Freesound Forums

How does it work; searching

For example; You are looking for a sound recorded at the river Schelde and uploaded by user klankbeeld.

You search on klankbeeld river schelde

Than you get about 9.000 hits
That is far to much. This because all sounds with one of these words are listed there.

What to do.

Search klankbeeld AND river AND schelde
So edit the word AND in CAPITALS between the words

Now you get only 94 results

When you do not like the tracks with ship horn in it and the word horn is in the text.

Search klankbeeld AND river AND schelde AND -horn

Now you get only 56 results. The horns are gone.

When you play also the advanced search options it will be more better

Just play with it.
Happy searching........

Well posted klankbeeld.

The boolean search filters, with synapsis, should have a paragraph in the Help/FAQ pages.

Perhaps the info is all there now but I never found it. (I havn't looked last few years.)

Or it would be better if a short static text paragraph describing boolean operators was appended to the drop-down advance search option.

I did ask the question in a comment on a previous post somewhere, but it didn't get picked up.

p.s. This thread should be copied to the Bug.... & Feature Requests forum.

Wibby.

@strangely_gnarled

So it was not only me that could not find it. anywhere.
Thanks for your response.

I guess the @frederic.font, the great technician will find this treat.

I just pinned this thread to the top because I think it's useful for people to see.

Thank you @headphaze,

I have copied it in the error forum so the techs can see the comment as well
https://freesound.org/forum/bug-reports-errors-and-feature-requests/44223/

klankbeeld wrote:
Search klankbeeld AND river AND schelde AND -horn

In my case Freesound search is treating "AND" as a search-term ...

That ain't right.

Timbre wrote:

klankbeeld wrote:
Search klankbeeld AND river AND schelde AND -horn

In my case Freesound search is treating "AND" as a search-term ...

That ain't right.

@Timbre you are right, but it still works fine. Even in this example I gave.
What’s your contribution to make the “quick help” better?

klankbeeld wrote:
@Timbre you are right, but it still works fine. Even in this example I gave.
What’s your contribution to make the “quick help” better?

I don't think Freesound's search is working correctly.

It shows results where ANY of the search terms are satisfied,
rather than ALL of the search terms are present, e.g.

https://freesound.org/search/?q=klankbeeld+river+schelde-horn

Gives me 12833 results.

What works for me:- just use + and -

Search " +cat +purr -dog " only finds sounds with cat and purr but excludes dog.

"+cat" ---- it MUST include cat or sound wont be listed
"dog canine hound" (no+/-) finds dog OR canine OR hound or combination
"-dog" ---- results with word "dog" will be excluded.

Guess what I'm looking for: "+thunder local close loud crack -distant -rain -storm"

Still find loads of stuff I don't want but first few pages are now 80% more relevant.

TIP - Iterative search - look at first try search results then add more (-) terms to exclude more junk.

Tip for Timbre: "+klankbeeld" not "klankbeeld" kills the crap.

Luv Wibby xxXxx

strangely_gnarled wrote:
What works for me:- just use + and -

Search " +cat +purr -dog " only finds sounds with cat and purr but excludes dog.

"+cat" ---- it MUST include cat or sound wont be listed
"dog canine hound" (no+/-) finds dog OR canine OR hound or combination
"-dog" ---- results with word "dog" will be excluded.

Guess what I'm looking for: "+thunder local close loud crack -distant -rain -storm"

Still find loads of stuff I don't want but first few pages are now 80% more relevant.

TIP - Iterative search - look at first try search results then add more (-) terms to exclude more junk.

Tip for Timbre: "+klankbeeld" not "klankbeeld" kills the crap.

Luv Wibby xxXxx

Thanks @Timbre and @strangely_gnarled for helping

This is really the way to do it. Just + and - and it works superb.
Thank You.

==========
In summary

We would like 1 wave of the sea on a sandy beach.

The first search term is wave. So type in +wave +beach

We now have a few thousand hits.

Now add the search term +sandy (because you need the sound of a sandy beach).

So search for +wave +beach +sandy

Now you only have about 230 hits

Get smart now; Usually people take long shots at the beach. We only want one single wave, so now go to the "Sort By" key and change it to "Duration (shortest first)"

Now you will see several packages of sounds. Find a nice package or go to the advanced search and remove the check mark at "Group sounds by pack"

Now everything is neatly arranged.

Again, have fun searching.

Simple really, once you know.

I'm going try it on Google, Bing and DuckDuck now. They are far worse junk fountains than Freesound Search.

I still think a simple text paragraph explanation should be on the advanced-search dropdown.

(I guess the FS search engine code is taken from a CC library without much proprietary mod. Reinventing wheels is not very efficient.)

luv Wibby

(p.s. Still might miss the perfect sound because the Author didn't name/describe/tag/spel? it very well.)

Crap basic formatting, but my suggestion for simple info text on advanced search dropdown.

Multiple search terms may be used and should be separated by spaces.
Use +term1 if term1 MUST be present.
Use -term2 if term2 Must NOT be present.
"Terms that include a space" must be enclosed in quotes.

Wibby

strangely_gnarled wrote:
... Tip for Timbre: "+klankbeeld" not "klankbeeld" kills the crap.

Not in my case: "+klankbeeld" makes no difference, still +12k results ...

Maybe it's my browser, (or its security addons), that's failing to pass on the boolean operator symbols.

Put space between each term?
No other (advanced) search options changed.

I just typed "+klankbeeld +river +schelde" into Search box. Returns 94 sounds for me.

Typed "+klankbeeld +river +schelde -horn" into Search box. Returns 56 sounds for me.

I let freesound convert it into this address line query string link

https://freesound.org/search/?q=%2Bklankbeeld+%2Briver+%2Bschelde+-horn&f=&w=&s=Automatic+by+relevance&advanced=0&g=1

Edit: I just noticed amongst all the other things it moves the +(but not-) to after the query term. Typing directly at the web address line isn't parsed properly.

Wibby