Episode 130
Reviewing Descript Rooms: Can It Replace Riverside?
Is it too much to ask that we have a one-stop production suite for podcasters?
All I want is a way to record episodes remotely, edit them to my exact specifications and then upload them to podcast platforms and/or YouTube for one monthly subscription fee.
I don’t want to use a heap of different tools and sharing files across multiple platforms.
I just want one place to handle it all.
This used to be something I thought to myself as I worked away on podcasts, and it felt completely out of reach.
Surely no one-stop shop would exist. It’s too much for one software to handle.
Well, Descript is trying its hardest to give me exactly what I asked for.
But it’s not succeeding yet.
In this episode, I break down where Descript Rooms is at, and why I don’t recommend it for remote recording.
CHAPTER MARKERS
00:00 Introduction to Podcast Recording
00:57 Overview of Descript Rooms
02:31 Testing Descript Rooms
03:25 Issues with Descript Rooms
06:22 Final Recommendations
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Transcript
As someone who works very closely, obviously in the podcasting industry,
Speaker:having my own podcast as well as having.
Speaker:Just clients all over the world.
Speaker:We have so many wonderful people in our orbit at the moment and so
Speaker:many questions around how to best record an interview style podcast.
Speaker:My default is always to say, look, you know, the best option if you want
Speaker:to make it simple for yourself, is probably using Riverside FM to do so.
Speaker:And in fact, we are an affiliate of Riverside fm. We've been talking
Speaker:about how good they are for quite a long time, but it doesn't mean
Speaker:that I'm always gonna think that.
Speaker:It doesn't mean that it's, that's always gonna be the case.
Speaker:And So today I just kind of wanted to give you an update on what that space
Speaker:is looking like at the moment for virtual, like recording for people.
Speaker:specifically I'm gonna be talking about descrip rooms.
Speaker:So Descrip is a podcast editing platform.
Speaker:It's not just for podcast editing.
Speaker:You can do all sorts of editing on there.
Speaker:Like if you run webinars or doing meetings and you want to cut them
Speaker:up and do other things with them.
Speaker:You can do video and audio in there.
Speaker:I have a whole course that I have that shows you how to use descrip
Speaker:and it's generally very good.
Speaker:I've done some reviews of descrip before.
Speaker:It has bugs.
Speaker:It's still got a learning curve.
Speaker:It's still not something that I'd be like, Hey, anyone can use this.
Speaker:Like I, I don't think that that's the case, but for people who are doing it
Speaker:all themselves and they're using Descript to edit and then they're having to
Speaker:record somewhere else and then bring it into Descript when they're using video.
Speaker:A question I get is, can't I just use descrip rooms now?
Speaker:Because they have this new feature that allows you to be able to do
Speaker:virtual meetings, virtual conversations in Descrip, like within Descrip.
Speaker:They actually bought squad cast, maybe a couple of years back by now.
Speaker:I think Squad Cast is like the competitor or was the competitor to
Speaker:Riverside where you could actually just record everything remotely and
Speaker:make it all look really schmick.
Speaker:So anyway, they acquired.
Speaker:Squad cast.
Speaker:And then I guess they've been working on how to make squad cast work
Speaker:within Descrip for quite a while.
Speaker:They've now had it in beta mode for quite a while, and then they moved
Speaker:it into like the full, not beta for descrip rooms just recently.
Speaker:So what I did was I did a bit of a, a trial run with it, and I, if you wanna
Speaker:see what that actually looks like and what the quality looks like, you can
Speaker:go to YouTube and, and check it out.
Speaker:I wanted to kind of just let you know my thoughts on descrip rooms and the issues
Speaker:that I have come across with it thus far.
Speaker:Firstly, I really like the idea that they're trying to make something that
Speaker:will work within the platform, because if you are editing, you don't wanna
Speaker:have a bunch of different subscriptions to a bunch of different things.
Speaker:Like if you can put everything in the one place and that is
Speaker:descrip, then that makes it easy.
Speaker:Longer term, that would make it easier for our clients too, because we could
Speaker:just share descrip rooms, descrip sessions with them and say, cool, do
Speaker:all your recordings in here, and then we'll be able to access them even easier.
Speaker:So I'm always excited by the idea of something like this.
Speaker:But in reality it really fell short and it was a disappointing
Speaker:thing to, to come across.
Speaker:I mean, I know that they, they're always iterating and in fact I find that quite
Speaker:annoying because things always seem to be breaking and there always seems to be
Speaker:bugs and you know, all sorts of stuff.
Speaker:When I went in there, I did a script session in rooms with Alex.
Speaker:We got in there together and we started talking.
Speaker:It was very easy to get him in there to provide a link, but one of the things I
Speaker:noticed straight up was that you couldn't schedule an episode, like you couldn't
Speaker:schedule and then put it in there and then send them a link like ahead of time.
Speaker:I couldn't see a way that you could actually physically do that.
Speaker:So that's a real bugger.
Speaker:You had to physically go into the room and then share the link with them,
Speaker:like there, and then that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and I'm
Speaker:sure they're probably working on that, but that was the first thing that was
Speaker:sort of like, why would I do this?
Speaker:This is making more work for myself because I can't schedule or automate
Speaker:anything with links that will be ready to go when I am type of thing.
Speaker:So that was a little bit of a, an annoyance to begin with.
Speaker:Then when we got in there together, the actual quality was pretty good.
Speaker:It was what I was hoping, what I was expecting.
Speaker:We could see each other really well.
Speaker:We could communicate really well, uh, and.
Speaker:That part was fine.
Speaker:Now we went along and we recorded some stuff, and it was easy enough to do.
Speaker:We then could process the video easily.
Speaker:It showed us that things still needed to be uploaded, et cetera.
Speaker:That was all fine.
Speaker:And I could also share my screen, so you know, effectively I could use it
Speaker:like Zoom, where I invite people to a Zoom meeting, but it's in rooms.
Speaker:And then I have my consultations within Indescript as well.
Speaker:Like that.
Speaker:That's something that if you can share your screen that technically
Speaker:it sounds like it should work.
Speaker:But the problem that I had then when I was looking back at it and editing, uh,
Speaker:was that about three minutes in Alex's feed just completely dropped out and it
Speaker:didn't drop out when I was talking to him.
Speaker:That was completely fine, but it dropped out in the actual recording
Speaker:and it had no way of getting any of that back, he was just gone.
Speaker:And, you know, that's a big downfall because I'm going to
Speaker:need the whole thing please.
Speaker:Like, I'm going to need to have that whole conversation there.
Speaker:I he can't just be dropping out with no warning and no, like information
Speaker:for me, no way of me knowing even so that we're in this recording session,
Speaker:we think everything's fine, and then later on there's just nothing there.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:To me, like I was okay.
Speaker:I was happy with it.
Speaker:When I was first reviewing it, looking at it, looking at the edit, looking at
Speaker:the, the bit rates and, and sort of the stuff that we have to work with from
Speaker:video, that was all looking quite good.
Speaker:But the fact that it dropped out for literally no reason, like the
Speaker:internet was fine, there was no issues.
Speaker:It dropped out and then he was nowhere to be seen.
Speaker:That is a massive deal breaker.
Speaker:And so at this point what I'm saying is don't use descrip rooms until I
Speaker:have more information, until I know for sure that it isn't buggy, that
Speaker:it isn't going to just fail on us.
Speaker:I cannot recommend this as a software, uh, for you to jump ship from
Speaker:Riverside to Descrip if you already using descrip for other things.
Speaker:It's no, it's not something that I would recommend right now,
Speaker:especially if you're recording things that are you know, important.
Speaker:Like if you are doing meetings and things in there and then half of your
Speaker:meeting is gone, that's just atrocious.
Speaker:That's, that's not acceptable.
Speaker:And I'm sure you know, they're working on it.
Speaker:As I've said, I'm sure that these things will be ironed out and that I may be
Speaker:doing another video in another couple of months and another podcast episode where
Speaker:I'm like, Hey guys, it's good to go.
Speaker:But right now my recommendation is don't use descrip rooms.
Speaker:That Riverside is still the best way to record your solo and guest conversations.
Speaker:At least we know that that works 90% of the time.
Speaker:Sometimes there are bugs within Riverside as well.
Speaker:Sometimes there are issues there.
Speaker:At least we know that most of the time it works well.
Speaker:The only other thing that I recommend to people if they're okay with doing
Speaker:a little bit more tech is to actually record the video on Riverside, let's
Speaker:say like the conversation on Riverside.
Speaker:So you've got the Riverside session, you've got the video on Riverside
Speaker:and the audio on Riverside, but you can also record your side of
Speaker:the conversation locally using free software like GarageBand and Audacity.
Speaker:And I have tutorials on both of those things on our YouTube channel as well,
Speaker:like how to set them up and how to record.
Speaker:Meaning that if everything failed.
Speaker:At least you would still have a high quality audio version of the thing
Speaker:because you've recorded that locally using software that's on your computer,
Speaker:which is GarageBand or Audacity.
Speaker:So that would be my only other recommendation is to do that
Speaker:as a backup for yourself.
Speaker:If you feel like, no, this is very important to make sure that I
Speaker:don't have software failing on me.
Speaker:GarageBand and Audacity is a way to kind of make that really foolproof so that
Speaker:you don't potentially lose anything.
Speaker:It also has the highest quality audio possible.
Speaker:Riverside still is I mean, it's very good, but it's still not a hundred
Speaker:percent what the microphone sounds like.
Speaker:The best way to get that microphone sounding perfect is to actually record it
Speaker:locally on your computer using software that is also locally on your computer.
Speaker:So that's my recommendations for this today.
Speaker:I would just say don't use descrip rooms at this point.
Speaker:And later on down the track I will certainly review it again and I will give
Speaker:you the updated information at that point.
