5 Best Sound Design Tools 2023 | Which One Should You Choose?

With more than 464 million podcast listeners in 2023 and this number likely to surpass 500 million next year, it’s currently a great time to develop and grow your podcasting career.

To increase your reach and reputation, great sound design is crucial. But what sound design tool can help you best achieve a clean, crisp end product and ideally make the process more efficient?

At Cleanvoice, we know a thing or two about sound design. After all, we’ve built a service that can speed up the editing process thanks to a range of AI-powered features. In today’s guide, we’ll explain how sound design software can benefit you before exploring the five best sound design tools on the market. Let’s dive in!

What is Sound Design Software?

Podcasters, musicians, filmmakers, and more use sound design software to generate high-quality audio content. This is achieved by manipulating the original content to produce a clean and professional end result.

You may want to use a sound design tool to add sound effects or otherwise add a layer of cinematic experience to your audio. However, you may simply want to use sound design software to edit your podcast by removing unnecessary sounds and silences among other changes to ensure a clean listening experience for your viewership.

Why Sound Design Software is Important?

Poor Audio is a Dealbreaker

No matter how strong your script is or how awesome your guests are, nothing else matters unless your podcasts have high-quality audio. Unsurprisingly, poor audio is a turn off for more than half of podcast listeners.

Creates a Better Listening Experience

To add to the above point, a high-quality listening experience not only encourages listeners to stay tuned, but can lead to a more engaging and immersive experience.

The better the listening experience, the more likely a listener is to subscribe and return for future episodes. You can achieve this by removing unwanted sounds and unnecessary silence from throughout the initial audio using a sound design tool, among other edits.

Great for Storytelling Podcasts

Naturally, some podcast formats will benefit from sound design software more than others with the storytelling format being one such example. Sound design software can bring your listener’s experience to life with sound effects, 3D audio, and more cinematic techniques. For those that record podcasts, sound design is crucial for delivering quality audio to your audience.

Best Sound Design Software

Here are the best AI sound design tools:

Cleanvoice - Best AI-powered tool.
*Ableton Live - High-end professional suite.
Sound Forge Pro - Good option for those with a sizable budget.
FL Studio - Mid-range price option.
WavePad - Low-budget but can still achieve many specified outcomes.

#1 Cleanvoice

Cleanvoice is an AI audio tool that can automatically rid your podcast of filler sounds, dead air, mouth sounds, and more! Cleanvoice is also great for auditing podcasts and other aspects of the development and pre-production stages with a range of AI-powered features available.

Relevant Features

Silence remover

Our AI dead air remover feature can rid your podcast of unnecessary silences. This feature is even designed to perform context-based editing. This means that when a speaker is thinking, the feature makes the pause short, whereas during a topic change, our AI-powered tool will keep the pause longer.

Filler words remover

Another great feature of Cleanvoice is its abiltiy to remove filler words (e.g., ums and ahs). This feature is a smart remover that can work on multiple tracks and even detect and remove multilingual filler words.

Background noise remover

This feature provides automatic audio enhancement by removing background noise from your audio.

Pricing

Cleanvoice is available in two payment forms, subscription and pay as you go. There’s also a free trial if you’d like to check out our AI-powered tool before committing to a paid edition.

A subscription plan will likely make the most sense if you’ll need an AI podcast sound design tool on an ongoing basis. However, for those with less of a structure or/and more of a casual commitment to podcasting, pay as you go may better suit you.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

User-friendly
Cleanvoice is updated regularly
May prove helpful for your podcast’s SEO

Cons:

Internet connectivity required continuously as Cleanvoice is a SaaS

#2 Ableton Live

Ableton Live is a powerful and advanced sound design software well-suited to podcast professionals in need of the full package. You can use Ableton Live to record and edit your podcast in detail.