Descript for Audio

Using Descript to Transcribe Multi-track Audio for Podcasters

Descript, a Mac app that does transcription of audio/video, put out an update recently that added support for multi-track audio. It means instead of transcribing an audio conversation between two or more people as one long chunk of text, it breaks it out into what each person says and transcribes each person’s words separate from everyone else’s.

Download Descript and try it out here and we’ll both get an extra 100 minutes free.

I stand by my initial review of Descript:

…I can say that if you’re wanting to roll your own transcriptions of podcasts or videos, it’s the best app I’ve tried for transcribing.

The multi-track feature only makes it that much easier for someone who is reading transcripts to follow along plus improves your SEO ability on a podcast or video embed page.

Watch the Video of Reviewing Descript Multi-track Support

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Audio Podcasting Video April 23, 2018
Ecamm Live 2

Ecamm Live 2 Update

Ecamm released version 2 of their Mac app Ecamm Live which makes it easy to stream video to Facebook Live and now just about anything.

This is a major update to our Facebook Live streaming app, with additions such as Skype integration, live camera switching, split screens and saved scenes.

Ecamm Live is a user friendly – and budget friendly – way to stream video from your Mac to Facebook Live. And with version 2, Ecamm added support for custom RTMP servers which means you can stream to anything else you might want to as well including Twitch, YouTube, Periscope, or a service like Restream which allows you to stream almost anywhere.

Quick Review of Ecamm Live

What I really like about Ecamm Live is how easy it is to get up and streaming. You authenticate the app with your Facebook account, pick a Facebook page or account you want to stream to, and go live. It’s almost as easy as using the Facebook iOS app to live stream, except you get all the powerful features of a desktop app like:

  • Multiple camera/shot support
  • Layers for text, photos, or sharing your desktop
  • Adding guests to your stream via Skype
  • Adding pre-recorded video to your live stream

With software like this, it’s always easier to show than type about it. So watch the video below and then be sure to check out the live video on Facebook that I streamed with the help of Justin Jackson.

Watch the Video Walk Through of Ecamm Live 2

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Screencast December 18, 2017

Review of Descript – A Transcription App for Mac

If you’ve ever tried to transcribe audio from a video or podcast, you might love this app that’s been released this week. Descript is

…powered by Google Speech, which means you get state-of-the-art transcription accuracy. Audio is synced to text, so you can always hear the sound beneath the words – and search audio by searching text. If you need the perfection that only human-powered transcription can provide, upgrade to White Glove for 24 hour turnaround, just $1 per minute of audio.

The proof for anything app like this is actually using it. How good is the transcription? How much editing do you have to do after it’s “done”?

🚨 If you want to check out Descript, use this link to sign up for free and we’ll both get an extra 100 minutes of transcriptions added to our accounts. Pretty sweet. 🚨

I decided to take Descript for a test drive on a recent episode of my solo podcast, Daily(ish) #226. A solo podcast is a pretty easy first attempt because there’s only one voice to worry about transcribing. Next time maybe I’ll try a 5 person recording of The U2 Fan podcast.

Watch the Video

Direct link to video

How Much Does Descript Cost?

Descript has two plans – $0.15USD/minute with no monthly fee or $0.07USD/minute with a $20USD/month fee (currently $10USD/month for early adopters). So for my 10 minute long episodes, that works out to $1.50 per episode or $0.70/episode. A regular podcast in the 45 minute range would cost $6.75 / $3.15.

So if you’re doing a lot of transcribing, it wouldn’t take much for the monthly plan to pay for itself.

Does Descript Work?

After testing Descript out, I can say that if you’re wanting to roll your own transcriptions of podcasts or videos, it’s the best app I’ve tried for transcribing. No matter how good the automated portion of the transcription is, you’re going to have to go through and edit to make sure it got any weird words or pauses. The Wordbar feature is something I didn’t really try out in the demo, but it allows you to visually remove silence and gaps in a recording – something that isn’t difficult in a regular audio editor either, but for non-audio geeks makes it that much easier to edit your podcast.

The web publishing and collaboration portion of Descript is something I haven’t experimented with yet – but I will on a future podcast. It allows you to publish your podcast to a special URL and let’s friends/colleagues help fix the transcription and send back notes on the edit – like Google Docs/Word review comments.

Will I Use Descript?

I’ll definitely be trying Descript out on a few projects for clients in the next month or so and evaluating how it might be incorporated into my production workflow. I’d suggest giving it a try by signing up and downloading Descript for free. Be sure to come back and post a link in the comments below to a sample of your podcast/video project with the transcription done by Descript.

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Podcasting December 12, 2017

Audio Hijack’ing Your Way to Audio Recording

I mentioned Audio Hijack in a previous post listing all the software I use in creating podcasts. In that post I said:

I think Audio Hijack is one of the coolest and most powerful apps on the Mac for an audio nerd. It can be used to route audio from anywhere to anywhere else – and make sure it gets recorded.

So for this week’s video tutorial I thought I’d record an introduction to Audio Hijack for anyone who’s never tried it. This video will be of particular interest to anyone working in audio but it’s not just for podcasters or audio engineers – Audio Hijack is useful if you’ve ever wanted to record audio from anything on your Mac.

What started out as a quick video on Audio Hijack became almost a 20 minute walk through of a few basic use cases for Audio Hijack:

  • Recording your voice for a solo podcast.
  • Recording audio from a website – i.e. a YouTube video
  • And then combining those two and recording audio from the web alongside your own voice for a voiceover

Watch the Video

Direct link to the video

Audio Hijack will be one of the apps covered in more detail in my Podcasting 101 course which you can sign up for below.

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Tutorial November 14, 2017

Apple Clips 2 Updated – My Tutorial Video is Also Updated

Remember two days ago when I published a tutorial video showing how to use Apple Clips? (See the post here) I do! That was fun.

And then yesterday Apple decided to release a brand new version of Clips with new features like selfie scenes for iPhone X, Star Wars content, iCloud syncing, and more.

Me yesterday.

While the principles of what I had in my video still hold true in Clip v2, the user interface changed enough that I felt like I needed to put out an updated video.

Watch My New Apple Clips v2 Tutorial Video

So here’s the brand new video tutorial on Apple Clips version 2. I walk you through how I created a video for my Instagram account announcing the tutorial video – how meta, right?

Direct link to video

Get the App

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Tutorial Video November 10, 2017
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