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Add emotional punch, heighten your narrative, and enhance your story’s pacing with background music, voiceover, sound effects, or other audio files.
Audio mixing is about balance. The goal isn’t to bring all of your audio tracks to the exact same level; it’s to edit the audio tracks so they sound balanced relative to one another. The right balance depends on the nature of your audio.
For a synchronized voiceover, record directly into your editing timeline while playing your video — or use Overdub to add voice over just by typing. This way your audio clips end up more or less where they’re intended, and there’s no need to import and align audio files. Be sure to think about timing so that the right sounds come in at the right moment. Try to synchronize image and sound. If you add audio effects, for example, make sure they line up with the actions on screen.
Open a Descript project, select and import your audio file.
Drag and drop the audio file — right into the transcript, in the paragraph where it should play.
Review, save, export, and share your video!
Audio mixing is about balance. The goal isn’t to bring all of your audio tracks to the exact same level; it’s to edit the audio tracks so they sound balanced relative to one another. The right balance depends on the nature of your audio.
For a synchronized voiceover, record directly into your editing timeline while playing your video — or use Overdub to add voice over just by typing. This way your audio clips end up more or less where they’re intended, and there’s no need to import and align audio files. Be sure to think about timing so that the right sounds come in at the right moment. Try to synchronize image and sound. If you add audio effects, for example, make sure they line up with the actions on screen.
Consider each audio clip independently to fine-tune different aspects of your soundtrack, like making dialogue stand out from background music, using Descript’s auto-ducking to ensure the music drops down when someone’s speaking and comes back up when they’re finished. Adjusting your levels can also help reduce background noise. Or use Descript’s Studio Sound feature to cut out noise and enhance speakers' voices with a couple of clicks.
Yes. Simply drag audio into your script where you want it to play, and then fine-tune with the Timeline Editor.
Or, to make a musical intro, simply drag in your music file and drop it at the start of your transcript. You’ll see it below, in your Pinned Track, i.e. the dark gray timeline above the Script Track. It’s meant for music, sound effects, or any additional audio. You can then adjust how long your music plays, add fades, or ducking when you want to transition to speakers.
Open a new composition or place the cursor in the script where you would like the new recording to go. Next, click the Microphone button at the top of the application window.
To select your input device, click on the gear icon and then choose from the list of available options in the selection dropdown.
If you would not like Descript to automatically transcribe your audio, uncheck the “Automatically transcribe recording” box. But you really shouldn’t do this in most cases, as editing in the script is one of the most useful and powerful reasons to use Descript.
Next, add your speaker label and, if applicable, the input channel of your microphone/input device.
Once you’re ready, click the Record button and your recording should immediately begin.
Or, just create your Overdub voice, and then type your voiceover in Descript. You’ll get a synthesized but ultra-realistic version of your voice providing the narration.
Descript supports most video files, with the following exceptions:
Descript supports most audio files, with the exception of .wav files with more than 2 channels (e.g. files recorded with Sound Devices hardware). Mix these down to stereo/mono before importing, or split the channels and use our multitrack import feature OGG.
There are several ways to adjust levels in Descript: You can simply apply auto-leveling to create consistent levels across your project. You can select the clip from the Timeline Editor, and then adjust the volume from the Clip or Track Inspector. You can change the volume of tracks in the script. Or you can add volume automation. Finally, you can boost the levels of an entire file using volume normalization.
Add emotional punch, heighten your narrative, and enhance your story’s pacing with background music, voiceover, sound effects, or other audio files.
Open a Descript project, select and import your audio file.
Drag and drop the audio file — right into the transcript, in the paragraph where it should play.
Review, save, export, and share your video!
