Podcast Editing Software Battle: Descript vs Riverside
You’re about to start a podcast and you’ve decided you want to edit it yourself.
At first, this seems like it should be fairly straightforward.
Get the audio/video, make a few adjustments, cut a bit of the nonsense out and you should have something that’s good enough to release.
But then you start researching online what software you should use to edit your show and everybody and their dog has an opinion on what software to choose.
And for some reason, the editors of the world are quite adamant that their tool is the best one to use. There can be no other winners.
Unfortunately, a lot of the information you find online may lead you down the path of complex editing tools that make you want to throw your computer out a window.
And as a long-time editor myself with almost two decades of experience working with audio and video, I can sometimes be a bit of a snob too.
I do have clear favourites and if I’m amongst other seasoned editors, no doubt we would have a healthy debate about why what we use is supreme.
But that’s not the purpose of today dear reader.
Today, I want to help distil the endless possibilities that you’re presented with as a DIY podcast editor, into a comparison of two tools that there has been quite a lot of discussion about online. Descript vs. Riverside.fm.
You’ve probably heard of Riverside.fm with its super convenient virtual meeting capabilities. It’s been a trusty sidekick for recording interviews remotely. It wasn't long ago that Riverside started offering editing capabilities too. Smart, right? If you're already using Riverside, you might think, "Hey, why not just edit here too?"
But is it as good as it sounds?
On the flip side, there's Descript – an editing tool that, truth be told, had a rough start years ago as it was a pretty bad user experience. But time has been kind to Descript, and now it’s a pretty solid choice in the podcasting world.
So, let’s see how these two stack up against each other based on a few key factors: ease of editing, customisation, speed, AI tools, and learning curve.
Ease of Editing
First up, ease of editing. Riverside shines with simplicity; it’s super easy to navigate and use. You can edit text-based clips and take out large sections like a breeze. However, if you like to dive deep into the nitty-gritty of editing, it falls short as you can't isolate and work on individual tracks. Meanwhile, Descript offers greater flexibility. You can manage individual tracks, edit transcripts, and the timeline. Shortcuts make editing faster, especially for seasoned users, but total beginners might find it initially slow going. Both tools earned an “A” from me on this one – they are both technically easy to edit within.
Customisation
Customisation is where we see a clear divide. Riverside allows basic video editing with captioning and image-insertion, but not much else. The videos often look standardised, lacking the personal touch. I gave Riverside a C for customisation. Descript, however, is like a playground of possibilities. Fonts, colours, visual and audio elements – you name it, Descript probably supports it. Plus, it’s got cool AI features for generating elements that once seemed impossible. For this reason, Descript bagged an A for customisation.
Speed
Speed can be a make-or-break factor. Riverside scores well here. If the recording is already on Riverside, you can start editing right away with no uploading fuss. Export times are decent, making it speedy in my books, though browser dependency slows it down a notch, giving it a B. Descript lags with numerous bugs (especially around the times that they are updating their software or working on a new release feature) and as a podcast production team who is in Descript every day, we really notice when there are significant speed issues. We’ve found this element to be quite frustrating and I gave Descript a “D” as a result in this section.
I will add one caveat to this though. If you’re only editing your own podcast, the kind of speed issues that we’ve found are probably a lot less likely to impact you as a solo user. So I try not to judge too harshly in this area for the occasional user.
AI Tools
Both platforms venture into the realm of AI tools, yet Descript is light years ahead. Riverside’s attempts at AI tools like filler word removal can backfire, sometimes cutting out important context in conversations, earning a C. On the other hand, Descript’s AI tools impress with features like voice replication and Studio Sound. Their technology made some near-impossible fixes achievable, granting it a well-deserved A. It’s important to note that Descript is backed by OpenAI, so I would expect that their AI tools are quite advanced.
Learning Curve
Lastly, the learning curve. Riverside is less steep; its simplicity means fewer things to learn and they have a plethora of online tutorials to help you answer any burning questions. The team at Riverside are also exceptional human beings and they have an active online presence. For this, I gave them an “A”. Descript takes more time to master purely because the software has so many more capabilities that you need to explore. Like Riverside, Descript also has a great online presence, lots of tutorials and their discord channel is particularly active with other users helping out with questions too. I do feel the learning curve is steeper with Descript, and so they’ve scored a “B” in this category.
So who is crowned the winner?
In a nutshell, Descript comes out ahead in my book. Its richer customisations, advanced AI capabilities, and editing sophistication make it a worthwhile choice for those willing to invest the time in learning. Conversely, if speed and simplicity are your top priorities, Riverside is a perfectly viable option. While both are excellent tools, consider what you need most from your podcast editing software.
Don't just take my word for it—try them out! Descript is a remarkable platform to use, especially if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and learn. And perhaps if you already have a subscription to Riverside, why not give their editing tool a go to see whether you it serves your purposes.
We are affiliates of both of these tools, but this article does not stem from a need to make affiliate income. That’s the furthest thing from my mind. This comes from a genuine interest in testing tools that new podcasters might want to add to their arsenal. I’ll always provide my honest opinion and try to showcase the best options for you.
Transcript:
-
[00:00:00] It's a fight to the death today. I love doing these today. We're going to verse Descript versus Riverside FM for editing. So for DIY editors out there, I'm going to put these software tools through the paces to give you some input as to what I think you should be using. If you're a DIY podcast editor, you're wanting to do it simply, and you want to make it.
[00:00:22] Sound good. I'm going to mark each of these platforms across a few different areas to get to the overall winner. So today we're going to be looking at ease of editing. So how easy is it to edit on both of these platforms? Number two is customization. So within your actual editing space, what can you customize to get it to sound how you actually want it to sound?
[00:00:45] Number three is going to be speed. So how quickly can you edit using this platform and not just edit, how quickly can you then export and have this thing then done, uploaded out there into the world. Number four, we're going to look at the AI tools that both of these software have and whether they are good enough to actually use.
[00:01:06] And number five, I'm going to look at the learning curve. So, I think that that's probably the main things that you're looking for as a DIY editor. And if you have no skills, like you really don't know how to use anything. But you've recorded your conversation in Riverside. Riverside's probably where you're thinking you might go first.
[00:01:25] You don't have to buy any other platforms. You don't have to do anything else. You can potentially edit everything in Riverside. So I can see how that might be beneficial for you. Descript on the other hand is also just about to launch their rooms feature, meaning that you will also be able to have the conversations that you want to have within the rooms.
[00:01:43] Descript as well with your guests remotely, and then you'll be able to edit in Descript as well, those conversations. So Descript isn't there yet with that side, Riverside's offering both right now. At time of recording, this is where it's at. So now I'm going to get into each [00:02:00] of these platforms and I'm going to give them a score based on how I think they perform.
[00:02:05] First up, let's get into Riverside.
[00:02:13] In Riverside, this is a conversation I had with Matthew Bliss, and he was also a guest on our podcast, Pump Up Your Pod. You can see there's individual files there, and we have the actual edit here. So if we click on edit and we go create new edit, then it's going to open up that screen pretty quickly, uh, to be able to actually go ahead and start editing.
[00:02:35] This is pretty speedy at this point because we haven't had to upload or download anything and take it into any other software. It's, it's all here. So that's pretty cool. Uh, when we first get here, we can see that there is a transcript over on the left. There is the viewer over here, which has me and Matthew in there as well.
[00:02:55] We've also got a timeline down the bottom, which has both of us in there in our different colors. And if you click over here, you can actually expand those and have individual tracks there for each. But you can't actually have both of them in the timeline viewable at the same time. That seems like super dumb to me.
[00:03:13] Why would you not want to be able to have both of them there in the timeline? Easily so that you can edit little intricate things. I guess for a DIYer, maybe Riverside thought well They're not going to be going really intricate with their editing. They just need to do the basics. To me There was no way that I would be happy with this.
[00:03:32] Okay, so when we go into the actual transcript now if we look at It's pretty dang easy to edit. So it, let's say there's a section that I really don't want. So that's why Matthew was saying getting over that hurdle. Let's just remove this bit. Let's say I didn't want that bit. Okay. I would then highlight that and then hit delete.
[00:03:53] And you can see it's now deleted there. And it's also got a like grayed out area [00:04:00] there on the actual recording. So if I then listen back sound better from EQ, and you can also get it very wrong as well. And everyone's journey is different. Like I started with the blue Yeti. Cool. So then it jumps straight to the next bit.
[00:04:12] So as far as. Editing, actual editing, that you can't really get much easier than that. It's just highlight and then delete. What I will say though there is that you can't go into the edit any further than that. You can't like zoom right on in. I mean you can, but you can't do much with that when you zoom right in.
[00:04:32] I just want to remove this bit. So now if I click on this magic tool, I can't do anything there. I can't, can't edit like here. If I click on this and then I've got them both in, I could edit here. See how there's a little like, where is it here? Split, but I can't remove me by myself without it. Also removing Matthew.
[00:05:02] If I get rid of that's right, he's also talking over the top of me at that point. And so it would just cut out some of him. So let's just do that. Let's just delete and then see what happens. That's a revert problem because then some Mike that, yeah, see, cause he was talking over me. I can't remove my that's right.
[00:05:18] Even though I actually really want to ease of editing though. I will give it a pretty good score because it is technically easy to edit using this platform. You just saw me do it. You highlighted it. You delete it and then it's gone. Ease of editing, I have to say, is an A. Very simple, easy to edit. Any schmo could do that.
[00:05:42] Highlight some text like it's a Word document. You're done. Now, if we get into customization though, that's where you're going to fall down a little bit, Riverside, because as I just showed you there, you can't customize the edit. You can't go, okay, cool. I want to get, just get rid of my side [00:06:00] and I want to do that just here.
[00:06:02] I there's no, how I can't do that. I can't do any of that. So that is no good. I don't like that at all. Let's say I don't like the way I sound particularly. Uh, you can go over here and you can do your magic tools and you can apply. It will apply what it thinks your audio should sound like, what would be the best quality audio from that microphone, but it doesn't give me any customization in order to EQ or compress anything the way I want it to actually sound.
[00:06:32] Riverside is kind of assuming that you don't want to. To or don't understand that you'd rather just hit a button and say, yep, make me sound good. That can be really good. And that's technically still part of the ease of editing area because it's super easy to just apply a button and go, yep, cool. Make me sound good.
[00:06:51] But if you don't sound good with the magic audio, You've got nothing else to do. There's no customization option to actually fix that or make it sound better. So to me, the customization from that standpoint is not something I would use. Okay. So you can customize because you can use your own logo. You can put your own background in.
[00:07:13] You can customize the layout. This is all for video. You can have it be smart scenes, meaning that. If it, when it's applying that, it will switch speakers based on who is talking. Now I did try this and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. So sometimes it would still just be one person on for a long time that didn't need to be there.
[00:07:34] And it would have made more sense for it to be splitting the screen here, but let's just see what it does. And, uh, my next microphone after that was a Shure MV7X, which is By all accounts, a fantastic microphone, uh, an XLR only microphone. That's potentially fine, but see how long that is. That's a long time for him to then just be on screen.
[00:07:57] I don't really potentially want that. So I [00:08:00] might move that over so you can customize and bring me on. a bit sooner, but then it's just me. Well, I don't want that. Now I want both of them. So I go, all right, cool. And then I'll add in both of them again. Yeah. So it's still going to take you significant time to go through and change that to the actual speakers that you actually want.
[00:08:19] So even though there is that button to say, yeah, make this layout happen, and that's technically customizing it, it's still going to be time consuming to do that. So that's. Technically customized. You can put your own music in, you can put your own captions in. This falls down a little bit for me, though, from a customization standpoint, because even though you can technically put your own captions in, you cannot choose from any font that you like, and you also can't upload your own font.
[00:08:44] I'm on the pro plan of Riverside. This is all I've got to choose from. So that's not good enough for me from a customization point of view. Uploads, you can upload your own stuff, so that's fine. Images, you know, again, this would make it all more customised. And text, again, would make it more customised, but to a point.
[00:09:01] So, can't use your own fonts. You can put your own colours in, so that's good. If you just hit this little button here, you're able to customise and put your own hex code in. So that at least is something from a customisation standpoint that will make it a little bit more unique to you. And that's pretty much all the customizable features that I would go through here.
[00:09:19] Technically, you can customize the way some aspects of this look. So you've got your own brand that you can apply. You've got different layouts that you can customize. You can put different music in. You can put captions in and make it look kind of different. But there's certain things in that customization area, like not being able to use your own fonts.
[00:09:40] Having the layout be kind of something, but also quite time consuming to then do something with that customization. And then also that you can't do any of your own customization with the audio. All you can do is hit magic AI. You can't do any EQ or compression of your own. To me, that makes it a little bit of a, it's downfall there from a [00:10:00] customization point of view.
[00:10:01] So I'm going to give it customization for Riverside. A C. Now we're going to move into speed. So how quickly can you kind of edit this thing and get it done? Technically, you could probably do this pretty quick. If you're just doing the transcript and you're just highlighting as you go and you just delete stuff and that's kind of all you do, then you could probably zoom this through pretty quickly.
[00:10:27] You could use no other tools and just have that added in like that. As far as speed to load and things like that, I think that that's all kind of pretty fine as well. So you could be quite quick and speedy at that. But in saying that, in the same way, it's a pretty loose edit. You have to be someone that you don't really care about it being super professional with the edit because you can't do a lot of the super professional editing.
[00:10:52] So it is speedy, but you have a downfall for that in the actual editing phase there as well. If we go to export now and we go, okay, cool. I want to export this out. You can export just the audio and the video. You can remove the watermark. If you've got that, you can normalize the audio levels and you can remove background noise.
[00:11:09] So there's some things that you can do here that potentially make it quicker for you because you don't have to then do that customization yourself. And then you can just hit export video. You can do it up to 4k if you're on the right plan. Which is cool, but in this case, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to hit it as HD, just because Matthew's not in 4K anyway.
[00:11:31] And so, let's just try that. We're going to do a video export of this entire thing. Okay, and then it's going to allow me to keep editing, which is cool, while it's doing that.
[00:11:50] And no doubt, I'm going to get an email when that actually exports. So, I will put a timer on now to see how long it actually takes. Oh, the export is ready. [00:12:00] Let's see. So that export took four minutes and two seconds. Now that we know that that export has taken about four minutes to do, and that is a HD quality, and it's around 35 minutes, this audio, the export taking four minutes This isn't too bad.
[00:12:14] I would probably give that a B, especially when I also look at the speed at which you could probably edit using this platform as well if you're only using the transcript. Now if we move on to AI tools. So the AI tools that we have at our disposal here at Riverside FM are over here in AI producer. We've got set pace, which means it will remove pauses and improve conversation flow.
[00:12:36] Okay. Bye. We've got smooth speech, so it will move filler words and unwanted sounds. Magic mute, meaning it will get rid of the other person if they're not supposed to be talking. So if there's a prominent person that's talking, and then there's another person that's coughing or breathing heavily or something like that, then Riverside will adjust the mute.
[00:12:55] And get that removed as well. And then there's also that magic audio option that I, um, advised and showed you earlier that you could apply. The thing is, okay, I'm going to show you. So if we go to smooth speech and we go apply, which is the thing that most people would do, they'd be like, yeah, God, I said, um, so many times, I just want to remove them.
[00:13:14] You can hit apply and you can remove those filler words. And it does it extremely quickly, which I love. Also, I'm a little bit dubious on because I feel like it should take longer than that. But you know, AI is pretty quick. If you then go over here, it's showing you like this is where the thing is that I've removed.
[00:13:33] Now let's just listen to what it's done. Sometimes, whatever else. I'm just going to check that my Pro Tools is working. Hang on. It's got rid of a breath there. That's fine. Let's look at another one that it's removed. It was just like, oh my god, like this stuff is Cool, so here you can see it's actually removed my o from oh my god, and if we hit restore you'll be able to hear it again.
[00:13:55] It was just like, oh my god. So I wouldn't remove that o, and it's [00:14:00] decided that that o is a filler word because it's looking for o, and then it's removed it. To me, that's not something I would remove, if we keep going. Exactly, like, anyway, see how this here, again, is something that I've said, oh, maybe? Let's, let's get it back.
[00:14:17] Exactly, like, oh god, anyway, uh, uh, U H, oh god. So, again, I wouldn't remove that. And so, to me, even though it has the capability of, yes, having the AI tool technically, there's going to be too many instances with that remove filler words that I actually wouldn't want that removed. I don't want every single filler word removed and actually it takes me a lot more time now to go back and make sure that it's cut.
[00:14:44] The right filler words. There's no customization in that filler word thing either to go on. I just want you to look after the arms. There's no tick box to be like, just the arms, please. It's just remove all filler words. All filler words are bad. That's not technically correct. So although it has that AI tool, I don't think it's very good.
[00:15:03] Oh, the export is ready. Let's see. So that export took four minutes and two seconds. Seconds. The other things that it can do, like setting the pace, removing pauses and improve conversation flow. Again, it technically has these AI tools, but I don't think they're very good. They're just not very good yet.
[00:15:22] Sorry, Riverside. I'm going to have to give you a bit of a crappy score for the AI tools because although they're technically there, although they technically exist, they're not particularly useful and they will slow down the actual editing pace as well. So AI tools, we're going to give that a big old C.
[00:15:44] Now we're going to jump in and look at learning curve. So how long does it take you to understand how to use this tool? I don't think it would take you long to figure this out. I'm coming to it from a person that's been audio editing for probably two decades almost, like a [00:16:00] long time. Oh my god, that makes me seem really old.
[00:16:05] So I understand how to use these things pretty quickly, but if what you see there in front of you is You can see a transcript and you can, you know, you can delete from the transcript. You can click on a few things and then there's a big old export button. The learning curve on this is pretty small. Also, Riverside does have a lot of good tutorials and things to help you increase the speed at which you can get the things done.
[00:16:28] So, to me, the learning curve, I think I have to give you an A, Riverside, because you've done quite well to create something that is very easy to figure out and use. To recap for Riverside, we have got ease of editing, an A, customization, a C, speed, B, AI tools, C, and learning curve, an A. Now we're going to jump into Descript and we're going to have a look at what it's like to edit inside of Descript and benchmark that against what I just did here.
[00:17:02] Here we are in Descript. Now the first thing I'll say, obviously I needed to import this into Descript first. I need to create a project. There were some steps in there which are going to make that speed one potentially a little bit lower. But we're going to go straight into the ease of editing first. So, similar but not the same layout.
[00:17:21] As Riverside, we have the transcript over here on the left. We have the timeline down the bottom. We have both of us, our videos here on the right. And then we have all the other things that you use over there on the right. We can change the layout of that by pressing this and having like, okay, let's make it so that it's stacked or, you know, any other method that you would like.
[00:17:43] But I'm going to do side by side because I like that now to edit. Pretty quick again, so we're just going to go, okay, well I want to remove all of this.
[00:17:59] Let's get [00:18:00] stuck into, so I'm just going to go cool, I don't need any of that, and I'm just going to hit delete. And it's going to delete it all. And then it's going to start from where I want it to start from the actual editing. That's pretty easy to do. Same process. It's like a document. You just highlight and you hit delete.
[00:18:16] But the thing that sets this apart from Riverside is that if I just go up like this, I can see more of my timeline, which is really good. And now I can see when I'm talking. And then also I can see when Matthew is talking as well. So I've got both in there. But if I right click and then I go. Um, edit sequence, I have the individual tracks here now.
[00:18:43] So I have Matthew's side and my side of the video and then also the audio. So they're all separate because I uploaded everything separately there. Uh, so I have more customization and if I'm talking when I don't want to, like, let's say here. I think so. I might've been one of your fans on YouTube. So I might want to delete my yes, just as an example, I can right click split clip, right click split clip, and I can just delete that, or I can mute it because it's still on video.
[00:19:17] So now there's no crosstalk in that section. And it flows better. I might have been one of your fans on youtube. It's a bit weird because i'm still on the screen there But I would remove myself from the screen and I would have him full screen potentially So ease of editing is pretty simple there as far as yep You can just edit via the transcript, but you can also edit via the actual timeline itself And you can go in deeper into that edit and you can get a bit clearer on the actual waveform even So if I wanted to remove this whole section of both of us, I could just hit s And then hit S over here.
[00:19:52] And then I can hit and delete that whole section. That's cool. I can do that on the timeline. Also, if I have some sort of [00:20:00] breaths and things that I wanted to remove, I couldn't do that on Riverside. This little clicky mouth noise, which I don't like, I can zoom right in on that and I can go, Cool, I want to remove that.
[00:20:10] Bit there and so I can just shoot and make it sound better by doing those little customizable little speedy Type editing things by having the actual transcript there to work with There's a bunch of crosstalk here. See we're talking over each other because you can see my waveform But also his so I would right click on that and then I would go edit sequence and then I could just remove this and our Like him talking over the top of me.
[00:20:37] Doesn't need to be there. Split clip, click on that and then mute. And again, off I go. Humble indeed. It's a terrible microphone. You can just say that. There are some content. So ease of editing, even if you just look at what I kind of did there, it's one button. If you want to use the timeline, you can just hit the S button to like, Make a cut and then have it be cut in the waveform, or you can also use the actual transcript itself to edit.
[00:21:10] And again, that is fairly easy to do. You just highlight and delete. I don't think that it's a hard tool to use for editing purposes. I think it's quite easy. I'm going to give Descript also an A for ease of editing. It's very similar. Two Riverside in that way also has a few little things that are better because you can actually edit using the timeline more effectively as well.
[00:21:34] Now let's move on to customization, which there is a lot of customization options in the script. I am just gonna try and give you some of them at least. So again, like you saw, I could customize the actual waveform, what I actually wanted. To cut, I could separate that out using the sequence. I could get rid of my crosstalk and make that more customized to myself.
[00:21:56] Now, if we then went into these individual tracks [00:22:00] and we go edit sequence again, then let's say I wanted to make some changes to the way I sounded or maybe Matthew sounded. There is a similar like AI magic tool, which is called studio sound, which I can click on and then it applies what it thinks it should sound like.
[00:22:16] But there's also the extra added benefits of being able to go into your EQ and actually do things. So like this, for example, see I've already made adjustments to the EQ on this one. That's how I want it to sound. And then from the compression point of view, I've also got a compressor that I can apply. I can give it whatever threshold I want.
[00:22:35] I can play with it more. It's much more customized. So to me, that's very good that I can do those things because I don't always like what the AI is telling me that my audio should sound like. And a lot of the time it overdoes it. It makes it sound way too digital, makes it sound like a robot. And I don't want my audio to sound like a robot.
[00:22:55] It does do a good thing with some of the audio that is just trash. Like sometimes you get audio that's trash, that you really have to work hard to fix. Even with your own EQing and compression, you can't get it there, but the AI tools can really help you with that. Not that we're discussing AI, but it's part of the customization here that you can change some other things here.
[00:23:13] So the fact that you can put in your own EQ and your compression gives me a really big, like, well done descript. This puts you ahead in that regard because you can do more things with it. Customization, also we've got different elements that you can put in, so you can put a whole bunch of different things in.
[00:23:31] You can put different overlays in, you can make frames, you can put timers in, you can put waveforms, you can put progress bars, basic sort of, you know, uh, shapes and text and all that. Then you can also put your own captions in and the good thing about this is that if I, let's say I liked this caption and I put it in, I can customize the hell out of that caption.
[00:23:54] So I can then go cool, custom. I can change the color. I can change, [00:24:00] uh, I'll like, I'll show you here cause it's easier over here. I can go cool. I want this font. I want a background. Just give me a butt ton of fonts to choose from. That's great. But also I can upload my own font. That is really good. Again, I'm also on the pro plan of Descript.
[00:24:15] So I'm trying to compare apples with apples here as far as what their higher level options are. So captions, you can customize the hell out of it. Waveforms, other things you can put in. That's pretty cool. Okay. You can customize it the way you want it to look. Now the layout is another thing. If we go to the scene and we want to customize how we look, they've introduced these sort of different tool templates that you can use, which I sometimes find a good, but sometimes not so good.
[00:24:47] Uh, but you've got like multi cam full screen. You can do multi cam with borders. You can, Do all sorts of different changes here so you can customize the way your thing looks as well. If I put borders to cameras and then applied it to that scene, it's taking a while to lay out. That seems about right. So this is something that definitely is one of Descript's downfalls, which we will get to in speed.
[00:25:14] But this stuff, where it takes ages to do things and load, that's something that we will come up with. But Cool. So you can customize that. You can change the colors of those backgrounds. You can all sorts of things. There's just a lot of customization options here. You can add in stock footage, you can add in gifs.
[00:25:32] There's a plethora of customization here. This is really not the downfall of script. You could customize this till the cows came home. I'm going to give it an A. It's really well done. The amount of stuff that they've put into here, into the customization, I have not seen anything that is even close from a customization point of view on any platform that we've used, and we've used a lot.
[00:25:55] So Descript, you get a big A for your customization. [00:26:00] Let's move into speed. Speed is where you're gonna be running into some problems with Descript because they are. Buggy as hell. They are trying to make a bunch of changes, trying to constantly evolve their platform, make it better, which I'm really like a big fan of the fact that they're doing that.
[00:26:22] But with that comes significant. issues with your actual ability to use the tool. Even if you're running on a really good computer, like we do, you're still coming up issues where it will just crash. It will take forever to load something. It is just slow and it's not slow every day, but there are a lot of days where you're hitting the desk, just being like, can you stop?
[00:26:46] Crashing. Like, can you stop being such a pain in my ass? So for me, I don't, I'm not even going to show you the speed issues that, that this particular tool has because there are numerous. Full disclosure, I'm using the actual app on my computer. There is a web based app. option for Descript, which is exactly the same thing, but it's on the web, so same as Riverside, and it's faster, but it's still not great.
[00:27:12] As much as I love Descript, I'm giving them a D. I'm giving them a big fat D for their speed, because it takes forever. It absolutely takes forever. Something that they have to improve. For people to really widely adopt this, there's too many issues for it to be something that is useful there. So speed, you're getting a D.
[00:27:35] Now we're going to move on to AI tools. AI tools for this Underlord, tell you what, is pretty Damn good. You can do things like edit for clarity. So it will go through the whole thing and it will go, Hmm, I think you should remove these things. And it just makes the conversation flow much better. And it doesn't do a bad job of it either.
[00:27:56] You can put studio sound in, you can remove just the filler words. And [00:28:00] with that removing of filler words, you can actually say like, I don't want you to go all filler words. I just want my arms. So I know there's 13 ums there. I just want you to remove those and it will just remove them. You can see them all here and then there's no more of them.
[00:28:16] So that's amazing. It's got shortening word gaps, though I don't use that too much. You can do crazy things like use the eye contact tool where if they're not looking at the camera, you can make them look like they're looking at the camera. You can put a green screen in, you can do, you know, automatic multicam, you can generate images.
[00:28:33] Wow! Because this tool Descript is backed by OpenAI, uh, you can imagine just the AI tools are really very good and I'm going to give Descript an A for AI tools because there is amazing amounts of choice here. Now we're going to look at learning curve. So the learning curve on this one, I think it's well, it's, it's more detailed for sure, probably because it's got so much more customizability.
[00:29:01] It has to score lower than Riverside in this area, because yes, you can edit just using the transcript, but you also need to learn about the nuances of, you know, using EQ and using compression and Going through and using all those AI tools and how to create snippets and how to customize those snippets and use the captions and what's a layer and how to make a scene.
[00:29:24] And there's a lot of things that you need to learn with the script. If you want to use it to its fullest. full capabilities. I can't give it a really high score here because when you're new to it, this is a completely new tool. If you haven't used any sort of audio editing software before, you're going to walk into this going, what the hell?
[00:29:43] Like there is a lot to learn here. So I am going to give it a B for this. I'm not going to give it a C. Because, again, Descript has a lot of, like, office hours, it does a lot of masterclasses, it has a lot of resources on the website as well, they're constantly asking for [00:30:00] feedback, they've got a Discord channel which has a lot of members in it where you can ask things and you can learn through there as well.
[00:30:06] And a little plug for my course here at the moment too, which is a completely free course. It's called DIY Podcaster, and it just focuses on how to use Descript. So for that person that's wanting to do it themselves, you can learn how to do it using all the videos that I have on YouTube, as well as on our website.
[00:30:25] So the website has Absolutely all of the videos, whereas YouTube just has smatterings of them. There'll be a link in the show notes so that you can go and get that free course. No catch. The only thing I will say is if you did sign up for Descript, we are an affiliate of Descript. We're also an affiliate of Riverside.
[00:30:43] So if you want to test out any of these tools and you end up using them long term, then that means that we will get a little kickback. So for the learning curve, we're going to give Descript a B. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think that having a little bit of a learning curve often just means that there's more things that you're able to do with the actual software.
[00:31:03] So who reigns supreme here? Let's look at this. Let's go back. Let's do side by side. We've got Riverside FM, ease of editing. We gave an A. Customization. We gave a C. Speed, B. AI tools, C. And learning curve, D. A. Whereas Descript, we gave ease of editing an A. Customization, A. Speed, D. Sorry guys. AI tools, A. And learning curve, B.
[00:31:34] That means that we're going to crown Descript the winner. Now, I have also thought about the actual weighting on these things as well, just because I feel like I really gave Descript a, a bad rap for the speed issues, and I want to make that very clear to you that the speed is a real problem. Descript has issues.
[00:31:54] It has issues. It has bugs. The main reason for that is that it's constantly doing updates. They're constantly [00:32:00] trying to improve their software, which I also love, but I hate. For us, it makes a big difference. We use Descript all the time. For a lot of our podcast editing, we have a lot of, Lots and lots of clients that we edit for on a weekly basis, on a daily basis.
[00:32:14] So it means that we're very aware of the speed issues because we spend so many hours in Descript. Descript is not the only tool we use. We also use Pro Tools, uh, and we also have Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve and After Effects. Those are the kind of suite of things that we use, but for stuff that doesn't need to be.
[00:32:33] really, really detailed, then we will use Descript. And the speed thing for us is a massive factor. Now, you as a solo podcaster might not have that be as big of a problem because you're not exposed to it on a daily basis all day, every day, you know? So it might not be a thing that really affects you all that much.
[00:32:51] And so even though I've rated it low, I don't think necessarily you're going to encounter the same kinds of issues because you don't know. necessarily use it as much as we potentially would here at Bambi Media. I think that Riverside serves a purpose. It serves the individual that just wants something really quick, really simple, that doesn't want to do a lot of editing, probably no editing, very very little editing, just wants to get it out there.
[00:33:19] Uh, that's something where Riverside, you know, you've just recorded it in Riverside, just edit it in there and just get it out. Riverside also has, creates, uh, clips. So you can do just quick video snippets in there. Again, the customization is not as good. I don't like it from a, like when I see people use it, I can tell that it's a Riverside snippet versus something that is a lot more customized, but for a certain person that's different.
[00:33:44] Done is better than perfect. Getting it out there and they're already paying for that tool Riverside. Then I can see why people would use it. But Descript has a lot more customization. It has a lot more areas of improvement. The AI tools are very good. Even just the content [00:34:00] writing aspects as well.
[00:34:01] There's a lot of improvements that they're constantly making to that. They are comparable in pricing. And Descript will also soon be able to do what Riverside does as far as record in Descript with your virtual person and then edit in there. Descript also allows you to integrate with Zoom now, and I've done a few videos on that as well, so that it will, you know, Take your Zoom videos straight into Descript without you having to import anything like download and then upload.
[00:34:30] So they're definitely trying to fill all the boxes to be the one stop shop. But I think they could benefit from just like easing off a little bit, fixing your bugs, making it run faster, and just make sure that you're serving your key customers so that we keep referring and we, we keep wanting to be affiliated with that tool.
[00:34:51] So, That is my honest review of both of these things. Riverside, great, not for me. Definitely wouldn't use it for some people. Descript, great. Certainly we use it at Bami Media for some clients, for some projects. It has a lot of bugs. It has a lot of speed issues potentially, but it has so many things going for it that it has to win today.
[00:35:12] What do you think? What do you use? Have you got anything that you would like to throw into the ring? Anything that you'd like me to try? Obviously there are bigger tools like Pro Tools as I mentioned, Pro Tools, DaVinci Resolve, Hindenburg, Adobe Audition, Premiere, like there's so many things, Final Cut, Logic, all these different things that you can use.
[00:35:32] I'm just trying to focus on just you, just the DIY podcaster, just wants to get it done. What do you use? Let me know in the comments. Let me know if there's anything else you would like me to try and I hope that this has really helped you decide how you're going to edit your podcast. If you need editing help, you can totally reach out to us here at BambiMedia.
[00:35:52] com. We don't take on a lot of clients, but it's certainly something that would be worth reaching out to us for. We have consults that you can book. We have [00:36:00] tutoring that you can book. We have a bunch of different ways you can work with us. So just go to BambiMedia. com if you want any help. Hit the likes button, subscribe button, all the things that people always say.
[00:36:09] Stay safe and have a lovely day.
BAMBY MEDIA LINKS:
GEAR WE USE HERE AT BAMBY MEDIA:
Aputure Amaran 200d LED Video Light
