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jamiepine/voicebox

The open-source AI voice studio. Clone, dictate, create.

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<h1 align="center">Voicebox</h1>

The open-source AI voice studio. 
 Clone any voice. Generate speech. Dictate into any app. Talk to agents in voices you own. 
 The full voice I/O stack, running locally on your machine.

<a href="https://voicebox.sh">voicebox.sh</a> •
 <a href="https://docs.voicebox.sh">Docs</a> •
 <a href="#download">Download</a> •
 <a href="#features">Features</a> •
 <a href="#api">API</a> •
 <a href="docs/content/docs/overview/troubleshooting.mdx">Troubleshooting</a>

Click the image above to watch the demo video on <a href="https://voicebox.sh">voicebox.sh</a>

## Built with Capy

Voicebox is built and maintained with [Capy](https://capy.ai?utm_source=voicebox&utm_medium=readme&utm_campaign=built-with-capy). A Capy Captain thread directs the project day to day, and its crew threads test, rebase, and review each contributor pull request on Linux and on a Mac Studio before Jamie merges it. Voicebox stays free and open source under the MIT license, with no splash screens, banners, or interruptions in the app.

**[Try Capy →](https://capy.ai?utm_source=voicebox&utm_medium=readme&utm_campaign=built-with-capy)** · [How Voicebox is built](https://voicebox.sh/built-with-capy)

---

## What is Voicebox?

Voicebox is a **local-first AI voice studio** — a free and open-source alternative to **ElevenLabs** and **WisprFlow** in one app. Clone voices from a few seconds of audio, generate speech in 23 languages across 8 TTS engines, dictate into any text field with a global hotkey, and give any MCP-aware AI agent a voice of your choosing.

The two cloud incumbents sit on opposite halves of the voice I/O loop — ElevenLabs on output, WisprFlow on input. Voicebox does both, bridges them with a bundled local LLM for refinement and per-profile personas, and runs the whole thing on your machine.

- **Complete privacy** — models, voice data, and captures never leave your machine
- **8 TTS engines** — Qwen3-TTS, Qwen CustomVoice, Qwen VoiceDesign, LuxTTS, Chatterbox Multilingual, Chatterbox Turbo, HumeAI TADA, and Kokoro
- **Voice cloning and preset voices** — zero-shot cloning from a reference sample, or 50+ curated preset voices via Kokoro and Qwen CustomVoice
- **23 languages** — from English to Arabic, Japanese, Hindi, Swahili, and more
- **Post-processing effects** — pitch shift, reverb, delay, chorus, compression, and filters
- **Expressive speech** — paralinguistic tags like `[laugh]`, `[sigh]`, `[gasp]` via Chatterbox Turbo; natural-language delivery control via Qwen CustomVoice; voices described in plain language via Qwen VoiceDesign
- **Unlimited length** — auto-chunking with crossfade for scripts, articles, and chapters
- **Stories editor** — multi-track timeline for conversations, podcasts, and narratives
- **Voice input** — global dictation hotkey with push-to-talk and toggle modes, accessibility-verified auto-paste on macOS, in-app mic on every text field, Whisper-based STT
- **Agent voice output** — one tool call (`voicebox_speak`) and any MCP-aware agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Cline) speaks to you in a voice you've cloned
- **Voice personalities** — attach a free-form persona to any voice profile, then Compose, Rewrite, or Respond via a bundled local LLM — agents can invoke the same modes over MCP
- **API-first** — REST API plus a built-in MCP server for integrating voice I/O into your own apps and agents
- **Native performance** — built with Tauri (Rust), not Electron
- **Runs everywhere** — macOS (MLX/Metal), Windows (CUDA), Linux, AMD ROCm, Intel Arc, Docker

---

## Download

| Platform              | Download                                               |
| --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| macOS (Apple Silicon) | [Download DMG](https://voicebox.sh/download/mac-arm)   |
| macOS (Intel)         | [Download DMG](https://voicebox.sh/download/mac-intel) |
| Windows               | [Download MSI](https://voicebox.sh/download/windows)   |
| Docker                | `docker compose up`                                    |

> **[View all binaries →](https://github.com/jamiepine/voicebox/releases/latest)**

> **Linux** — Pre-built binaries are not yet available. See [voicebox.sh/linux-install](https://voicebox.sh/linux-install) for build-from-source instructions.

> **Having trouble?** See the [Troubleshooting Guide](docs/content/docs/overview/troubleshooting.mdx) for common install, generation, model-download, and GPU issues.

---

## Features

### Multi-Engine Voice Cloning

Eight TTS engines with different strengths, switchable per-generation:

| Engine                      | Languages | Strengths                                                                                                                                |
| --------------------------- | --------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Qwen3-TTS** (0.6B / 1.7B) | 10        | High-quality multilingual cloning, delivery instructions ("speak slowly", "whisper")                                                     |
| **Qwen CustomVoice**        | 10        | 9 curated preset voices with natural-language delivery control — no reference audio required                                             |
| **Qwen VoiceDesign**        | 10        | Builds a voice from a written description — no reference audio or preset needed                                                         |
| **LuxTTS**                  | English   | Lightweight (~1GB VRAM), 48kHz output, 150x realtime on CPU                                                                              |
| **Chatterbox Multilingual** | 23        | Broadest language coverage — Arabic, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish and more |
| **Chatterbox Turbo**        | English   | Fast 350M model with paralinguistic emotion/sound tags                                                                                   |
| **TADA** (1B / 3B)          | 10        | HumeAI speech-language model — 700s+ coherent audio, text-acoustic dual alignment                                                        |
| **Kokoro**                  | 8         | 50 curated preset voices, tiny 82M model, fast CPU inference                                                                             |

### Emotions & Paralinguistic Tags

Only **Chatterbox Turbo** interprets paralinguistic tags like `[laugh]` and
`[sigh]`. Qwen3-TTS, LuxTTS, Chatterbox Multilingual, and HumeAI TADA read them
literally as text.

With **Chatterbox Turbo** selected, type `/` in the text input to open the tag
inserter and add expressive tags inline with speech:

Sounds: `[laugh]` `[chuckle]` `[gasp]` `[cough]` `[sigh]` `[groan]` `[sniff]` `[shush]` `[clear throat]`

Delivery: `[angry]` `[crying]` `[dramatic]` `[fear]` `[happy]` `[narration]` `[sarcastic]` `[surprised]` `[whispering]` `[advertisement]`

### Post-Processing Effects

8 audio effects powered by Spotify's `pedalboard` library. Apply after generation, preview in real time, build reusable presets.

| Effect           | Description                                   |
| ---------------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| Pitch Shift      | Up or down by up to 12 semitones              |
| Reverb           | Configurable room size, damping, wet/dry mix  |
| Delay            | Echo with adjustable time, feedback, and mix  |
| Chorus / Flanger | Modulated delay for metallic or lush textures |
| Compressor       | Dynamic range compression                     |
| Gain             | Volume adjustment (-40 to +40 dB)             |
| High-Pass Filter | Remove low frequencies                        |
| Low-Pass Filter  | Remove high frequencies                       |

Ships with 4 built-in presets (Robotic, Radio, Echo Chamber, Deep Voice) and supports custom presets. Effects can be assigned per-profile as defaults.

### Unlimited Generation Length

Text is automatically split at sentence boundaries and each chunk is generated independently, then crossfaded together. Works with all engines.

- Configurable auto-chunking limit (100–5,000 chars)
- Crossfade slider (0–200ms) for smooth transitions
- Max text length: 50,000 characters
- Smart splitting respects abbreviations, CJK punctuation, and `[tags]`

### Generation Versions

Every generation supports multiple versions with provenance tracking:

- **Original** — clean TTS output, always preserved
- **Effects versions** — apply different effects chains from any source version
- **Takes** — regenerate with a new seed for variation
- **Source tracking** — each version records its lineage
- **Favorites** — star generations for quick access

### Async Generation Queue

Generation is non-blocking. Submit and immediately start typing the next one.

- Serial execution queue prevents GPU contention
- Real-time SSE status streaming
- Failed generations can be retried
- Stale generations from crashes auto-recover on startup

### Voice Profile Management

- Create profiles from audio files or record directly in-app
- Import/export profiles to share or back up
- Multi-sample support for higher quality cloning
- Per-profile default effects chains
- Organize with descriptions and language tags

### Stories Editor

Multi-voice timeline editor for conversations, podcasts, and narratives.

- Multi-track composition with drag-and-drop
- Inline audio trimming and splitting
- Auto-playback with synchronized playhead
- Version pinning per track clip

### Global Dictation & Voice Input

The other half of the voice I/O loop. Hold a hotkey anywhere on your system, speak, release — on macOS the transcript pastes straight into the focused text field. Or hit the mic on any Voicebox text input and dictate directly into the app.

- **Configurable chord bindings** — hold-to-speak and tap-to-toggle chords, each rebindable in the in-app chord picker. Holding push-to-talk and tapping `Space` mid-hold upgrades into a toggle session without a gap in audio
- **Target-aware paste (macOS)** — accessibility-verified injection into the focused text field, with atomic clipboard save/restore so your clipboard isn't clobbered
- **First-run permissions UX** — in-app gates walk you through the macOS Accessibility and Input Monitoring grants with deep-links to System Settings
- **In-app mic button** on every Voicebox text field — generation form, profile descriptions, story titles, anywhere you'd type
- **LLM refinement** — optional cleanup of ums, stutters, and false starts before paste
- **On-screen pill** — floating overlay surfacing `recording`, `transcribing`, `refining`, and `speaking` states. Same pill agents use when they speak to you, so there's one mental model for both directions of the loop

### Speech-to-Text

Voicebox runs OpenAI Whisper for transcription — the same model that backs dictation, the Captures tab, and the `/transcribe` API. Running on MLX (Apple Silicon) or PyTorch (CUDA / ROCm / DirectML / CPU) depending on your platform.

| Size                          | Notes                                              |
| ----------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| Base / Small / Medium / Large | Standard Whisper quality ladder                    |
| Turbo                         | ~8x faster than Whisper Large, minimal quality loss |

More engines (Parakeet v3, Qwen3-ASR) are planned — see [Roadmap](#roadmap).

### Captures

Every dictation, in-app recording, and uploaded audio file lands in the Captures tab — original audio paired with transcript, always preserved.

- **Replay, re-transcribe, refine** — rerun STT with any Whisper size, or re-run the raw transcript through the local LLM with different flags (filler cleanup, self-correction removal, technical-term preservation)
- **Edit inline** — tweak the transcript and save on blur
- **Play as voice profile** — turn any capture into speech with a cloned voice, one click
- **Promote to voice sample** — use a capture's audio + transcript as a reference sample on any voice profile
- **Local capture storage** — original audio and transcript stay in your Voicebox data directory, with a folder shortcut in Settings

### Agent Voice Output

Every agent gets a voice. One tool call and any MCP-aware agent can speak to you in a voice you've cloned — task completions, questions, notifications. The same pill that surfaces during dictation surfaces during agent speech, so you always see what's coming out of your machine.

```ts
// In any MCP-aware agent:
await voicebox_speak({
  text: "Deploy complete.",
  profile: "Morgan",
});
```

Also exposed as `POST /speak` for anything that doesn't speak MCP — ACP, A2A, shell scripts, custom harnesses.

- **Bidirectional pill** — `recording`, `transcribing`, `refining`, and `speaking` are all states of the same OS-level overlay, so dictation and agent speech share one surface
- **Per-agent voice binding** — in **Settings → MCP**, pin Claude Code to Morgan and Cursor to Scarlett so you can tell which agent is talking without looking. Each client's `last_seen_at` timestamp confirms the install actually took
- **Always visible** — no silent background TTS; every agent-initiated speak surfaces the pill with the voice profile name for the full duration
- **HTTP + stdio transports** — install as a URL in Claude Code / Cursor / Windsurf / VS Code MCP, or point stdio-only clients at the bundled `voicebox-mcp` binary

### Voice Personalities

Attach a free-form personality to any voice profile — who this voice is, how they speak, what they care about. Two actions appear on the generate box when a personality is set, powered by a bundled Qwen3 LLM running entirely locally.

- **Compose** — a shuffle button that drops a fresh in-character line into the textarea; edit and speak, or click again for a different take
- **Speak in character** — a toggle that routes your input text through the personality LLM to be rewritten in their voice before TTS

Agents can reach the same rewrite path over MCP by passing `personality: true` to `voicebox_speak`, turning the tool into a text-in → personality-LLM → TTS pipeline. The same LLM backs dictation's refinement step — one LLM in the app, one model cache, one GPU-memory footprint.

**Local LLM options:** Qwen3 0.6B / 1.7B / 4B, sharing the TTS runtime (MLX on Apple Silicon, PyTorch elsewhere).

Use cases: agent dev loops (dictate a question, hear the answer in a cloned voice), interactive characters for games and narrative tools, speech assistance for people who can't speak in their original voice.

### Model Management

- Per-model unload to free GPU memory without deleting downloads
- Custom models directory via `VOICEBOX_MODELS_DIR`
- Model folder migration with progress tracking
- Download cancel/clear UI

### GPU Support

| Platform                 | Backend        | Notes                                          |
| ------------------------ | -------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| macOS (Apple Silicon)    | MLX (Metal)    | 4-5x faster via Neural Engine                  |
| Windows (NVIDIA)         | PyTorch (CUDA) | Auto-downloads CUDA binary from within the app |
| Linux (NVIDIA)           | PyTorch (CUDA) | Use a local/remote Python backend with CUDA PyTorch |
| Linux (AMD)              | PyTorch (ROCm) | Auto-configures HSA_OVERRIDE_GFX_VERSION       |
| Windows (any GPU)        | DirectML       | Universal Windows GPU support                  |
| Intel Arc                | IPEX/XPU       | Intel discrete GPU acceleration                |
| Any                      | CPU            | Works everywhere, just slower                  |

---

## API

Voicebox exposes a REST API for integrating voice I/O into your own apps and agents.

```bash
# Generate speech
curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:17493/generate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text": "Hello world", "profile_id": "abc123", "language": "en"}'

# Agent voice output — any app or script can speak in a cloned voice
curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:17493/speak \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Voicebox-Client-Id: my-script" \
  -d '{"text": "Deploy complete.", "profile": "Morgan"}'

# Transcribe an audio file
curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:17493/transcribe \
  -F "audio=@recording.wav" \
  -F "model=whisper-turbo"

# List voice profiles
curl http://127.0.0.1:17493/profiles
```

`POST /speak` accepts `profile` as a name (case-insensitive) or id, and resolves via the same precedence as the MCP tool: explicit arg → per-client binding → `capture_settings.default_playback_voice_id`.

### MCP server

Voicebox ships a built-in **Model Context Protocol** server so any MCP-aware agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, VS Code MCP extensions) can speak, transcribe, and browse captures and profiles.

**Claude Code one-liner:**

```
claude mcp add voicebox \
  --transport http \
  --url http://127.0.0.1:17493/mcp \
  --header "X-Voicebox-Client-Id: claude-code"
```

**Any HTTP MCP client** (Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, etc.):

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "voicebox": {
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:17493/mcp",
      "headers": { "X-Voicebox-Client-Id": "cursor" }
    }
  }
}
```

**Stdio fallback** for clients that don't speak HTTP MCP — point at the bundled `voicebox-mcp` binary inside the app:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "voicebox": {
      "command": "/Applications/Voicebox.app/Contents/MacOS/voicebox-mcp",
      "env": { "VOICEBOX_CLIENT_ID": "claude-desktop" }
    }
  }
}
```

Four tools ship: `voicebox_speak`, `voicebox_transcribe`, `voicebox_list_captures`, `voicebox_list_profiles`. Per-client voice bindings are managed in **Voicebox → Settings → MCP**. See the [full MCP guide](docs/content/docs/overview/mcp-server.mdx) for tool signatures, resolution precedence, the speaking-pill contract, and security notes.

```ts
// In any MCP-aware agent:
await voicebox_speak({
  text: "Tests passing. Ready to merge.",
  profile: "Morgan",      // optional — falls back to the per-client binding
  personality: true,      // optional — rewrites text through the profile's personality LLM first
});
```

**Use cases:** agent dev loops (voice in, voice out), game dialogue, podcast production, accessibility tools, voice assistants, content automation.

Full API documentation available at `http://127.0.0.1:17493/docs`.

---

## Tech Stack

| Layer         | Technology                                                                      |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Desktop App   | Tauri (Rust)                                                                    |
| Frontend      | React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS                                                 |
| State         | Zustand, React Query                                                            |
| Backend       | FastAPI (Python)                                                                |
| TTS Engines   | Qwen3-TTS, Qwen CustomVoice, Qwen VoiceDesign, LuxTTS, Chatterbox, Chatterbox Turbo, TADA, Kokoro |
| STT           | Whisper / Whisper Turbo (PyTorch or MLX)                                        |
| Local LLM     | Qwen3 (0.6B / 1.7B / 4B), shared runtime with TTS / STT                         |
| MCP Server    | FastMCP mounted at `/mcp` (Streamable HTTP) + bundled stdio shim binary         |
| Native Shim   | Rust (inside Tauri) for global hotkey, paste injection, focus introspection     |
| Effects       | Pedalboard (Spotify)                                                            |
| Inference     | MLX (Apple Silicon) / PyTorch (CUDA/ROCm/XPU/CPU)                               |
| Database      | SQLite                                                                          |
| Audio         | WaveSurfer.js, librosa                                                          |

---

## Roadmap

| Feature                            | Description                                                              |
| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Windows / Linux auto-paste**     | Dictation paste parity — `SendInput` on Windows, `uinput` / AT-SPI on Linux |
| **STT engine expansion**           | Parakeet v3 and Qwen3-ASR joining Whisper — 50+ languages, better non-English quality |
| **Pipeline routing**               | Configurable source → transform → sink chains with webhook + MCP sinks and a preset editor |
| **Streaming transcription**        | WebSocket `/transcribe/stream` for partial transcripts as you speak      |
| **End-to-end speech LLMs**         | Moshi, GLM-4-Voice, Qwen2.5 Omni — real voice-to-voice, no text between  |
| **Voice Design**                   | Create new voices from text descriptions                                 |
| **Long-form capture**              | Dual-stream recorder (mic + system audio) with summary LLM transform     |
| **Platform sinks**                 | Apple Notes, Obsidian, and other opt-in integrations                     |
| **Plugin architecture**            | Extend with custom models, transforms, and sinks                         |
| **Mobile companion**               | Control Voicebox from your phone                                         |

For the **full engineering status, open-issue triage, and prioritized work queue**, see [`docs/PROJECT_STATUS.md`](docs/PROJECT_STATUS.md) — a living document that tracks what's shipped, what's in-flight, candidate TTS engines under evaluation, and why we've accepted or backlogged specific integrations.

---

## Development

See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) for detailed setup and contribution guidelines.

### Quick Start

```bash
git clone https://github.com/jamiepine/voicebox.git
cd voicebox

just setup   # creates Python venv, installs all deps
just dev     # starts backend + desktop app
```

Install [just](https://github.com/casey/just): `brew install just` or `cargo install just`. Run `just --list` to see all commands.

**Prerequisites:** [Bun](https://bun.sh), [Rust](https://rustup.rs), [Python 3.12](https://python.org), [Tauri Prerequisites](https://v2.tauri.app/start/prerequisites/), and [Xcode](https://developer.apple.com/xcode/) on macOS.

The repo ships a pre-wired `.mcp.json` at the root — running Claude Code inside this checkout picks up the Voicebox MCP tools automatically once the dev app is running.

### Building Locally

```bash
just build          # Build CPU server binary + Tauri app
just build-local    # (Windows) Build CPU + CUDA server binaries + Tauri app
```

### Adding New Voice Models

The multi-engine architecture makes adding new TTS engines straightforward. A [step-by-step guide](docs/content/docs/developer/tts-engines.mdx) covers the full process: dependency research, backend protocol implementation, frontend wiring, and PyInstaller bundling.

The guide is optimized for AI coding agents. An [agent skill](.agents/skills/add-tts-engine/SKILL.md) can pick up a model name and handle the entire integration autonomously — you just test the build locally.

### Project Structure

```
voicebox/
├── app/              # Shared React frontend
├── tauri/            # Desktop app (Tauri + Rust)
├── web/              # Web deployment
├── backend/          # Python FastAPI server
└── scripts/          # Build & release scripts
```

---

## Contributing

Contributions welcome! See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) for guidelines.

1. Fork the repo
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Submit a PR

## Security

Found a security vulnerability? Please report it responsibly. See [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md) for details.

---

## License

MIT License — see [LICENSE](LICENSE) for details.

---

<a href="https://voicebox.sh">voicebox.sh</a>

Repository info

Default branch: main
Latest version: v0.5.0
Created: 2026-01-25
Last activity: 2026-10-07
License: MIT
Open issues: 506
Watchers: 256

Topics

ai cuda mlx qwen3-tts qwen3-tts-ui voice-ai voice-clone whisper

Contributors

jamiepine

615 contributions

neuron-tech-ai

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tomasmach

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capy-ai-staging[bot]

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1337hero

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