Resources
Far-field and diarization audio data
Meeting and in-room speech is distant, overlapping, and multi-mic. Training robust ASR and diarization needs that acoustic reality, captured with consent.
Updated 2026-10-27 · 6 min read
Far-field speech captures room acoustics and distance from microphones. Diarization describes who spoke when, usually with anonymous speaker IDs. Neither label guarantees a transcript, isolated channels or a particular speaker-identification capability.
Specify the room, microphone arrangement and labeling task. The linked synthetic tone demo illustrates aligned channels and segment files only; it is not representative human speech or evidence of acoustic performance. A real pilot remains necessary.
Record the acoustic configuration
Describe microphone positions, channels, sample rate and encoding, room characteristics, speaker movement and background conditions relevant to the task. Preserve original channels and label any mixing or enhancement.
A file extension alone does not establish encoding: WAVE is a container. Inspect the actual file and document processing. Do not claim that upsampling or channel duplication creates independent acoustic observations.
Define speaker labels and overlap
Agree anonymous speaker IDs, time units, overlap handling, silence and uncertain segments. A speaker label need not identify a legal person; avoid unnecessary personal identifiers.
Define whether speaker identity persists across sessions and how annotations are reviewed. Automatic diarization, corrected diarization and reference channels are different deliverables and should be labeled separately.
Review timing and a representative pilot
For multi-device capture, document synchronization and drift. Equal sample-rate settings do not establish continued clock alignment. Keep original timestamps and transformations where available.
Review intelligibility, missing channels, clipping, overlap and the intended evaluation behavior. Use project-specific acceptance criteria and source-aware evaluation splits instead of treating a studio sample as proof for noisy meeting rooms.
Scope the complete delivery
Link sessions, audio channels, transcript versions and speaker segments in the manifest. Mark unavailable labels and avoid presenting generated text as a reviewed transcript.
Quote licence, recording, annotation, review and rework separately. Fiund confirms availability after a brief; the synthetic package demonstrates structure only and does not satisfy speech-quality acceptance.
Frequently asked questions
Does this guide confirm a dataset is available?
No. Availability, permissions, included preparation and commercial terms require review of the actual proposed package.