Descript Audio Codec

by Descript

High-quality neural audio codec — alternative to EnCodec.

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TL;DR

Best for speech-LM tokenization with very high audio fidelity. Pricing: free.

Category
Open source
License
MIT
Stars
★ 1.8k
Last push
2026-07-16
Pricing
free
Platforms
Linux, macOS, Windows

What it is

Descript's open neural audio codec. MIT.

Best for: Speech-LM tokenization with very high audio fidelity.
Watch out for: Codec only.

Install / use

pip install descript-audio-codec

Features

Speaker diarizationNo
Word-level timestampsYes
Streaming / real-timeNo
Languages supported1
HIPAA eligibleNo

Links

GitHub repo ↗

Descript Audio Codec vs Whipscribe

FeatureDescript Audio CodecWhipscribe
CategoryOpen sourceTranscription APIs
Pricingfree$4–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · $2 single unlock · 60 min free on signup
Speaker diarizationNoYes
Word timestampsYesYes
StreamingNoNo
Languages199
PlatformsLinux, macOS, WindowsWeb, API, MCP

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