Thanks so much for your patience with this report. I’ve consolidated the earlier report here since it was addressed, but I see related issues are still coming up. I want to share what we’re working on to improve audio search and offer some tips to help you make the most of the current system in the meantime.
Key Issues (Let me know if I’ve missed any!):
1. Search results don’t match the sound I had in mind
We introduced “semantic audio search” last year, which considers the actual sound of each result instead of just relying on keywords. This has helped users find what they’re looking for about 8% more often. However, it can sometimes result in titles that seem unrelated—if you listen to the audio, though, you’ll notice they match. For example, searching for “bell” will return a variety of bell-like sounds: a “ding bell,” a “gong bell,” or an “alarm bell.”
Tip #1: Describe the sound in more detail.
The more specific your search query, the better the results! Examples:
2. I’m looking for a specific title, but it doesn’t show up in the results
We’re working on a way to let you specify when you want exact title matches, similar to your great suggestions above. This actually requires some big updates to how audio files are indexed, but we hope to start testing this in January.
Tip #2: Try using Creator or Artist filters.
If you’re looking for a specific track, narrowing down by Creator or Artist can help. Examples:
3. Tags don’t seem accurate
Tags in the Creator Store are based on an older system, and we know it makes mistakes more often than we’d like. We’re in the process of phasing out this model and exploring better tagging models, however we can’t provide an exact time that will be ready until we are confident that we can produce better results.
Tip #3: Tags work better for longer music tracks.
For now, tags tend to be more reliable for music than sound effects. SFX results may still be mixed until a new system is in place.
Thank you so much for your feedback—it’s incredibly helpful. Please feel free to share any more thoughts here or file a new report. I’ll keep this post open until we’ve implemented the changes and confirmed they’re working as expected.
