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.
Critical:
- Remove dead backend.utils.validation PyInstaller hidden import
- Fix story_items table rebuild to preserve track/trim/version columns
- Guard cache migration against same source/destination path
- Fix regeneration audio overwrite (use random uuid suffix per take)
Major:
- Engine selector: validate language on Qwen switch, clear stale modelSize
- Sync language validation regex between profile create and generate (22 langs)
- Guard CUDA download against duplicate concurrent requests
- Only set model_size for engines that support multiple sizes
- Fix 404 swallowed by generic except in history export
- Validate audio_path before FileResponse in export-audio
- Transcription: stream uploads in 1MB chunks, use robust cache check,
call complete_download() on Whisper download success
- Set clean version as default when effects chain validation fails
- Return explicit error when Windows port occupied by non-voicebox process
James Pine