# Voicebox: The Open-Source AI Voice Studio

> Source: <https://github.com/jamiepine/voicebox>
> Published: 2026-07-10 18:18:48+00:00

**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.

[voicebox.sh](https://voicebox.sh) •
[Docs](https://docs.voicebox.sh) •
[Download](#download) •
[Features](#features) •
[API](#api) •
[Troubleshooting](/jamiepine/voicebox/blob/main/docs/content/docs/overview/troubleshooting.mdx)

*Click the image above to watch the demo video on voicebox.sh*

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 7 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** 7 TTS engines**— Qwen3-TTS, Qwen CustomVoice, 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**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

| Platform | Download |
|---|---|
| macOS (Apple Silicon) |
|

[Download DMG](https://voicebox.sh/download/mac-intel)[Download MSI](https://voicebox.sh/download/windows)`docker compose up`

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

Having trouble?See the[Troubleshooting Guide]for common install, generation, model-download, and GPU issues.

Seven 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 |
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 |

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:

`[laugh]`

`[chuckle]`

`[gasp]`

`[cough]`

`[sigh]`

`[groan]`

`[sniff]`

`[shush]`

`[clear throat]`

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.

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]`

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

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

- 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

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

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

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).

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

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.

```
// 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

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.

- 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

| Platform | Backend | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| macOS (Apple Silicon) | MLX (Metal) | 4-5x faster via Neural Engine |
| Windows / Linux (NVIDIA) | PyTorch (CUDA) | Auto-downloads CUDA binary from within the app |
| 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 |

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

```
# 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`

.

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.):

```
{
  "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:

```
{
  "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](/jamiepine/voicebox/blob/main/docs/content/docs/overview/mcp-server.mdx) for tool signatures, resolution precedence, the speaking-pill contract, and security notes.

```
// 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`

.

| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Desktop App | Tauri (Rust) |
| Frontend | React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS |
| State | Zustand, React Query |
| Backend | FastAPI (Python) |
| TTS Engines | Qwen3-TTS, Qwen CustomVoice, 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 |

| 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](/jamiepine/voicebox/blob/main/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.

See [CONTRIBUTING.md](/jamiepine/voicebox/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md) for detailed setup and contribution guidelines.

```
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 3.11+](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.

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

The multi-engine architecture makes adding new TTS engines straightforward. A [step-by-step guide](/jamiepine/voicebox/blob/main/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](/jamiepine/voicebox/blob/main/.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.

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

Contributions welcome! See [CONTRIBUTING.md](/jamiepine/voicebox/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md) for guidelines.

- Fork the repo
- Create a feature branch
- Make your changes
- Submit a PR

Found a security vulnerability? Please report it responsibly. See [SECURITY.md](/jamiepine/voicebox/blob/main/SECURITY.md) for details.

MIT License — see [LICENSE](/jamiepine/voicebox/blob/main/LICENSE) for details.