The Freesound API: Advances in Audio Search and Retrieval

Abstract

Comunicació presentada al The 9th Web Audio Conference WAC-2025, celebrada a París del 19 al 21 de novembre

This paper showcases the latest advances of the Freesound API, focusing on its updated features for improved access and exploration of community audio content shared on the web. Important advancements include restructured metadata retrieval, integration of audio analysis descriptors for richer, content-based search, and further reliance on Solr search technology for both efficient metadata-based querying and vector search. The API introduces a streamlined query system to combine metadata and content-based queries, new similarity spaces that enable more precise sound retrieval, and a unified, easy naming scheme for all audio analysis descriptors. This system is designed to support a range of creative applications, including live performance, browser-based composition tools, educational uses, and generally sound exploration. We overview the new features, demonstrating how users can leverage the API to build more sophisticated audio applications and workflows, and how online sound collections can be utilized for accessible and flexible creative work.

This research was partially funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (2025FI-100252, Joan Oró program), the IA y Música Cátedra (TSI-100929-2023-1, Cátedras ENIA 2022, SE Digitalización e IA, EU NGEU), and the IMPA project (PID2023-152250OB-I00, MCIU, AEI, co-funded by EU).