Descript Audio Codec (DAC) is a high-fidelity, general neural audio codec, currently at version 1.0.0. It enables compression of audio (supporting 16kHz, 24kHz, and 44.1kHz sampling rates) into discrete codes at very low bitrates, achieving approximately 90x compression for 44.1 kHz audio at 8 kbps while maintaining exceptional fidelity. It is designed to be universal, working across various audio domains including speech, music, and environmental sounds, and can serve as a drop-in replacement for codecs like EnCodec in audio language modeling applications. The library maintains an active development pace with regular updates.
pip install descript-audio-codecVerified import paths — ran on the pinned version, not inferred.
This quickstart demonstrates how to initialize the Descript Audio Codec, generate a dummy audio signal using `audiotools`, and then encode and decode it using the model. Model weights are automatically managed and downloaded on the first run. The output includes the shape of the original audio, the compressed discrete codes, and the reconstructed audio.
Evaluate model performance carefully for specific non-speech audio domains or complex soundscapes.
To pre-cache models or manage downloads explicitly, use `python3 -m dac download --model_type <type>` (e.g., '44khz') to download weights before inference or in a controlled environment.
Re-encode audio with the current library version if using previously saved codes from versions prior to 0.0.4. For new projects, ensure you are using the latest stable version.
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