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Podcast transcription.From master to show notes in one pass.

Drop your podcast episode master, or paste a SoundCloud, Bandcamp, or YouTube link. Get speaker labels, chapter markers, a show-notes draft, and pull-quotes ready for social.

Drop a file, or pick one

MP3 · WAV · M4A · MP4 · MOV · MKV · OGG · OPUS · FLAC · WEBM — up to 100 MB anonymously

Paste a link, we’ll fetch the audio

YouTube · TikTok · Vimeo · Twitter · SoundCloud · Spotify · 50+ more

Record straight from your browser

Sign up takes 30 seconds — recording opens right after, in the dashboard.

No card required~90s per 60-min fileSRT · VTT · DOCX · TXTFiles auto-deleted in 24h

↓ Watch what comes out

Master file in. Episode page out.

If you record in Riverside, SquadCast, or Zencastr, export the separate track per guest WAV. We detect multitrack and skip diarization entirely — each host and guest already on their own channel.

Episode 47 masterREC 2 speakers · 58:12
auto-detected en-US48 kHz stereo · 256 kbps MP3
~90s
Transcript · streaming96% accuracy
S1

Welcome back. Today I'm sitting down with someone who scaled a newsletter from zero to 80,000 subs in 18 months.

S2

Thanks for having me. The 80k number sounds clean but the first year was honestly brutal.

S1

Walk me through that first year. What was the unlock?

S2

Honestly? Killing the weekly cadence. Once I shipped twice a week, referrals compounded.

96% on studio masterSRT · DOCX · TXT · chapter MP4

↓ This is the dashboard

This is what loads when the job finishes.

Same layout as the real dashboard — Summary, full Transcript, Speakers tab, Exports. Key points and action items extracted automatically. Auto-tags on every job.

Try it on your own file — it's free

Three real options · honest comparison

Descript. Castmagic. Or us.

Descript wants you to edit the audio inside their app. Castmagic is purpose-built for show-notes output and nothing else. We sit between — a clean transcript plus the show-notes draft, with the files going wherever you publish.

Option 01

Descript

Full editor with transcription baked in. Powerful, but you have to live in their app.

RequiresDesktop app + project
Multitrack diarizationYes
Show-notes draftUnderlord AI, paid tier
Chapter markersManual
ExportSRT · DOCX · MP4 (with edits)
Cost$24/user/mo (Creator)
Best forSolo podcasters who edit by deleting words in a transcript and want one tool for everything.
Option 02

Transcription.Solutions

Drop the master or paste the YouTube URL. Transcript, chapters, show notes, pull-quotes — one pass.

RequiresNothing — drop a file
Multitrack diarizationPer-channel auto-detect
Show-notes draftFree on every plan
Chapter markersAuto with timestamps
ExportSRT · VTT · DOCX · TXT · JSON
Cost · per min$0.03
Best forShows that already edit in Logic, Hindenburg, or Reaper and just need the text artifacts to ship the episode.
Option 03

Castmagic

Built for show-notes output. Slick prompts, but locked to one workflow and English-leaning.

RequiresAccount + upload
Multitrack diarizationMono only
Show-notes draftYes — core feature
Chapter markersYes (paid)
ExportTXT · DOCX · clip suggestions
Cost$49/mo (10 hr cap)
Best forEnglish interview shows that want one click to a tweet thread, summary, and timestamps — and nothing else.

Pricing accurate as of May 2026. Descript Underlord features vary by plan tier.

Specific to podcasts

Three things that bite shows on generic transcription tools.

Set these before you upload the master and the transcript comes back ready to publish.

What goes wrong

  1. 1Music beds and intro stings. Generic tools transcribe the lyric of your bumper or invent words over the music bed. Show-notes draft then opens with garbage.
  2. 2Guest names and brand mentions. First-time guest, unusual spelling, company name with a silent letter — phonetic guess every time. You spend 20 minutes find-and-replacing.
  3. 3Chapter markers get exported as a flat block of timestamps, not a structured list your hosting platform (Buzzsprout, Transistor, Captivate) can import.

What to flip here

  1. 1Mark the intro/outro window on the job form (e.g. 0:00-0:42). We skip transcription on those ranges and resume at the first spoken word.
  2. 2Paste guest name, company, and any niche terminology into Custom vocabulary before submitting. Recognizer treats them as hints — not hard matches that overfit.
  3. 3Toggle Chapter export · Podcasting 2.0 format. You get a .chapters.json that Buzzsprout and Captivate ingest directly, plus the markdown version for show notes.

Recommended job settings for podcasts

Drop a podcast master and these flip on by default. Override per-episode from the form.

Diarization
Multitrack if detected · else acoustic
Speaker model
Interview · 2-4 speakers
Language
Auto-detect · multi-lingual on
Filler words
Kept (toggle off for blog post)
Summary
Show notes + chapter markers + 5 pull-quotes
Export
DOCX · SRT · chapters.json · TXT

Accuracy · real-world numbers

97% on studio masters. Holds up on remote guests too.

Podcast audio has a wide quality range. Per-guest multitrack from Riverside or SquadCast is the best case; a single condenser into Logic is close behind. Phone-call guests and field recordings degrade fastest. Numbers below come from real customer episodes, not synthetic test sets.

97%
Multitrack WAV, per-guest channel

Riverside / SquadCast / Zencastr 'separate track per participant' export. Each voice isolated, diarization skipped — text-only error.

95%
Studio condenser, post-prod master

Shure SM7B or similar into a clean mix at 256 kbps+. Two-host shows land here. Most polished podcasts in our data.

92%
Mono mixdown, 3-4 voices

Single MP3 of a panel episode. Acoustic diarization, similar voices may merge — plan a 2-min rename pass on speaker chips.

86%
Remote guest on phone or laptop mic

Compressed VoIP or built-in laptop mic. Words usable, occasional misses on names and brand mentions. Worst case in our data.

Common questions

8 things people ask about podcast transcription.

01Can I paste a SoundCloud or Bandcamp URL instead of uploading the file?+
Yes. Paste the public episode URL and we fetch the audio directly — no need to download the master first. YouTube links work the same way if your show cross-posts there.
02Do you generate show notes and chapter markers automatically?+
Yes, on every plan. After the transcript finishes, we run a summary pass that produces a show-notes draft, 6-10 chapter markers with timestamps, and 5 pull-quotes formatted for social. Edit in the dashboard or export to DOCX.
03What's the best format to upload — MP3, WAV, or FLAC?+
WAV or FLAC if you have it, MP3 at 192 kbps+ is fine. We don't re-encode, so a clean source means a cleaner transcript. Avoid 64 kbps MP3 — accuracy drops 3-4 points.
04Can I upload the multitrack export from Riverside or SquadCast?+
Yes. Zip the per-participant WAVs together or upload them as a stem set. We detect the multitrack structure, label each track as a speaker, and skip acoustic diarization — that's how we hit 97% on two-host shows.
05How do I get the transcript to match the edited episode if I cut sections in post?+
Upload the final master (post-edit), not the raw recording. Timestamps then line up with what listeners actually hear. If you edit after transcription, you'll need to re-run — we don't auto-sync to edits.
06Will the transcript work as closed captions on YouTube or Spotify?+
Yes. Export SRT or VTT for YouTube. Spotify pulls captions from your hosting platform — Buzzsprout, Transistor, and Captivate all accept our SRT export directly.
07How do you handle interview shows with guests who have heavy accents?+
Auto-detect handles regional English (Indian, Scottish, South African, AAVE) without a config change. For non-native English speakers, expect accuracy in the 88-92% range. Add the guest's name and any technical terms to custom vocabulary before submitting.
08Can I search across every past episode once they're transcribed?+
Yes. Every transcript is searchable from the dashboard — full-text across your archive, with timestamps. Click a hit and you jump to that moment in the audio. Useful when a guest references something you covered eight episodes ago.

Drop your episode master. Ship the show notes.

30 free minutes every month. No card. Transcript, chapter markers, show-notes draft, and pull-quotes — all included.

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