How Cast compares

A stock library (Epidemic Sound, Artlist, Uppbeat and the rest) sells you a subscription to a catalogue: you search it, audition tracks, find one that nearly fits, and trim it to length. Cast generates the track for this episode instead — sized to your voice, delivered in stems, ducking itself under the speech, and on Plus and Max carrying a commercial license.

The catalogue is the whole problem. A track that "nearly fits" is one you then have to cut, loop or fade to length, and ride the volume on around every sentence — and the fit never gets better than nearly, because the track was not made for your episode.

Then there is the part nobody enjoys: the rights. Stock libraries license by subscription, which means the clearance on an episode you published last year can depend on a subscription you are still paying for. And the free tiers of these libraries are where "free music" gets people into trouble — it is free until a platform, a client or a rights holder asks where it came from.

Cast generates the music inside the same place you edit the episode, so the track knows about your edits: cut a minute of speech and it re-balances. Each export made on a licensed plan comes with its license record — a document you can point at.

When a library is still the right answer: you want a specific, recognizable, human-composed piece, or a named artist. Generation does not give you that, and Cast ships a curated library for exactly this reason.

• BothA large amount of music you are allowed to use in a monetized show.
• Stock library onlyHuman-composed catalogue tracks, named artists, a specific song you already have in mind.
• Cast onlyMusic generated for this episode, sized to your voice. Stems, not a flat file. Automatic ducking that survives your edits. A license record attached to the export.