Before 0.4 every engine was a cloning model, so the instruct UI in the
floating generate box applied the same way everywhere. Commit 3187344
hid the instruct toggle because the mix of new engines landing in 0.4
made it unclear which ones honored the kwarg. With Qwen CustomVoice
now shipping as the only engine actually tuned for instruct-style
control, bring the button back — conditionally, and only for that
engine.
Changes:
• FloatingGenerateBox: SlidersHorizontal toggle button appears left
of Generate when the box is expanded AND engine is
qwen_custom_voice. Clicking it reveals an additive instruct
textarea below the main text field (not a modal swap like the old
version). State persists across engine switches so the toggle
remembers its last position.
• GenerationForm: narrow the instruct FormField's conditional from
`qwen || qwen_custom_voice` to just `qwen_custom_voice`.
• useGenerationForm: narrow supportsInstruct for the same reason.
Base Qwen3-TTS accepts the kwarg but the model itself doesn't honor
it — only CustomVoice was trained for instruction-based style
control.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <[email protected]>
- Show all voice profiles with unsupported ones grayed out (opacity) instead of hidden
- Clicking a grayed-out profile selects it and auto-switches the engine to a compatible one
- Sort supported profiles first, with info tip about compatibility at the bottom
- Scroll to selected profile after engine/sort changes with safe margin
- Fix engine desync on tab navigation by initializing form engine from store
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <[email protected]>
Add Kokoro-82M as a new TTS engine — 82M params, CPU realtime, 8 languages,
Apache 2.0. Unlike cloning engines, Kokoro uses pre-built voice styles, which
required a new profile type system to support non-cloning engines cleanly.
Kokoro engine:
- New kokoro_backend.py implementing TTSBackend protocol
- 50 built-in voices across en/es/fr/hi/it/pt/ja/zh
- KPipeline API with language-aware G2P routing via misaki
- PyInstaller bundling for misaki, language_tags, espeakng_loader, en_core_web_sm
Voice profile type system:
- New voice_type column: 'cloned' | 'preset' | 'designed' (future)
- Preset profiles store engine + voice ID instead of audio samples
- default_engine field on profiles — auto-selects engine on profile pick
- Create Voice dialog: toggle between 'Clone from audio' and 'Built-in voice'
- Edit dialog shows preset voice info instead of sample list for preset profiles
- Engine selector locks to preset engine when preset profile is selected
- Profile grid filters by engine — shows Kokoro voices when Kokoro selected
- Custom empty state when no preset profiles exist for selected engine
Bug fixes:
- Fix relative audio paths in DB causing 404s in production builds
- config.set_data_dir() now resolves to absolute paths
- Startup migration converts existing relative paths to absolute
Also updates PROJECT_STATUS.md and tts-engines.mdx developer guide.
Integrates HumeAI's TADA (Text-Acoustic Dual Alignment) speech-language
model as a new TTS engine. TADA uses a novel 1:1 token-audio alignment
that produces coherent speech over long sequences (700s+).
Two model variants:
- tada-1b: English-only, ~4GB, built on Llama 3.2 1B
- tada-3b-ml: 10 languages, ~8GB, built on Llama 3.2 3B
Backend uses the Encoder for voice prompt encoding with caching, and
TadaForCausalLM with flow-matching diffusion for generation. Supports
bf16 inference on CUDA, forces CPU on macOS (MPS compatibility).
Installed with --no-deps due to torch>=2.7 pin conflict; descript-audio-codec
and torchaudio added as explicit sub-dependencies.
Adds a full effects pipeline powered by Spotify's pedalboard library,
enabling users to apply professional DSP effects (flanger, reverb, delay,
compressor, pitch shift, filters, gain) to generated audio.
Key features:
- Effects chain editor with drag-and-drop reordering (dnd-kit)
- Generation versions: clean copy always saved, processed versions created on top
- Built-in presets (Robotic, Radio, Echo Chamber, Deep Voice) + custom user presets
- Per-profile default effects chain (auto-applied to new generations)
- Per-generation effects override from the generation form
- Apply effects to existing generations from history (creates new version)
- Ephemeral preview endpoint for auditioning effects without persisting
- Dedicated Effects sidebar tab with preset management and live preview
- Version switcher in history cards with expandable panel
- Backward-compatible: existing generations backfilled as clean versions
Generations now return immediately with a 'generating' status and appear
in history right away. TTS runs in a serial background queue to avoid
GPU contention. Users can kick off multiple generations without blocking.
- Async POST /generate creates DB record immediately, queues TTS work
- Serial generation queue prevents concurrent GPU access (Metal/CUDA/CPU)
- SSE endpoint GET /generate/{id}/status for real-time completion tracking
- Retry endpoint POST /generate/{id}/retry for failed generations
- Store engine and model_size on generation records for retry support
- History cards show animated loader (react-loaders) for generating/playing
- Failed generations show retry button instead of actions menu
- Model downloads happen inline in the queue instead of rejecting with 202
- Stale 'generating' records marked as failed on server startup
- Autoplay on generate setting (default: on)
- Show engine name on generation cards
- Remove sidebar generation spinner
- Checkbox alignment fix in settings
- Add model folder migration with byte-level progress tracking (backend + UI)
- Custom models directory support via VOICEBOX_MODELS_DIR env var passed to sidecar
- Hardcoded model descriptions displayed in model detail cards
- Open model folder button in storage location row
- Remove 'not downloaded' badge from model cards
- Fix server settings scroll offset for audio player
- Fix shell open permission to allow file paths
- Add normalize toggle to generation settings
Persisted setting (default 800 chars) controls how long text is split
before generation. Lower values improve quality for long outputs by
keeping each chunk well within the model's context window.
- Slider in Server Connection settings (100–2000 chars, step 50)
- Stored in localStorage via Zustand persist
- Passed as max_chunk_chars on every generation request
- Frontend text limit raised to 50,000 to match backend
- New ChatterboxTurboTTSBackend wrapping ChatterboxTurboTTS (ResembleAI/chatterbox-turbo)
- English-only 350M model with paralinguistic tag support ([laugh], [cough], [chuckle])
- Bypasses upstream token=True bug by calling snapshot_download(token=None) + from_local()
- Same CPU-on-macOS forcing and torch.load monkey-patching as multilingual backend
- Full engine integration: generate, stream, model status/download/delete endpoints
- Language dropdown now shows only languages supported by the selected engine
- Per-engine language maps: Qwen (10), LuxTTS (en), Chatterbox (23), Turbo (en)
- Auto-switches to English when selecting English-only engines
- Backend language regex expanded to accept all 23 Chatterbox languages
- New ChatterboxTTSBackend wrapping ChatterboxMultilingualTTS (ResembleAI/chatterbox)
- Supports 23 languages including Hebrew, forces CPU on macOS (MPS issue)
- Monkey-patches torch.load for CPU loading, forces eager attention for compatibility
- trim_tts_output utility cuts trailing silence/hallucination from Chatterbox output
- Full engine integration: /generate, /generate/stream, model status/download/delete
- Hebrew (he) added to supported languages in frontend and backend validation
- Single flat model dropdown extended with Chatterbox option in both generation UIs
- ModelManagement UI groups LuxTTS and Chatterbox under 'Other Voice Models' section
- Fix silent Zod validation failure when LuxTTS selected (modelSize was
set to 'default' which failed enum validation, preventing form submit)
- Preserve engine, model size, and language after successful generation
instead of resetting to defaults
Introduce LuxTTS (ZipVoice) alongside Qwen TTS, enabling users to choose
between engines at generation time. LuxTTS offers fast, English-focused
voice cloning at 48kHz with ~1GB VRAM.
Backend:
- Add LuxTTSBackend with encode_prompt/generate_speech integration
- Multi-engine registry (get_tts_backend_for_engine) replacing singleton
- Engine-prefixed voice prompt cache keys to avoid collisions
- Engine field on GenerationRequest (default 'qwen' for backward compat)
- Engine dispatch in /generate and /generate/stream endpoints
- LuxTTS in model status, download, and delete maps
Frontend:
- TTS Engine selector dropdown in GenerationForm (Qwen TTS / LuxTTS)
- Conditionally hide Model Size and Delivery Instructions for LuxTTS
- Engine field added to TypeScript types and Zod schema
- LuxTTS section in Model Management page
- Removed unnecessary isDownloading variable and related logic.
- Consolidated model download state reset to the finally block for improved clarity and reliability.
- Enhanced error handling by ensuring model download state is reset in case of failure.
- Introduced a flag to track download status in useGenerationForm, ensuring proper UI updates during model downloads.
- Updated ProgressManager to only send initial progress updates if the model is actively downloading or extracting, preventing outdated status messages from being sent.
- Improved error handling and logging for better visibility into model download processes.
- Updated AudioPlayer to auto-play only if the shouldAutoPlay flag is set, enhancing user control over playback.
- Refactored HistoryTable, SampleList, and useGenerationForm to utilize setAudioWithAutoPlay for consistent audio loading and playback behavior.
- Improved user experience by ensuring audio is only played when explicitly intended, reducing unexpected playback.
- Introduced story management functionality, including creating, listing, and managing story items.
- Added new components for story display and interaction, including StoriesTab, StoryList, and StoryContent.
- Integrated drag-and-drop functionality for reordering story items using @dnd-kit.
- Updated dependencies for @dnd-kit packages to enhance drag-and-drop capabilities.
- Bumped version for @voicebox/app, @voicebox/landing, @voicebox/tauri, and @voicebox/web to 0.1.5.
- Enhanced audio playback features to support story mode with auto-play functionality.
- Improved error handling and user feedback through toast notifications in story-related actions.
- Introduced useGenerationForm hook to streamline audio generation form handling, including validation and model download management.
- Updated FloatingGenerateBox and GenerationForm components to utilize the new hook, enhancing code organization and reducing duplication.
- Replaced console logging with a debug utility for better logging control during audio playback and generation processes.
- Improved error handling in HistoryTable and MainEditor components by integrating toast notifications for user feedback.
- Adjusted audio recording duration limits across various components for consistency.
