Caution

You're reading an old version of this documentation. If you want up-to-date information, please have a look at 0.10.2.

Example files

librosa includes a small selection of example recordings which are primarily used to demonstrate different functions of the library. Beginning with version 0.8, these examples are automatically retrieved from a remote server upon request. Example recordings are cached locally after the first request, so each file should only be downloaded once.

Downloading files directly

If you want to ensure that example data are always present on your computer, you can clone the data repository directly:

$ git clone https://github.com/librosa/data.git /path/to/librosa-data

To ensure that librosa can find the example files, you can set the LIBROSA_DATA_DIR environment variable prior to importing librosa:

$ export LIBROSA_DATA_DIR=/path/to/librosa-data/audio
$ python my_librosa_script.py

or, directly in Python:

>>> import os
>>> os.environ['LIBROSA_DATA_DIR'] = '/path/to/librosa-data/audio'
>>> import librosa

This will bypass any remote network access and use the local copies of the data files directly.

Description of examples

The function librosa.util.list_examples() provides a brief description of each track, and librosa.util.example_info() will provide some metadata and licensing information for a given track.

The following table describes in more detail what the recordings are, and how they are mainly used in the documentation. Key indicates the descriptor used to identify the track when calling librosa.example().

Key	Full name	Description
brahms	Brahms - Hungarian Dance #5	A short performance of this piece, with soft note onsets and variable tempo.
choice	Admiral Bob - Choice	A short drum and bass loop, good for demonstrating decomposition methods.
fishin	Karissa Hobbs - Let’s Go Fishin’	A folk/pop song with verse/chorus/verse structure and vocals.
humpback	Humpback whale song	Glacier Bay 60-second clip of humpback whale song.
libri1	Ashiel Mystery, A Detective Story, Ch. 2	LibriSpeech example, book narration by Garth Comira.
libri2	The Age of Chivalry, Ch. 18: Perceval	LibriSpeech example, book narration by Anders Lankford.
libri3	Sense and Sensibility, Ch. 18	LibriSpeech example, book narration by Heather Barnett.
nutcracker	Tchaikovsky - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy	Orchestral piece included to demonstrate tempo and harmony features.
pistachio	The Piano Lady - Pistachio Ice Cream Ragtime	Solo piano ragtime piece.
robin	Bird Whistling, Robin	A single chirping call of an English robin bird.
sweetwaltz	Setuniman - Sweet Waltz	3/4 time piece with synthetisized xylophone, flute, and organ.
trumpet	Mihai Sorohan - Trumpet loop	Monophonic trumpet recording, good for demonstrating pitch features.
vibeace	Kevin Macleod - Vibe Ace	A vibraphone, piano, and bass combo. Previously the only included example.