audio-archive
Internet Archive (Audio) / Live Music
Millions of open audio items at the Internet Archive, including the Live Music Archive of over 250,000 legally taped concerts. It is searchable on the website, with the same keyless search and metadata API as the rest of archive.org. The first stop for live recordings, old broadcasts, and other audio that is hard to find anywhere else.
Why it’s useful & how it works
The Internet Archive's audio collection is the single largest open repository of freely downloadable sound on the web, making it the first place to check for rare broadcasts, historical recordings, old-time radio programs, and live concerts. You can search by keyword, artist, or title on the archive.org website or through Echo directly; results link to playable pages where you can stream or download in multiple formats. The Live Music Archive subset (etree) is a community of concert tapers and covers only bands that have explicitly granted permission to record and trade, so every concert there is legal to download.
What’s inside
More than 14 million audio files in total across the audio collection. The Live Music Archive alone holds over 250,000 legally taped concert recordings, growing by roughly 30 new shows every day.
API access
https://archive.org/advancedsearch.php?q=collection:etree&output=json ; metadata /metadata/<id>
What we measured
Our own probes, not the archive’s own claims. Re-run periodically; every reading below is dated.
Reachability
- Direct request
- Responded HTTP 200 279 ms
- Through a datacenter proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 741 ms
- API, direct
- Responded HTTP 200 290 ms
- API, through a proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 802 ms
Did a real search return anything?
Returned results · 32296 results for the sample query · median 301 ms · stable across runs
Sample query: The Dubious Rubes Live at Claim 52 on 2025-10-04
Benchmark coverage
Found 8 of 8 test items (100%) in the Video / audio / music cluster. Median response 498 ms.
By how well known the item is: 2/2 well-known, 4/4 mid, 2/2 obscure .
One item it found: 09-26-23_Space-to-Grounds.zip
Reachability measured 2026-08-22. Search checked 2026-08-22. Benchmark run 2026-08-22.
Access
Programmatic API access (a key may be required, see the API tag).