Handling Voice

Get voice in

Two common paths land speech in AudioDN. Prefer the highest quality you have at capture time so the Opus encode starts from a clean signal — then let AudioDN handle the rest.

Record in the browser

The <audiodn-recorder> web component captures from the microphone, shows a live waveform and preview, then uploads a single track. The browser prefers Opus in WebM/Ogg when available (MP4/AAC on Safari), so the upload itself is already speech-friendly. Use a Client-Side Upload key, or pass a server-created upload session.

Full attributes, events, and themes: Recorder component docs.

Live demo

Tap to record, preview the clip, then send it. Requires microphone permission.

Upload an existing recording

Phone apps, Zoom exports, cheap recorders, and studio WAVs can all land in the same collection. Upload via the Uploader component or the Upload Sessions API — create a session, create a track, PUT the bytes, then wait until track_status_id is ready (or listen for a track webhook) before playback.

Why Opus for voice

Speech is usually mono with narrow dynamics. Keeping a multi-megabyte WAV (or a music-oriented HQ AAC) forever burns storage and bandwidth for almost no perceptual gain. A dedicated speech Opus variant (this example names it voice) gives every upload a predictable, speech-tuned file you can hand to players, download endpoints, or cold storage.

That is roughly a 20×–40× shrink versus the source WAV before you delete the original. At library scale — thousands of messages — you move from “keep everything forever” to “keep what listeners actually play.”

Transcode to a voice Opus variant

There is no built-in variant called voice — that is just the index name we chose for this example account. Configure a transcode variant with codec: “opus” and give it any unique index you like (voice, speech, vm, …). For speech, start at 32 kbps mono — dramatically smaller than music presets, still intelligible on earbuds and handsets. Bump to 64 kbps when you need more fidelity for noisy sources. Strip tags and cover art; they only waste bytes on voicemail.

Set the recipe once in the dashboard so every upload gets that named file automatically, or append it to a ready track with the Variants API. The index must be unique — pick one bitrate recipe per index.

Field reference: Variants API. Variant type overview: Variant Types.

Drop the original when you are happy

While you are still tuning recipes, keep the Original Upload so you can regenerate variants. Once voice sounds right and you no longer need re-processing, delete the original to reclaim the big WAV (or other source) from storage. After that, AudioDN cannot mint new variants for that track — only the remaining files (like voice) stay available for playback and download.

Trade-off details: Original Upload. Pattern for voicemail / archival products: upload high quality → wait for voice → delete original → deliver only variants=“voice” forever.

Play only the voice variant

Point the player at the track and request your speech Opus variant by the index you configured — here variants=“voice” — with a Client-Side Player key. Listeners never download the multi-megabyte source — just the Opus file you decided to keep.

npm install @audiodn/components

<script type="module" src="https://unpkg.com/@audiodn/components@latest/dist/player.js"></script>

<script type="module">
  import '@audiodn/components/player';
</script>

<audiodn-player
  api-key="YOUR_PLAYER_API_KEY"
  scope="track"
  id="TRACK_ID"
  variants="voice"
  size="regular"
></audiodn-player>

Live demo

This player requests variants=“voice” — the index of a speech-tuned Opus variant added to this demo account (you could name yours anything). The track is an answering-machine sample; hear the footprint you get to ship.

More player options: Player component docs.

Checklist

• Voice lands in AudioDN — via <audiodn-recorder>, the Uploader, or the Upload Sessions API.

• A speech-tuned Opus transcode exists under whatever index you chose (this example uses voice), mono, and 32 (or 64) kbps — see Variants API.

• Listen to that variant by index and confirm speech quality is good enough for your product.

• Delete the Original Upload when you no longer need to regenerate variants — keep only the cheap Opus archive.