As I mentioned in my feedback post on keybinds (which you can find here in the comments section: https://feedback.descript.com/feature-requests/p/ability-to-edit-keybindings-and-contextual-mouse-behaviors), I'm a podcast editor who came from Audacity. Compared to that amazing tried-and-true program, Descript has many quirks that are jarring to the point of being cumbersome.

One of the most frustrating quirks is:

Being unable to select a portion of audio and ONLY. LISTEN. TO. THAT. SELECTED. AUDIO.

WITHOUT CONTINUING TO PLAY THE REST OF THE AUDIO.

For me, this is crucial to editing podcasts like I could in Audacity. If I'm working on an episode in Audacity and someone says, "So what, um...let me think...oh yeah, what is your favorite food?" cleaning up this sentence is as simple as listening for where the first and second "whats" begin and cutting the audio between the two. One way I do this is by listening for the "w" sound and frankensteining the two "whats" together, so the beginning of the first transitions smoothly into the rest of the second.

Although it's a breeze in Audacity, this is much harder in Descript. I have to scroll into a near-microscopic level to look at the waveform itself and then guess how the two words might line up without being able to reference the speaker's tone of voice at all.

Needlessly difficult situations like this lead to rough cuts and SO much wasted time. Please consider adding a selective listening feature ASAP.

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P.S.: If there's some feature or button I'm missing, please let me know. I sure won't be the one to figure it out, given how...quirky...the keybinds in Descript are.