Freesound Forums

Greetings all.

I am an amateur field-recording enthusiast and would love to use this product to categorize all my current and future output. I also have a semi-professional recording studio (under construction), which would also potentially need a way to track all the workflow with an in-house database as well.

For a number of years, I have been looking for a tool very much like AudioClas. I even considered having something custom written but had never found the right developer to assist.

Can you tell me if there is a way to license this software for my own use? I have left a similar message with MTG group to get their take on it as well.... Now that I know Freesound exists, I intend to upload some stuff I have done to date, but because I record other bands as well, not all of my material is compatible with the license. (I wish it were!)

Thanks in advance.

Scott Bennett
Lonemonk@shaw.ca
250-642-2253

Perhaps you can look here?
http://www.bmat.com/

(BMAT is a commercial MTG spinoff as I understand it.)

Thank you very much sir. I will investigate that link. So far it looks as though there are subsections of features found here in Freesound, but they also look like 'community-building' music apps, we're I'm looking more toward the cataloging, searches and such.

Thanks again.

Hello Lonemonk,

I sent your request through to MTG, but I think the answer is pretty simple: as far as I know there is no "end-user" version of Audioclas (or Essentia as it is now called), only a high-performance "server" version.

Your only option is to upload your things to freesound...

- bram

Thanks for the Info Bram.

I had also sent an email directly to MTG, but I recently got it back as undeliverable (Host Down was the reason). I think I fired one off to BMAT as well. Is AudioClas/Essentia is purchaseable product at all, even if it is Server Sized?

Yes, I am starting to use Freesound, but not everything that I record can be released under the Creative Commons. I do a lot of band recording and live shows for people.
(Plus there is a very-small amount of which were surreptitiously captured!)

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find something robust enough to handle large quantities of sound, and provide an accurate means of search and retrieval! Products are either very small and geared to personal playlist creation for MP3 devices, or they are multi-million dollar media management software written for NBC! There seems to be nothing for a small to mid-sized recording studio for instance. Making matters worse, products suited to Audio don't always allow for other media types to co-exist. Since I sometimes create entire
end-product resulting from the original recording, I'd like to be able to store other types of computer files to the same record as the audio files for instance and have them also benefit from the searchability. This would include CD cover-art, Live Setlists, Show Posters and Handbills, Lyric/Notation sheets, etc.

Thanks again for your response. Let us know if that ever changes. Should MTG ever decide to open source the code to what is essentially FreeSound, then I want one!
.
.

I tried the Audioclas prototype and was intrigued with it. I consider Freesound to be superior actually. So, since its been *almost* a year since I asked around, I sent an email to the mailto link on the Audioclas website which it said was: info@audioclas.org

My response was bounceback about 3 days later:
-----------------
The attached file had the following undeliverable recipient(s):
info@audioclas.org

Transcript of session follows:
Command: audioclas.org
Response: 550 Host unknown (audioclas.org)

-----------------

Anyway, I don't mean any disrespect, because I think what has been done here is very useful and is the best example you will find ANYWHERE of a web-based audio catalog/categorization/retreival software. However, no email communication channel that I try (except for this Forum) has made any reply to my queries whatever. And of the three attempts, two separate email addresses have bounced back. The other was silent.

I think I understand the MTG/BMAT connections etc, but they are similarly unresponsive. Also, from the webite I don't believe BMAT to be in the same business that I am trying to buy software from. They look too much like music community-building apps like listen.to or some Web2.0 napster clone.

The only thing more frustrating than not being able to find a product which can meet your needs, is knowing that one exists, but no one on earth seems willing to talk brass-tacks about acquiring it for in-house use. I know these are all spin-offs from Universities and perhaps there is a touchiness about going commerical, but what is it that MTG in the business of 'Doing' exactly if it isn't to develop and (eventually) sell technology?

I require the functionality of Freesound so badly that I am prepared to pay more for it than I have any other software up to this point combined! The only reason I am willing is because I already know it works well for my needs.

Below you will see the email I sent to Audioclas:

--------------------------------------------------------
Greetings.

I run a small studio and have a desparate need for a system such as what I have now seen in your on-line Proto-type @ http://audioclas.iua.upf.edu/

Even though my studio is relatively small, between my partner and myself, there is still a few thousand hours of material which I need to somehow catalog.

My basic question is this: Is there any commerical product I can purchase to obtain the functionality you show in your proto-type? I am also a regular contributor to Freesound, and that interface would easily meet my needs as well. Are there any commerical means of obtaining the Freesound technology for in-house-use instead?

Scott Bennett
lonemonk@shaw.ca
MonkBunker Sound Studios
Victoria, BC Canada

Partial update: I noticed the email addresses associated with my on-line registration to look at the Audioclas prototype. Therefore I used those addresses instead to re-send my original query. Here are the two addresses I used:
info@iua.upf.edu (I made this up by using info@)
koppi@iua.upf.edu (The actual address from which my registration was confirmed)
. This is only going to go to the same place that hosts Freesound of course, but its' exactly that onion that I have been trying to unravel.

It sucks that you can't get a response. Maybe you can ask Bram to bug them again.

Bram did earlier help me out in that way. I *think* it's a matter of no one being entirely clear on any commerical view of the matter.

If I must, I will develop something myself, but when you know what Freesound can do, it is 89% of the way there for all my needs, it's very hard to want to start at ground-zero.

Thanks Halleck

Well if they won't sell it to you, maybe you can sign a non-disclosure agreement and have them give it to you for free.

Worth a shot, but I dunno how such matters are usually handled. Tell them you want to research potential applications of their technology.

I am willing to do such a thing, just not sure if that is possible either. With all the recent forum speculation about google-ads (or not), and other questions of financial longevity, it occurred to me a long time ago that perhaps the architecture itself is saleable in some quantity or other. That way if money is coming in on the backend, perhaps there is no need to clutter the front page with google-ads. (Which for the record are *fine*, but they look like absolute shit. which was pretty much the consensus in the forum as well)

No sane Freesound user will complain about selling the software on the side, I think it the content that peoples' attitudes are pretty strong about. (Dedication to the CC license, etc)

Anyway, I hate to sound strident, but I just have nowhere else to turn. Manual management of my existing material is simply impossible.

I will develop something if I must. Also, I am trying to ditch my day-job. So with studio stuff and potential revenue with a product I develop perhaps that will do it. I just know it would take me 2 years of bangalore contracts to get the product I have in mind from scratch.

I dunno, I guess I have the same dilemmas about either needing something for me to use exclusively, or going into business as a software seller, which really isn't my shtick either.
.

That's weird. As a representaive of BMAT, I have to tell we have never recieved an email from lonemonk, nor any other potential customer asking for info about the kind of application lonemonk is asking for.

I just wanted to share this information to avoid further confusing postings such as "I think I understand the MTG/BMAT connections etc, but they are similarly unresponsive" or "I hate to sound strident, but I just have nowhere else to turn".

Which leads me to the following points:
1) At BMAT we would love to recieve an email from anyone interested in the back-end technologies, specially from lonemonk.
2) At BMAT we are looking for young enthusiast strident people to work with us. Would you be interested?
For any of these two issues you can write to info@bmat.com

Rock'n'roll.

That's great. I will send you an updated version of my query.
From your website, I didn't think BMat was necessarily involved specifically in the software I am looking for, but i will query you directly anyway.
When I used specifically BMat name, I guess I assumed it was semi-synonymous with MTG given how all those websites appear to tied-together. Perhaps that's where my confusion with your name comes in.

Thanks again for being the *only* official respondant (well, except for Bram of course)