"Our Ambient World" SFX Library [Contributor Thread]

[MikeQuell]

Just a quick heads up. I would download the Google Drive app for you Mac/PC so you can easily sync to the shared folder and have it automatically download to your machine. This will save you time from having to download each file individually.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/2490101?hl=en

I have this already. Once it stopped syncing I tried to individually download the missing files and that works fine. Very curious.

Yea, I think it's just a bit clunky at times. If the files are somewhat bigger it might mess up as it times out too. You can also hit "pause" and "resume" and that will usually try and re-download the files as well.

I'll be doing a postmortem on the forum for this to try and streamline the process going forward.

[MikeQuell]

Looks like there might be a limit for download size if you guys go the route of selecting all the files and choosing "More" and then "Download". I think it's limited to 10GB .zip files like the upload limit was.

If you really don't want to use the Google Drive app to sync everything you could try cutting your selections into thirds and downloading it, which would make it smaller .zip files.

[imgoinmad]

This might shed some light on the problem...I tried adding the folder to my Google Drive but then for all 256 files I get this ==> Can't sync 256 files and it provides reason "Download Error - An unknown issue has occurred". I tried turning off and relaunching the Google Drive application but got the same thing. I tried downloading just a single file and when I did so, got this message ==>

Sorry, you can't view or download this file at this time.

Too many users have viewed or downloaded this file recently. Please try accessing the file again later. If the file you are trying to access is particularly large or is shared with many people, it may take up to 24 hours to be able to view or download the file. If you still can't access a file after 24 hours, contact your domain administrator.

I'm thinking I should just wait a day or 2 and it should resolve itself and sync all the files to my machine? Thoughts?

[Daftfader]

I've quit and restarted the 'Google drive' app on my mac a few more times and I'm now down to 116 unsyncable files (previously 130), so it is happening but, as you say, it's just a little clunky.

Let's see how it's going in the morning. I'm in the UK and off to yet another Xmas party, WOOHOO!!!!!

[MikeQuell]

This might shed some light on the problem...I tried adding the folder to my Google Drive but then for all 256 files I get this ==> Can't sync 256 files and it provides reason "Download Error - An unknown issue has occurred". I tried turning off and relaunching the Google Drive application but got the same thing. I tried downloading just a single file and when I did so, got this message ==>

Sorry, you can't view or download this file at this time.

Too many users have viewed or downloaded this file recently. Please try accessing the file again later. If the file you are trying to access is particularly large or is shared with many people, it may take up to 24 hours to be able to view or download the file. If you still can't access a file after 24 hours, contact your domain administrator.

I'm thinking I should just wait a day or 2 and it should resolve itself and sync all the files to my machine? Thoughts?

Very interesting. Didn't know about that. I just found this on Google's site as well...which I wasn't expecting given their server capacity.

LIMITS ON SHARING
There are limits to the number of people with whom you can share Google documents, files, and folders and how many people can simultaneously collaborate:

Only 50 people can edit a document, spreadsheet, presentation, or drawing at the same time. Additional users will still be able to view the item, but they won't be able to edit it, and they won't be visible to others working on the item. There is also a certain limit on the number of people who can view a file at the same time.

A single Google document, file, or folder can only be shared with 200 email addresses including viewers, commenters, and editors (doesn't apply to public items). If your needs exceed these limits, consider the following:
When possible, choose one of the public visibility options.

Share the document or file with a mailing list rather than individuals.
If you share a folder with a large number of people, you may notice a delay while permissions changes are applied to each item inside.

TIPS FOR SHARING FILES AND FOLDERS WITH A BROAD AUDIENCE
When sharing a folder with a large number of people, minimize delay, and make sharing with large groups easier, by adding the relevant users to a Google Group and then sharing the item with that group. Items shared with groups with more than 200 members won't appear in the “Shared with me” view for those members, but they can be easily added to “My Drive” when accessed through an email notification.

When sharing a file with more than 50 expected viewers, try publishing your file for viewing. This will generate a separate link for viewing, and keep the original link for editing, allowing others to view the file even when there are already 50 people editing it at the time.

If you are working with a spreadsheet, consider creating a Google form to allow users to submit information and store the form information right in your spreadsheet. With this method, a larger number of users can add information to your spreadsheet at the same time.

[michael_m]

Wow!
Mike, this was and is a really nice project whit a great outcome. So far I`ve downloaded most of the files and had a quick listen to them: there are so many great recordings

So a big 'thank you!' to you Mike and everybody who contributed.

BTW: Did anybody record in M/S and if so, did you save it as XY or as MS? There was one recording (which unfortunately I can't find right now) that sounded a little bit odd, almost like one side was inverted in phase.


P.S.: Whoever recorded 'AMB_Urban_Day_Victoria_Bridge_Traffic.wav' made one of the most spooky sounding ambience-recordings

[Jonathan]

Yeah, I'm also managing to download all the files manually by checkbox selecting in "chunks" of 16 files each... then downloading them that way. Taking a bit - but worth it so far

[stavrosound]

Thanks so much for facilitating this Mike! It seems there's a few technical bumps in the road to iron out based upon what I'm reading.

I managed to successfully pull down all files as manual groupings of ZIP files (generated on Google's end to let me download multiple files). Granted, I was downloading within 10 minutes that the email was blasted so I may have beat the rush since everything was smooth and painless as far as downloading went.

However, Google only allowed download sizes of 2GB - at least, it would only ZIP-on-the-fly up to 2GB max for multiple files, versus maybe posting/downloading singular 10GB files. So the steps I had to do it where:

1. Select 15-17 files or so at a time
2. Select "Download", then download "As-Is" and ZIP them.
3. Duration said over 5 minutes, so I told Google to "Email Link"
4. Rinse and repeat 1-3 the whole way down the list
5. Downloaded all ZIP files as they came in, about 16x 2GB ZIPs total
6. Unzip each one, check against the Google Drive master copy

So maybe posting ZIP (or RAR) files for the future would be best, even if broken up into 5GB - 10GB files (not spanned archives, just grouped into parts). Trying to download singular files, or cause Google to have to number-crunch ZIP file creation for users, creates a lot of unnecessary server bandwidth overhead and could be contributing to the problem overall.

Maybe there's a better solution than Google Drive going forward? Only pondering since it seems they're not designed to handle this type of load. Maybe Gobbler? I've never tried it on a mass-scale level like this, but understanding how it functions from having used it, it seems like it's built to push data of this amount and also allow direct download links to be sent (to avoid publicly-available links - it even allows you to select if the link should be private or public). It also seems to handle things sort of like Aspera in the sense that to us users it looks like we're uploading a ton of individual files, but on the server-side, it's all contained as a singular Package, making the retrieval process just as easy. I believe the process even allows for server-side compression geared for audio data. it seems like an alternative to consider which mimics Aspera, without being the overhead/infrastructure cost of actually running Aspera faspex.

Regarding the M/S question, please let us know if you find which file it is again, I'm curious as well.

Thanks, and hope this feedback helps!

[MikeQuell]

Gobbler sounds great. I think the biggest incentive I had with going with Google Drive is I pay $20 a year to get 80GB of storage (I have a legacy plan). Most other services charge around $5-15 a month for that. I definitely agree there are some kinks to work out and your suggestion with having smaller .zip packages is a good suggestion.

One thing we could do if people really see potential in this is maybe cheating the system a bit. If we get enough people to sign up on a site that offers referral incentives and a better solution, we could look into that. Does Gobbler offer something like that?

Thanks for sending out your detailed instructions. Hopefully downloads through the Google Drive app will be easier starting next week and we wont have to use all these workarounds.

[stavrosound]

Sure thing! Just brainstorming ideas.

If others are like myself and my colleagues, we're already users of the Gobbler service, so I'm not sure how effective any referral program would be.

Another, although slightly less "secure", option is to just host ZIP files on an FTP (or downloadable via HTTP) and do encrypted ZIPs with a distributed password. Take out the file-sharing "middle man". The only limitations counting against you there are raw bandwidth (most hosts offer unlimited/mo now anyway), versus any draconian "file sharing rules" governing a service like Gobbler or Google Drive.