Adobe has been working quietly on a suite of tools to help podcasts. Firstly under the banner Project Shasta, before rebranding it at the end of 2022 into Adobe Podcast. But is it any good? Is it better than Descript? We investigate.

First, There Was Descript…

In July 2021, we discovered Descript and couldn’t believe how good it was. If you aren’t aware, Descript is the company behind some innovative audio transcription software. In a very short space of time, they created a platform that can record video, screen capture, audio, transcribe and do lots of clever stuff, often with just the click of a button. Descript aims to help podcasters, video tutors, and a whole host of others who record video and audio to make the best possible content.

We had been using Descript for some time as a transcription tool at this point, but when they emailed us in 2021 announcing Studio Sound making comparisons to software like iZotope RX, we had to check it out. For our test, we decided to be brutal. We created some challenging tests, including recording in a kitchen on a MacBook Pro using the internal microphone.

We also made a second test using a recording shot on an iPhone 12 in a kitchen, with the door open and a child playing Mario Cart in the background.

At the time, we said, “It would also be nice to have some adjustment as, at times, it sounds overcooked”. As you can see from the screenshot of the current version, that is exactly what Descript did, adding an Intensity control.

• Learn more Impressive Software Takes Aim At iZotope RX - Descript Studio Sound Tested.

Adobe Podcast - The New Kid On The Block

Adobe’s aim is not dissimilar to that of Descript, to help podcasters not have to worry too much about the technology and instead concentrate on what is being said so that people can edit words, not waveforms, by offering Adobe Premiere Pro’s speech-to-text technology in Adobe Podcast to enable users to edit audio using a transcript easily.

Everything is online. There is no app to download. Just go to the dedicated Adobe Podcast page, sign up to get access, and you are away.

As well as transcription, there are two tools, both powered by Artificial intelligence, Mic Check and Enhance Speech.

The Mic Check AI has been designed to analyse the audio and has been taught to know how a good mic setup should sound and then tell you the steps you should take to improve your sound. Are you too far from the mic? Do you need more or less gain? Is the background noise too high or not?

Enhance Speech has been designed by Adobe to “increase clarity by removing background noise and sharpening your voice’s frequencies. It makes it sound as if everything was recorded in a professional studio”. There is nothing to do other than upload a file using the browser interface, turn on ‘Speech Enhance’ and then download the result.

Check out this intro video from the team at Adobe to see how all the elements fit together…

I don’t know about you, but this sounds spectacular, but what is it like on real audio? Just as we did with Descript, we developed a brutal test of our own to see how well it would perform and to be fair, we also tried Descript on the same example. In this case, I used my iPhone SE and placed it on the coffee table in my conservatory and then stepped back, so I was nearly a metre from the phone.

There you have it. The Adobe Speech Enhance is nothing short of amazing. Just as with the beta version of Descript’s Studio Sound, there are no controls, and as we said with Descript, it might be helpful to have an Intensity control, but even without it, I was blown away by the results. I was also somewhat disappointed by the results from Descript. It would seem that this test was just too brutal.

Even though Project Shasta has been rebranded ‘Adobe Podcast’, it is all still in beta, and it’s all free to use. In fact, you don’t even need to sign up for Speech Enhance and Mic Check. As long as you have a free Adobe Account, you can access these. This is great news because there is a queue. When I signed up for Adobe Podcast, I received a message saying…

“We've added you to the Adobe Podcast waitlist. We'll email you when we're ready for you to try it. Until then, you can try our Enhance Speech and Mic Check features for free with an Adobe account.”

Pricing

Currently, with everything in beta, everything in Adobe Podcast is free, and at the time of writing, we have been unable to find any indications of what Adobe Podcast might cost.

However, considering the market they are aiming at, it would be pointless to make it too expensive, and we suspect that Adobe will adopt a similar pricing structure to Descript, which offers a limited free service with tiers for heavier users.

We were impressed with Descript when we tried it out. “Given the target audience is going to be the casual or semi-pro user, this thing is brilliant. A lot of pro audio companies should take note of the simple workflow that professional users could benefit from. All the examples shown here were done with a tick box. That’s as hard as it gets!”

Roll forward 18 months, and Adobe has moved the needle again. It’s clear to us, even more than when Descript first came out, that companies like iZotope need to take notice of the new kids on the block like Descript and Adobe and develop this technology so as professionals, we can easily integrate it into our workflows.