aubio
a collection of tools for music analysis
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
No, unless you have a specific legacy integration or research requirement. The package is abandoned (last release February 2019), and high installation friction combined with copyleft licensing and no active maintenance makes it risky for new projects. Modern alternatives with active maintenance are available for audio analysis tasks.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires C compiler and development headers for aubio's C extensions.
- Optional but recommended: ffmpeg, libsndfile, or CoreAudio for audio file reading; NumPy is integrated but not listed as an explicit runtime dependency.
- Installation requires compilation of C extensions, which can be friction-heavy depending on your build environment and available system libraries.
License · maintenance · safety
GNU/GPL version 3 (copyleft) — aubio is licensed under GNU GPL v3 or later (copyleft). Any software that links to or distributes aubio must also be released under a compatible copyleft license; proprietary or closed-source projects cannot use it without legal risk.
last release 2019-02-08 (2744 days)
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 213,348 downloads/mo, #9,440 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install aubio
import aubio
source = aubio.source('audio.wav')
frames, read = source()
print(f'Read {read} samples')- Whether the package builds successfully on Python 3.10+ given its abandoned status since 2019.
- Current state of optional dependencies (ffmpeg, libsndfile, fftw3, etc.) and whether they are auto-detected or require manual configuration.
- Whether real-time audio processing (pyaudio, PySoundCard integration) is production-ready or demo-only.
What it is and what it does
aubio is a Python interface to a C-based audio analysis library that extracts musically meaningful features from audio files and streams. It integrates with NumPy and can read from nearly any media format via optional backends like ffmpeg or libsndfile. The library provides onset detection (attack identification), pitch tracking (fundamental frequency estimation), beat and tempo detection, and spectral analysis including Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients and standard descriptors. It also includes a phase vocoder for time-stretching and can write analysis results to MIDI.
The package is designed for both offline batch analysis and real-time processing, with demos showing integration with audio I/O libraries. However, it has been abandoned since February 2019 with no active maintenance, meaning build issues, compatibility problems with recent Python versions, and unresolved bugs are unlikely to be fixed.
Use it for
- Extract onset times and note attacks from audio recordings for music information retrieval or drum transcription.
- Estimate fundamental frequency and pitch contours from monophonic or polyphonic audio for melody extraction.
- Detect beat positions and estimate tempo from music files for synchronization or analysis.
- Compute Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients and spectral descriptors for machine learning feature sets.
- Time-stretch audio without changing pitch, or convert detected notes to MIDI files.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
No, unless you have a specific legacy integration or research requirement.
The package is abandoned (last release February 2019), and high installation friction combined with copyleft licensing and no active maintenance makes it risky for new projects. Modern alternatives with active maintenance are available for audio analysis tasks.
Install
aubio on PyPI
Before you install
Installation requires compilation of C extensions, which can be friction-heavy depending on your build environment and available system libraries. The package has been abandoned since 2019 with no recent maintenance, so unresolved build issues or compatibility problems with modern Python versions may not be addressed.
Requires C compiler and development headers for aubio's C extensions. Optional but recommended: ffmpeg, libsndfile, or CoreAudio for audio file reading; NumPy is integrated but not listed as an explicit runtime dependency.
License in practice
aubio is licensed under GNU GPL v3 or later (copyleft). Any software that links to or distributes aubio must also be released under a compatible copyleft license; proprietary or closed-source projects cannot use it without legal risk.
Quickstart
pip install aubio
import aubio
source = aubio.source('audio.wav')
frames, read = source()
print(f'Read {read} samples')Verify before relying
- Whether the package builds successfully on Python 3.10+ given its abandoned status since 2019.
- Current state of optional dependencies (ffmpeg, libsndfile, fftw3, etc.) and whether they are auto-detected or require manual configuration.
- Whether real-time audio processing (pyaudio, PySoundCard integration) is production-ready or demo-only.
Package facts
| License | GNU/GPL version 3 copyleft |
| Python support | Not specified |
| Install friction | High. Source build required |
| Runtime dependencies | None |
| Maintenance | Abandoned 2,744 days since the last release |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 213,348 / month, #9,440 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 4 - BetaEnvironment :: ConsoleIntended Audience :: Science/ResearchLicense :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License v3 or later (GPLv3+)Operating System :: MacOS :: MacOS XOperating System :: Microsoft :: WindowsOperating System :: POSIXProgramming Language :: CProgramming Language :: PythonTopic :: Multimedia :: Sound/Audio :: AnalysisTopic :: Multimedia :: Sound/Audio :: Sound SynthesisTopic :: Software Development :: Libraries |
Evidence: aubio-0.4.9.tar.gz
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See also Gammatone · pyacoustid · basic-pitch · torchfcpe · pyrubberband · music21 · python_speech_features · librosa · symusic · mido