Descript, the maker of artificial intelligence-powered audio editing software, is launching a new tier of subscription today called Descript Pro that features access to its Overdub feature.
Overdub, first released in beta last year, is a synthesis tool that lets you effectively create an AI voice double for yourself. That way, if you made a mistake in a recording, the software can fix it while the end result still feels natural and organic. It’s a bit like creating an audio-only deepfake, except you’re doing it to fix your own mistakes instead of trying to impersonate someone else.
Descript Pro includes the AI-powered Overdub feature for $30 a month
Descript says Overdub is now an official feature with the launch of Descript Pro, and it’s available if you pay for the $30-a-month (or $24-a-month billed annually) subscription. Prior to today’s announcement, Descript offered a free tier, a Producer tier for $14 a month (or $10 annually), and a Team tier for $18 a month (or $15 annually). Both of those paid plans are being bundled together into its cheaper offering, or what Descript is calling the Creator Plan, for $15 a month or $12 a month billed annually. It includes everything except Overdub and fewer included transcription hours.
Beyond Overdub, Descript’s main selling point is that it reimagines audio editing as a kind of collaborative Google Docs-style app, so you can edit the transcription of a podcast or other form of audio recording as if it were a Word document and have the changes reflected in the playback. Descript also functions as a video editor and a transcription service, the latter of which includes AI- and human-aided transcriptions at up to 30 hours for the Pro plan and 10 hours for the Creator one, with the option to purchase additional hours.
The company says its new pro tier also includes “exclusive access to advanced filler word handling, custom audiograms, and flexible publishing and export options.” The filler word handling is an especially useful-sounding feature, as Descript says it can be used to “detect, ignore, and delete filler words like ‘you know,’ ‘like,’ and ‘kind of’” to make an audio recording sound more smooth and professional.
CEO Andrew Mason tells The Verge, “In our internal testing, we’ve found that removing filler words from Zoom meeting recordings reduces the length by about 10 percent.”