voicebox-voice-synthesis
voicebox-voice-synthesis — an installable skill for AI agents.
By reason-machines · 1,389 installs
npx skills add reason-machines/trending-skills --skill voicebox-voice-synthesis
Source repository · Upstream listing
Voicebox Voice Synthesis Studio
Skill by [ara.so](https://ara.so) — Daily 2026 Skills collection.
Voicebox is a local first, open source voice cloning and TTS studio — a self hosted alternative to ElevenLabs. It runs entirely on your machine (macOS MLX/Metal, Windows/Linux CUDA, CPU fallback), exposes a REST API on localhost:17493 , and ships with 5 TTS engines, 23 languages, post processing effects, and a multi track Stories editor.
Installation
Pre built Binaries (Recommended)
Platform Link
macOS Apple Silicon https://voicebox.sh/download/mac arm
macOS Intel https://voicebox.sh/download/mac intel
Windows https://voicebox.sh/download/windows
Docker docker compose up
Linux requires building from source: https://voicebox.sh/linux install
Build from Source
Prerequisites: [Bun](https://bun.sh), [Rust](https://rustup.rs), [Python 3.11+](https://python.org), Tauri prerequisites
Architecture
Layer Technology
Desktop App Tauri (Rust)
Frontend React + TypeScript + Tailwind CSS
State Zustand + React Query
Backend FastAPI (Python) on port 17493
TTS Engines Qwen3 TTS, LuxTTS, Chatterbox, Chatterbox Turbo, TADA
Effects Pedalboard (Spotify)
Transcription Whisper / Whisper Turbo
Inference MLX (Apple Silicon) / PyTorch (CUDA/ROCm/XPU/CPU)
Database SQLite
The Python FastAPI backend handles all ML inference. The Tauri Rust shell wraps the frontend and manages the backend process lifecycle. The API is accessible directly at http://localhost:17493 even when using the desktop app.
REST API Reference
Base URL: http://localhost:17493
Interactive docs: http://localhost:17493/docs
Generate Speech
Voice Profiles
Generation Queue & Status
Models
TypeScript/JavaScript Integration
Basic TTS Client
Poll for Completion
Stream Status with SSE
Download Audio as Blob
Python Integration
TTS Engine Selection Guide
Engine Best For Languages VRAM Notes
qwen3 tts (0.6B/1.7B) Quality + instructions 10 Medium Supports delivery instructions in text
luxtts Fast CPU generation English only ~1GB 150x realtime on CPU, 48kHz
chatterbox Multilingual coverage 23 Medium Arabic, Hindi, Swahili, CJK + more
chatterbox turbo Expressive/emotion English only Low (350M) Use [laugh] , [sigh] , [gasp] tags
tada (1B/3B) Long form coherence 10 High 700s+ audio, HumeAI model
Delivery Instructions (Qwen3 TTS)
Embed natural language instructions directly in the text:
Paralinguistic Tags (Chatterbox Turbo)
Environment & Configuration
Docker configuration ( docker compose.yml override):
Common Patterns
Voice Profile Creation Flow
Batch Generation with Queue
Long Form Text (Auto Chunking)
Voicebox auto chunks at sentence boundaries — just send the full text:
Troubleshooting
API not responding
GPU not detected
Model download fails / slow
Out of VRAM — unload models
Audio quality issues
Use 5–30 seconds of clean, noise free speech for voice samples
Multiple samples improve clone quality — upload 3–5 different sentences
For multilingual cloning, use chatterbox engine
Ensure sample audio is 16kHz+ mono WAV for best results
Use luxtts for highest output quality (48kHz) in English
Generation stuck in queue after crash
Voicebox auto recovers stale generations on startup. If the issue persists:
Frontend Integration (React Example)