Descript Rooms Review 2025: Best Remote Podcast Recording Software?

Aug 29

Is Descript Rooms finally reliable enough to replace Riverside.fm and other platforms like it for remote podcast recording? After extensive testing with the Bamby Media team, I'm breaking down everything you need to know about Descript's updated remote recording platform.

Descript Rooms used to be unreliable for professional podcast production, but recent updates have transformed it into a serious contender. In this comprehensive review, I test the new features, including echo cancellation, AI editing tools, multi-track recording, and video quality to see if it's worth switching from Riverside or other remote recording platforms.

What You'll Learn:

✅ How to set up remote podcast recordings in Descript Rooms

✅ Inviting guests and managing audio/video settings for optimal quality

✅ Real-world performance testing with multiple hosts

✅ Echo cancellation effectiveness compared to previous versions

✅ AI editing tools that speed up post-production workflow

✅ Creating and customizing video scenes for video podcasts

✅ Exporting multi-track audio for professional editing

✅ Direct comparison: Descript Rooms vs Riverside.fm

The team and I demonstrate Descript Rooms with a live mock recording featuring the Bamby Media team to show you exactly how it performs under real podcast conditions. Whether you're recording interviews, co-hosted shows, or remote conversations, this review covers everything from setup to export.

Perfect for podcasters looking for reliable remote recording software with built-in editing capabilities that actually work.

Chapter Markers:

00:00 Introduction and Descript Rooms Overview

01:18 Setting Up Your Remote Recording Project

01:55 Recording with Remote Guests

02:52 Editing Your Podcast Recording

06:24 Creating and Customizing Video Scenes

14:58 Exporting Multi-Track Audio and Video

18:52 Final Verdict: Should You Switch to Descript Rooms?

Transcript:

[00:00:00] In this video, we are taking a look at Descrip rooms Now, I did a review of Descrip Rooms a few months ago, and they have made a lot of improvements and updates to the service since then to the software, so I wanted to give it another look. I actually reviewed it in the past, putting it up against Riverside fm.
[00:00:19] The kind of competitor to it. Now I'm just gonna take you through what it's like to just use script to record your, uh, remote conversations with guests. And I'm gonna take you through not just the actual recording phase, so you know, inviting people into the room, what it looks like when you're actually in the session.
[00:00:38] What things you can adjust and change from your end, what things they can adjust and change, but also then the process of what it is like once it's then done and it's in the script. How you actually can edit that, what it comes in at, what it looks like, and then what it actually also looks like as you export it out as well.
[00:00:58] So that's what we're gonna go through [00:01:00] in this video today. I'm going to share my screen with you and show you some examples of things. You're also going to. See our lovely team here at BA Media. You'll see Alex, Deb, and Emily. So let's get straight into it and you can see for yourself what it's like recording in just script.
[00:01:18] So when you're in the script, you're gonna go to new project and go do video project. There are a few ways to get there, but we'll just go this way. For this one. We hit record, we go record with others. It's going to, if you haven't used it before, ask you to share permissions so they can see I'm adjusting my camera and I'm just checking that my audio is the right input as well.
[00:01:38] And then I just allow using this site. Then we can see, I put my name in. I just check my settings. I tell them that, yes, I'm going to be using headphones, and then we will be able to get in. There is a link that we then click on and send to the staff. Okay, and then here are the staff. So we've got Deb next to me [00:02:00] and Alex and Emily.
[00:02:01] They're all testing their audio and their video levels. You can see I'm also playing with a few of the features, checking the audio levels. I'm seeing whether we can add echo cancellation on any of the audio as well, and I can turn that on and off from my end. And they can also do it individually. I can also see the cameras that they're using and the.
[00:02:22] Audio that they're using and I can change the audio, but not the video settings that they are in here. Now I am on a Creator legacy plan. Uh, in this example, I'm not on the business plan and I don't have extra control settings on here. We're checking how pixelated we look as well when we are recording because I know that Riverside has some issues with lots of pixelation and dropping out, but it hasn't been too bad.
[00:02:49] And then I will show you what it looks like when it is. Then now inside of the script, after we have let it all upload into script so that you can see the editing phase as well. [00:03:00] Now you can see here, it's come in, I renamed it to test recording of descrip rooms. And then when I click on that, it has all of us in here.
[00:03:10] It hasn't formatted anything. Well, uh, look at this. That's a great one. We're all just laughing. Uh, hasn't formatted us. Is this just plumed All of us in there. Uh, and if I right click and we go to edit sequence, then you'll be able to see that there's individual files here, depending on who the people were in this.
[00:03:29] Session. So we've got four different tracks for everybody, which means that I could go through and individually, uh, fix up their audio. So I could do, you know, the EQing and the compression that I would wanna do in individual things. I could also amend like the way it looks, so if there was some changes to her color and things like, we'll be able to do that in the other end there as well.
[00:03:53] And then there's the, not Emily, which is actually, uh, Deb and then Alex in here too. And the quality on [00:04:00] Alex and Brianna, because obviously the video camera, like the cameras that we're using are quite good. Then the ones that are using just their webcam, like laptop ones, but it gives you a really good indication as to kind of what it all comes in at.
[00:04:14] As we are looking at it, I did already get rid of some of the stuff that was at the front. And then this is just the actual episode that I'm rec, that I've recorded. Hi everyone. Welcome to our fake podcast. I'm not delayed at all. My audio is matching my, uh, video, which is really good. And then if we look at someone else, I'd probably go a Reuben.
[00:04:35] So Deb's all right too. Uh, what's the type of meat her audio is? Not delayed at all. And then if we go through to Emily, what's yours? Well, I also don't love sandwiches, but I love one that, so Emily's audio and video matches as well. And then if we go to Alex's, uh, I'm gonna go with peanut butter. Oh, classic.
[00:04:57] Just simple. Yep. [00:05:00] Okay, so Alex's audio and video are matched up as well. I recorded for about 10 minutes or so and I didn't have any dropouts. If we go to the section where I'm talking about echo cancellation and turning it on, what is your favorite type of bread in sticking with my. A European theme, uh, pumper nickel bread.
[00:05:19] Deb's audio is sucking in and out now that she has echo cancellation on because it's trying hard to get, uh, the sound to sort of be stabilized. But in fact, in my opinion, it's made it worse. My bread. So it's like a hundred percent rye and it's like slices, like no. Yeah. So echo cancellation with hers. She doesn't have, uh, anything plugged in.
[00:05:43] Yeah. If they ever bring it back. Yeah. Smoked potato. Sourdough. Yeah, sourdough. Okay. Same with Alex. So the echo cancellation sucks there. Emily, what's up? I don't know whether it's rye or sourdough for me. Sourdough. No. So again, it's [00:06:00] sucking in and out. So the echo cancellation, in my opinion is not a good idea.
[00:06:04] I don't think it's worked very well. In fact, it would be better to just do some EQ compression, maybe even some studio sound if necessary, to actually make that. Work to make that good because as it currently stands, I would not. Advise. Putting the echo cancellation on it does not do a good job there. It makes the audio sound worse.
[00:06:24] Now, the next thing that we can do, you know, you can then go, like, if we just adjust this, if we are wanting to create some different scenes in here, if you click here, like click wherever you want and then you hit the slash button, it will create a new scene for you. So this is when we can start to build out what we want our scenes to look like, especially when we've got four people or three people or whatever.
[00:06:46] Uh, you can just go over to the scene area and then go to this bit layout, and there's a bunch of different layout packs that you can choose from. We also have our own templated. Packs that we've [00:07:00] created here at Baie Media for all of our clients and everything we do. So we don't tend to use anything really in the Descrip standard templates because again, that's something that everyone else would also be using.
[00:07:12] But it's kind of like Canva templates. It gives you a bunch of different things that you can cycle through and use if you wanna, you know, highlight four people and you want sort of a background in between them or. You know, like this is just one version and it's just some different colors. Or you could go into this one and you can see there's different options here.
[00:07:33] This has got like black in between each one. If we wanted four people on, there's so many different ones to choose from, which is really nice. They've put a lot of effort into actually giving you many different layers to choose from. But let's just say we want that one and we have four people. So you can see there's four people in there, and now we're all in our own little kind of boxes there.
[00:07:56] And that would be what you would use as the four [00:08:00] person layout. If at any time you're like, actually, I don't like that. I don't want that to be my scene anymore. I don't want that to be my layout, then you can just go back and find one that you like better, which in this case, maybe I would do like this and be black.
[00:08:14] Well, this isn't quite black, but let's say I wanted to change that background then and make it black so I can just go click onto background and make that black, and then we're all in our own little frames and see how we've all got rounded corners too. So we stumbled a lot of the heavy lifting as far as that goes.
[00:08:31] Then let's say we wanted to just switch to just me as a solo. I could do that. So again, if I look at the transcript here, I can see that. I'm purple and then I'm sort of talking by myself here. So I just put a little dash in there again, and I create another scene, which is scene two. And then I can go up to here and I could use that same layout pack that I, if I wanted to, or I could choose a different one.
[00:08:58] Doesn't really matter, depending on how [00:09:00] you want it to look. Uh, and then I could just go, okay, I'm gonna go. To default camera, and it has selected Emily as the default camera, which in this case we don't want it to be Emily. We want it to be shoey debits. So in the layers here, you can see all the other layers.
[00:09:17] Now we can select me and unselect her and we've got just me, my own little thing here. Okay, so that layout didn't really work because it selected someone that actually wasn't speaking. And so then I've now given it just me here and I can go position fill scene editor, and it makes it big so that I'm just the only one that's on camera.
[00:09:42] Then you could also then cycle through and let's say, you know, when Deb is talking, we might want a scene where it's just Deb, but most of the time, probably in this situation especially because you can see there's lots of crosstalk, lots of people talking over each other because you can see there's, uh, different.
[00:09:59] [00:10:00] Colors, that's all the different people in the transcription. They're all coming in over the top of each other. So I would just want the same scene here probably throughout the rest. So in that case, I would then click on this front one scene and I would right click on it and go copy layout, click on this third scene, and then go paste layout.
[00:10:21] And so then for the rest of this, it has everybody there together. So it's a simple way if we sort of look back through and then we can see, okay, there's switch to me, and then it's back to just all the four of us because we're all together and we want to keep it like that throughout the rest of the thing.
[00:10:42] Now, if I was doing this for real, then I would do a lot more after this point to actually clean all this up. I would edit it down properly. I would get rid of the awkward pauses, I would switch scenes, uh, much more reliably so that it. It is focused on the person at hand. [00:11:00] The other way you could do that though, is if you click on this and you've got the scene, uh, you can also just go up here to AI tools.
[00:11:08] If you have access to AI tools, you can do, uh, multicam, automatic Multicam, or you can go in the layer and you can see Multicam is selected here. And we can actually go like this and go automatic multicam. You can give it a style automatic and you can say occasional or frequent, and then you can have the cameras set up based on who's talking.
[00:11:32] So she be do bits, Emily, Emily, not Emily, Emily, et cetera. So it will switch based on who is talking from the transcript. And you can actually use a layout pack too, so you can suggest which layout pack it uses. So in this case, let's say I selected this one, so we'll see what it does. But it might do some wacky things.
[00:11:53] Let's just hit submit and see. And also you can see it then adds in like extra gradients because that's based on what [00:12:00] this particular layout has provided. So the layout that they've created has all these kind of little gradient things in them. And if I didn't like it, I could remove it and then it would just be black.
[00:12:13] So see how it's sort of switching now, depending on who's talking on the call today and Emily, this, I'd probably go a Ruben. Okay, good. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What's a Alex? What's a Ruben? Uh, it's uh, what's the type of meat? See how it's done, like fades and things, but there's too much time there where, you know, like he asked a question, but he wasn't featured on the screen at all.
[00:12:39] It's like past, is it Sal? So we wouldn't want just the two of them. We would want four of them. And the next time that looks like it comes up is maybe here, or there's three people there and it's gotten rid of Deb. Alex. Mm-hmm. Uh, you'll address me by my real name. Thank you. And it's also put transition [00:13:00] fades in between each of these scenes as well, which is something that I, you wouldn't really use in a podcast or something like this.
[00:13:08] You wouldn't have fades in between each scene as well. So it's done some extra things that. You wouldn't really do. I don't really use the automatic multicam things except for the stuff that we've already set up ourselves. When we have created templates and layouts from our end, then we know that it will work when we switch them.
[00:13:28] But if it's just script ones. It's very rare that it does what it says on the box. You know, like it's not really that easy, like it's not saving you a heap of time, is basically what I'm saying. It's causing you to spend way longer than you would probably spend if you just did it. If. It like edited it through.
[00:13:48] In saying that, I guess that's tricky for me to say because we are a podcast production team and I've personally been doing this for about a decade, so I'm very quick. We're all very quick [00:14:00] with what we do here and that's why we get paid to do this kind of stuff because we are so quick at all of it. But you can see there.
[00:14:06] So it's done, its best. Done what it it can to switch screens and do different layouts and things like that, but not really something that I would use if I control Z. It will start to remove all of that when we get back to this, and then it's just that one layout. All the way through, which again, it would be something I would be more reliably using and then just cutting away to an individual person.
[00:14:33] But again, that's a significant amount of editing time to actually switch that sort of manually as well. This is the end of that kind of little look at what it looks like now to actually record within Indescript with multiple people. I am happy to say that since the previous review that I did of de script in this format with multiple speakers, that it is vastly.
[00:14:56] Different. It is much better. The exporting [00:15:00] phase is still the same. We can look at what export options we have and in this situation, because Alex and I have 4K, and then Deb and Emily probably are only at seven 20 P, so if I export this out at 4K, which I will do now and we will test it when we get the actual finished result of this.
[00:15:20] The quality of Emily and Deb's video will probably look not that great, but we will see. I will show it here, uh, after this has finished exporting so that you can see the final result of that. Hi everyone. Welcome to our fake podcast. Uh, in fact, this podcast that I'm creating is called I Love Sandwiches, and these are three guests on my fake podcast about sandwiches.
[00:15:46] Can you guys guess what my favorite sandwich is? Vegemite. Alex, you're not, I mean, the original. Oh yeah, Deb got it. Is it my favorite? Oh, am I right? Yeah, it's a classic. It's Vegemite. What is it? Veg. Oh, Vegemite. So you've just watched the exported video [00:16:00] that we took from the script, and as you can see, it's actually pretty good.
[00:16:04] The quality is fine. We had a look at the backend resolution data so that we could see what it actually exported out as, and we can see that it has. Got a resolution still, obviously of the 4K because that is what I clicked on to say it needed to be in 4K. The uh, data rate is 30.86 megabits per second, which is actually really good for video conferencing software.
[00:16:30] Head of video was quite impressed with how it actually went there, so that was good. And the encoded frames per second is 24.73. So the only, I guess thing that might pose a little bit of an issue for some video video editing software is that it is a variable frame rate. Something to be aware of if you are someone that needs to know that information.
[00:16:53] But overall, as per last time we actually checked Riverside from that. End as [00:17:00] well. It definitely was not producing this kind of quality. So I'll be interested to give Riverside another look now, uh, as a kind of comparison, and I will do another review of the both of them side by side so that you can really make an informed decision of that.
[00:17:14] But if you're already a Descrip user, uh, and this is something that you're looking at doing, then I cannot see a reason why you wouldn't stay within the same platform if you're already paying for one subscription just. Do everything here in script into script rooms. They've done a lot of work in this area to get it to actually work well.
[00:17:33] I haven't encountered dropouts. I've been really happy with how it looked too and how easy and simple it was for our staff here to actually just click on the link and join. It was very seamless and easy for everyone to join and these all the things that you're looking for. In a software, when you're trying to invite someone to a session, you do not want it to be complicated.
[00:17:54] You want it to be super simple and you wanna have really good, uh, resolution and, uh, [00:18:00] results At the end of it, there's probably gonna be variables depending on, you know, the internet that you are recording in the internet, that the guest is recording in, that sort of thing. Also, just the quality of the cameras that they're using and the microphones, or if they aren't using microphones.
[00:18:15] I definitely recommend, as I said. In the actual kind of screen grab that you saw not to use echo cancellation because it definitely damages the quality of the audio, and I would just spend that extra time in the EQ and compression phase of the editing suite to get that audio. So. Sounding good. Now, if this is something that you need help with, we do have a full descrip course that you can take and it shows you everything about, uh, how to use Descrip, including the more advanced AI features.
[00:18:46] We'd be happy to see you inside of that as well. If you have any questions, put 'em in the comments below. Happy to try and answer those. For you, but I hope this was a really thorough look at Descrip rooms for you to help you make a informed decision as to whether it works for you. If you end [00:19:00] up signing up for Descrip.
[00:19:01] I have put a link in the description below. We are affiliates of Descrip for good reason. I really believe in their software even though they have been. And continue to be buggy in a lot of situations, I still think that there is nothing in the market that comes close to the capabilities that they are able to provide, and it's only gonna continue to get better.
[00:19:22] So that's my little wrap up of Descrip Rooms. I hope you enjoyed it and have a great day.