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cvssp/WavCaps

--- license: cc-by-4.0 language: - en size_categories: - 100B<n<1T --- # WavCaps WavCaps is a ChatGPT-assisted weakly-labelled audio captioning dataset for audio-language multimodal research, where the audio clips are sourced from three websites ([FreeSound](https://freesound.org/), [BBC Sound Effects](https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/), and [SoundBible](https://soundbible.com/)) and a sound event detection dataset ([AudioSet Strongly-labelled Subset](https://research.google.com/audioset/download_strong.html)). - **Paper:** https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17395 - **Github:** https://github.com/XinhaoMei/WavCaps ## Statistics | Data Source | # audio | avg. audio duration (s) | avg. text length | |--------------------|----------|-------------------------|------------------| | FreeSound | 262300 | 85.98 | 6.77 | | BBC Sound Effects | 31201 | 115.04 | 9.67 | | SoundBible | 1232 | 13.12 | 5.87 | | AudioSet SL subset | 108317 | 10.00 | 9.79 | | WavCaps | 403050 | 67.59 | 7.80 | ## Download We provide a json file for each data source. For audio clips sourced from websites, we provide processed caption, raw description, as well as other metadata. For audio clips from AudioSet, we use the version from PANNs, where each file name is appended with a 'Y' at the start. For the start time, please refer to the original metadata of AudioSet SL subset. Waveforms with flac format can be downloaded through [Zip_files](https://huggingface.co/datasets/cvssp/WavCaps/tree/main/Zip_files) directory. Pretrained models can be downloaded [here](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pFr8IRY3E1FAtc2zjYmeuSVY3M5a-Kdj?usp=share_link). <font color='red'>If you get "error: invalid zip file with overlapped components (possible zip bomb)" when unzipping, please try the following commands: </font> `zip -F AudioSet_SL.zip --out AS.zip` `unzip AS.zip` ## License Only academic uses are allowed for WavCaps dataset. By downloading audio clips through the links provided in the json files, you agree that you will use the audios for research purposes only. For credits for audio clips from FreeSound, please refer to its own page. For detailed license information, please refer to: [FreeSound](https://freesound.org/help/faq/#licenses), [BBC Sound Effects](https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/licensing), [SoundBible](https://soundbible.com/about.php) The models we provided are created under a UK data copyright exemption for non-commercial research. ## Code for related tasks We provide codes and pre-trained models for audio-language retrieval, automated audio captioning, and zero-shot audio classification. * [Retrieval](https://github.com/XinhaoMei/WavCaps/tree/master/retrieval) * [Captioning](https://github.com/XinhaoMei/WavCaps/tree/master/captioning) * [Zero-shot Audio Classification](https://github.com/XinhaoMei/WavCaps/blob/master/retrieval/zero_shot_classification.py) * [Text-to-Sound Generation](https://github.com/haoheliu/AudioLDM) ## Citation Please cite the following if you make use of the dataset. ```bibtex @article{mei2023wavcaps, title={WavCaps: A ChatGPT-Assisted Weakly-Labelled Audio Captioning Dataset for Audio-Language Multimodal Research}, author={Mei, Xinhao and Meng, Chutong and Liu, Haohe and Kong, Qiuqiang and Ko, Tom and Zhao, Chengqi and Plumbley, Mark D and Zou, Yuexian and Wang, Wenwu}, journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.17395}, year={2023} } ```

Source
hugging_face
Created
Nov 28, 2025
Updated
Jul 6, 2023
Signals
293 views
Availability
Linked source ready
Overview

Dataset description and usage context

WavCaps Dataset Overview

Dataset Description

WavCaps is a weakly‑labeled audio‑caption dataset assisted by ChatGPT for audio‑language multimodal research. Audio clips are sourced from four repositories:

Dataset Statistics

Data Source#Audio ClipsAvg. Duration (s)Avg. Text Length
FreeSound262,30085.986.77
BBC Sound Effects31,201115.049.67
SoundBible1,23213.125.87
AudioSet SL subset108,31710.009.79
WavCaps403,05067.597.80

Download Information

The dataset provides a JSON file for each source. For audio clips obtained from websites, processed descriptions, original descriptions, and additional metadata are supplied. AudioSet clips use the PANNs version with a "Y" prefix on file names. Audio files are in FLAC format and can be downloaded via the Zip_files directory.

License

WavCaps is restricted to academic use. By downloading audio clips through the provided links, you agree to use them solely for research purposes. Detailed license information can be found at:

Related Code

Code for audio‑language retrieval, automatic audio captioning, and zero‑shot audio classification is provided.

Citation

If you use this dataset, please cite the following paper:

@article{mei2023wavcaps,
  title={WavCaps: A ChatGPT‑Assisted Weakly‑Labelled Audio Captioning Dataset for Audio‑Language Multimodal Research},
  author={Mei, Xinhao and Meng, Chutong and Liu, Haohe and Kong, Qiuqiang and Ko, Tom and Zhao, Chengqi and Plumbley, Mark D and Zou, Yuexian and Wang, Wenwu},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.17395},
  year={2023}
}
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