Currently, users of media asset management systems rely on text descriptions to locate audio and video clips. Human catalogers are burdened with the task of describing in words each clip in the database. Without a text description, a recording may be unrecoverable, lost in a vast sea of material, possibly never to be played again. Sounds are extraordinarily difficult to describe in words. Text descriptions are inherently subjective and almost always inadequate.
Some words apply to such a wide variety of sounds as to be almost useless, such as ring and crash .
Catalogers have raised onomatopoeia to an art form in desperate attempts to describe sounds. Words simply cannot describe the range of sounds we hear. Describing the source of a sound is far easier than describing the sound itself, and many catalogers resort to this approach. Source descriptions are much less useful if we are unfamiliar with the sounds produced by the source, for example, llama vocalizing, slab of steel emerging from a furnace, and water lock gates opening . Moreover, the source of a sound is often unknown.