# FDSN: get\_waveforms vs get\_waveforms\_bulk

**URL:** <https://discourse.obspy.org/t/fdsn-get-waveforms-vs-get-waveforms-bulk/2067>\
**Category:** Usage Questions\
**Created:** [October 30, 2024, 9:14am UTC](https://discourse.obspy.org/t/fdsn-get-waveforms-vs-get-waveforms-bulk/2067 "2024-10-30T09:14:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cthuulhaa](https://discourse.obspy.org/user_avatar/discourse.obspy.org/cthuulhaa/32/885_2.png) [@Cthuulhaa](https://discourse.obspy.org/u/Cthuulhaa)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2024, 9:14am UTC](https://discourse.obspy.org/t/fdsn-get-waveforms-vs-get-waveforms-bulk/2067/1 "2024-10-30T09:14:28Z")

</div>

I have a set of about 150 seismic stations from different FDSN clients from which I want to retrieve 60 s long waveforms. Most of them have 3 channels.

I am able to retrieve them by means of the `client.get_waveforms` function, but I was wondering if in this case would be quicker to use the `get_waveforms_bulk` function instead?

I can provide a JSON file with the stations from which I want to get the waveforms.

Cheers!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![megies](https://discourse.obspy.org/user_avatar/discourse.obspy.org/megies/32/9_2.png) [@megies](https://discourse.obspy.org/u/megies)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2024, 12:42pm UTC](https://discourse.obspy.org/t/fdsn-get-waveforms-vs-get-waveforms-bulk/2067/2 "2024-11-04T12:42:24Z")

</div>

Using “bulk” download is much more efficient if requesting a large amount of stations because you avoid a lot of http overload compared to individual requests and it is a lot more efficient for the server side to prepare the data.

Documentation for the bulk requests should be pretty self explanatory. You can prepare a text file for the request or just put together your request in python:

> **[obspy.clients.fdsn.client.Client.get\_waveforms\_bulk — ObsPy...](https://docs.obspy.org/master/packages/autogen/obspy.clients.fdsn.client.Client.get_waveforms_bulk.html#obspy.clients.fdsn.client.Client.get_waveforms_bulk)**