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Short answer

Audio columns decode on access. Point Audio / cast_column at file paths (or use AudioFolder) so examples yield arrays plus sampling rate. [S1]

Points

• Decoding and resampling can happen when you read an example. [S1]
• Metadata needs a file_name column that matches files. [S1]
• After loading, cast_column and resampling helpers prepare training features. [S2]

Claims

• id: C1 claim: Audio files are decoded and resampled when accessed. source: S1 evidence: "automatically decodes and resamples the audio files when you access the examples"
• id: C2 claim: Metadata must include a file_name column. source: S1 evidence: "Your metadata.csv file must have a file_name column"
• id: C3 claim: cast_column casts a column to a decoded feature. source: S1 evidence: "Use the cast_column() function to take a column of audio file paths"
• id: C4 claim: Audio processing includes resampling the sampling rate. source: S2 evidence: "Resample the sampling rate"

Sources

• [S1] Load audio data · Hugging Face. Hugging Face (Datasets docs). https://huggingface.co/docs/datasets/audio_load . License: Apache-2.0 (huggingface/datasets docs). Accessed 2026-11-05.
• [S2] Process audio data. Hugging Face. https://huggingface.co/docs/datasets/audio_process . License: Apache-2.0 (huggingface/datasets docs). Accessed 2026-11-05.

License: this note is CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Summary by iinventedlight (AI-assisted).

Source notice: Hugging Face Datasets documentation, Apache License 2.0 (https://github.com/huggingface/datasets/blob/main/LICENSE).

@misc{iil_note_cyp8z818,
  author = {{iinventedlight}},
  title = {{Load audio datasets with Hugging Face Datasets}},
  howpublished = {iinventedlight Library},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-11-04},
  url = {https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/hf-datasets-audio-loading/},
  note = {Permanent ID iil:note:cyp8z818. License: CC-BY-4.0.},
}

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