Load audio data
Audio datasets are loaded from the audio column, which contains three important fields:
array: the decoded audio data represented as a 1-dimensional array.path: the path to the downloaded audio file.sampling_rate: the sampling rate of the audio data.
To work with audio datasets, you need to have the audio dependency installed. Check out the installation guide to learn how to install it.
When you load an audio dataset and call the audio column, the Audio feature automatically decodes and resamples the audio file:
>>> from datasets import load_dataset, Audio
>>> dataset = load_dataset("PolyAI/minds14", "en-US", split="train")
>>> dataset[0]["audio"]
{'array': array([ 0. , 0.00024414, -0.00024414, ..., -0.00024414,
0. , 0. ], dtype=float32),
'path': '/root/.cache/huggingface/datasets/downloads/extracted/f14948e0e84be638dd7943ac36518a4cf3324e8b7aa331c5ab11541518e9368c/en-US~JOINT_ACCOUNT/602ba55abb1e6d0fbce92065.wav',
'sampling_rate': 8000}Index into an audio dataset using the row index first and then the audio column - dataset[0]["audio"] - to avoid decoding and resampling all the audio files in the dataset. Otherwise, this can be a slow and time-consuming process if you have a large dataset.
For a guide on how to load any type of dataset, take a look at the general loading guide.
Local files
The path is useful for loading your own dataset. Use the cast_column() function to take a column of audio file paths, and decode it into array’s with the Audio feature:
>>> audio_dataset = Dataset.from_dict({"audio": ["path/to/audio_1", "path/to/audio_2", ..., "path/to/audio_n"]}).cast_column("audio", Audio())If you only want to load the underlying path to the audio dataset without decoding the audio file into an array, set decode=False in the Audio feature:
>>> dataset = load_dataset("PolyAI/minds14", "en-US", split="train").cast_column("audio", Audio(decode=False))
>>> dataset[0]
{'audio': {'bytes': None,
'path': '/root/.cache/huggingface/datasets/downloads/extracted/f14948e0e84be638dd7943ac36518a4cf3324e8b7aa331c5ab11541518e9368c/en-US~JOINT_ACCOUNT/602ba55abb1e6d0fbce92065.wav'},
'english_transcription': 'I would like to set up a joint account with my partner',
'intent_class': 11,
'lang_id': 4,
'path': '/root/.cache/huggingface/datasets/downloads/extracted/f14948e0e84be638dd7943ac36518a4cf3324e8b7aa331c5ab11541518e9368c/en-US~JOINT_ACCOUNT/602ba55abb1e6d0fbce92065.wav',
'transcription': 'I would like to set up a joint account with my partner'}