Music and soundSearch and RAG

CLAP (LAION)

CLIP for audio: maps audio and text into a shared space. Lets you search sounds and music by description and classify them without training. Text must be in English.

The last open version came out in Oct 2023. The family has not been updated for a long time: the model still works, but do not expect fixes or new sizes.

Developer
LAION, Germany
First release
Feb 2023
Latest release
Oct 2023
Sizes
size not stated on the model card
License
Commercial use allowedApache 2.0 (weights on HF); code and original checkpoints — CC0
Russian
Not supported
Running
On your own serverAlso runs without a GPU
Industries
Media and production, Marketing and content, Security
Deploy on your server Hugging Face GitHub

What it does

  • Search sounds and music by description
  • Automatic tags for an audio library
  • Recognizing sound types (siren, breaking glass, voice)

Where it is used

Media and audio productionMarketing and advertisingSecurity systems

Hardware requirements

LaptopLaptop or regular PC, up to 8 GB of VRAM — smaller versions
fits
1 GPUOne GPU with 16–80 GB — mid-size versions
no versions
ClusterServer with several GPUs — flagship versions
no versions

Versions

  1. larger_clap в Transformers
  2. Larger CLAP: музыка и речь
  3. LAION-CLAP (HTSAT, LAION-Audio-630K)

How to run it

On your own serverWeights are downloaded from Hugging Face and served with vLLM (load and API) or llama.cpp (modest hardware). The model then runs in a closed network with no per-request fees.Hugging Face
How much hardware you needCalculate the VRAM for the model size, context length and number of concurrent requests.Open the hardware calculator

I can set this up end to end: pick the model size, deploy it on your server and connect it to your systems.

Frequently asked questions

Can CLAP (LAION) be used in a commercial project?

Yes. License: Apache 2.0 (weights on HF); code and original checkpoints — CC0. It allows commercial use, but it is still worth having a lawyer review the license before launch.

What hardware does CLAP (LAION) need?

At minimum: Laptop or regular PC, up to 8 GB of VRAM — smaller versions. Some versions also run on an ordinary CPU, without a GPU. You can calculate the exact VRAM for your model size and context in the hardware calculator.

Does CLAP (LAION) support Russian?

No. The model card lists its languages and Russian is not among them.

Where can I download CLAP (LAION) and what does it cost?

The CLAP (LAION) weights are open and free to download. You only pay for the hardware it runs on and for the setup. Source links are at the bottom of this page.

How I deploy it for clients

  1. SelectionI pick the model size for your task and hardware and test it on your examples.
  2. DeploymentI deploy it on your server or in a closed network and provide an API.
  3. Fine-tuningI fine-tune it on your data (LoRA) or connect a knowledge base — whichever is cheaper for the task.
  4. IntegrationI connect it to your CRM, ERP, bot, website or team chat and set up monitoring.

Similar models

Computer visionPerception Encoder (PE)Meta · USACommercial use allowed

Meta's family of encoders for images and video, and with PE-AV also for audio. PE-Core searches by text more accurately than SigLIP 2 (per Meta); small versions are available.

DetailsComputer visionCLIP (OpenAI)OpenAI · USACommercial use allowed

The 2021 model that first linked images and text: search photos by words and classify them without training. English only; SigLIP 2 or PE are usually chosen today.

Details

Source: huggingface.co/laion/larger_clap_music_and_speech. Data checked against the model card on 22 Sep 2026. Have a lawyer review the license before commercial launch.