming months.