The best tools for editing recorded interviews

Bottom line: if you are still to record the interview and the guest is remote, use Riverside: each person is recorded locally on a separate track, the transcript is labelled by speaker, and you edit by text in the same place. Descript is the stronger choice if the interview is also a video you will produce heavily. Adobe Podcast records guests on separate tracks and has strong noise clean-up in Enhance Speech. If the edit has to stand up as what the interviewee actually said (journalism, research, oral history, testimonials), Paraphrase (ours) is built so that it cannot generate speech at all, and every cut stays visible in the transcript. It has no speaker labels or separate tracks, so it suits interviews you already have as one recording. Audacity is the free manual option.

Interviews have problems a solo recording does not: two or more voices, crosstalk, a guest on a bad connection, and an obligation to the person you interviewed. That last one is easy to forget when choosing software.

Interview editors compared

Prices as shown on each vendor's pricing page on 17 October 2026, in the currency shown, not converted. Riverside's are as shown to a UK visitor. Adobe's UK Firefly page shows Firefly Pro at £19.99 a month including VAT.

The question specific to interviews: can it put words in someone's mouth?

When you edit your own voice, generated speech is a convenience. When you edit someone else's, it is a question of trust. Descript and Riverside can both generate speech, and both document a consent step: Descript requires "explicit recorded authorization" from the person whose voice is cloned and refuses non-consenting people; Riverside's VideoDub requires a legal disclaimer before it is used on a guest's track, and a guest voice clone (Business plan) needs the guest to record a consent video. Adobe Podcast's FAQ says Enhance Speech "does not generate or translate", but Firefly Pro, the plan new customers now buy for Podcast Premium, includes Firefly's Generate Speech.

Paraphrase leads on this axis, and it is ours, so weigh that. It never generates speech: no cloning, no overdub, no text to speech. The export is the original recording with pieces cut out at word boundaries, so a word the interviewee never said cannot appear in it. Every cut stays on screen struck through, so you can always see what was removed. If you need to be able to say "every word in this edit was spoken by this person", that is a guarantee of the tool rather than a setting. We explain the reasoning in why Paraphrase never generates speech.

The full list, ordered by how much of the interview job each covers

That job is recording, separating speakers, cutting by transcript and cleaning the sound. On that axis, Paraphrase comes fourth.

1. Riverside: recording and editing remote interviews in one place

Riverside records "locally on each participant's computer or device", so a guest's poor connection should not ruin their track, and each person gets their own audio and video. The transcript labels "each speaker with the display name they use in the Studio". When you cut text where speakers overlap, it asks which speaker to remove, which is exactly the problem interviews create. It also removes crosstalk and background noise.

You can upload an interview recorded elsewhere and choose the number of speakers, up to 4 hours per file. The free plan offers "Try 2 hours" of multitrack recording, with a Riverside watermark. Pro is £35 a month, or £24 a month billed yearly (£288), as shown to a UK visitor.

Best for: remote interviews recorded and edited in one place. See our Riverside review.

2. Descript: for heavily produced video interviews

Descript's Rooms records each participant locally "in up to 4K" with a separate file each, and its editor offers multitrack transcription with speaker detection, text-based editing of audio and video, Studio Sound, captions, and editor comments for working with a producer. Transcription handles one language per file.

Best for: video interviews with captions and a team. See our Descript review.

3. Adobe Podcast: separate tracks and Enhance Speech

Adobe Podcast Studio (labelled beta) records remote guests from a shared link; each participant's audio "is captured directly in their browser and continuously saved", giving "separate, high-quality tracks for each speaker". You can also upload multitrack audio or video recorded elsewhere, including from Zoom, Restream, StreamYard or Riverside, and it syncs them "with a single unified transcript". Select "Detect speakers" when transcribing to label speakers. You edit by deleting text in the transcript.

Enhance Speech is the strength: it removes noise and echo, which matters when a guest recorded in a bad room. One limit for interviews: in Studio "you can only enhance at the project level", not per speaker. Downloading the speaker-separated original recordings needs Firefly Pro, Studio runs only in desktop Chrome, and transcription covers seven languages. See our Adobe Podcast review.

Best for: remote interviews where the guest's sound needs cleaning up.

4. Paraphrase: when the words have to be theirs

Beyond never generating speech, Paraphrase handles the practical side of a recorded interview simply. Upload the file (audio or video, most formats), or paste a link, up to 4 hours per recording. Every word is transcribed with a timestamp in 25 European languages. Click words to cut, drag to reorder, and the AI cleanup proposes trims for false starts, hedges and repetition, any of which you can reverse word by word. Several takes in a project edit as one transcript, and an MP4 export cuts the picture at the same words. Re-editing is free after transcription.

What it lacks for interviews, plainly: no speaker labels, so you tell speakers apart by reading; no separate tracks; no remote recording; no noise removal. More on editing interviews with Paraphrase.

Best for: journalists, researchers and anyone editing an existing interview recording who needs a verifiable cut.

5. Audacity: free multitrack, by hand

Audacity edits multiple tracks on the waveform for free, with volume and panning per track, built-in Noise Reduction and a compressor. You find each quote by ear and cut it on the waveform.

Best for: short interviews and no budget. See our Audacity review.

Why trust this list

Every competitor detail was read on the vendor's own pages on 17 October 2026: Riverside's help centre articles on local recording, speaker labels, text-based editing, uploads and VideoDub; Descript's Rooms page, pricing page and voice clone help article; Adobe Podcast's home page, help centre FAQ, technical requirements, March 2026 update guide and plans page, and Adobe's UK Firefly plans page; Audacity's site and support manual.

Paraphrase is ours. It leads on never generating speech and on showing every cut; it does not lead on recording, speaker separation or sound, which is why it is fourth on the main list. We have no customer reviews to cite.

How to choose an interview editor

• Not recorded yet, guest remote: Riverside, Descript Rooms or Adobe Podcast Studio. Separate tracks save you later.
• Lots of crosstalk: Riverside's overlap handling and crosstalk removal.
• Published as someone's own words: Paraphrase, or any tool with its speech features left off and a policy that they stay off.
• Language other than the big European ones: Riverside transcribes "dozens of languages", including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Yoruba.
• No budget: Audacity.

For more depth on the transcript editors, see Descript vs Riverside vs Paraphrase. If you already have the recording and want a cut you can stand behind, start a free Paraphrase account: a new account gets 15 minutes of transcription, no card.