INTEGRATED: Silero TTS (tts-1-silero) - Added silero_wrapper class to speech.py for PyTorch Hub integration - CPU-friendly, no GPU required (48kHz sample rate) - Supports 5 languages: English (117 speakers), Russian, German, Spanish, French - Loads on-demand via torch.hub from snakers4/silero-models - Added 6 OpenAI-compatible voice mappings (alloy, echo, fable, etc.) PREPARED: Chatterbox & Kokoro TTS - Added dependencies to requirements.txt: * git+https://github.com/resemble-ai/chatterbox.git * transformers>=4.35.0 (for Kokoro) * huggingface-hub[cli] (for model downloads) - Created Makefile targets for downloading models - Created test targets for all three new engines Makefile Enhancements: - make voices-silero: Download Silero models (en, ru, de, es, fr) - make test-silero: Test Silero TTS endpoint - make voices-chatterbox: Download Chatterbox models via HF CLI - make test-chatterbox: Test Chatterbox with emotion control - make voices-kokoro: Download Kokoro models via HF CLI - make test-kokoro: Test Kokoro fast synthesis speech.py Changes: - Added silero_wrapper class with tts() method - Added tts-1-silero model handler in generate_speech() - Registered tts-1-silero model in app - Added PCM media type for Silero (48000 Hz) - Global state: silero_model, silero_speakers dict Configuration: - Updated voice_to_speaker.default.yaml with tts-1-silero section - Mapped all 6 OpenAI voices to Silero speakers (en_0 through en_5) Documentation: - Updated docs/MODELS.md: Silero marked as ✅ INTEGRATED - Updated roadmap: Phase 1 task 3 completed - Updated status footer: 3 models rescued - Added integration examples and Makefile commands Next Steps: - Test Silero integration in Docker - Implement Chatterbox emotion control engine - Implement Kokoro fast decoder engine
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TTS Models and Engines
Raccoon Mission: Rescue abandoned open-source TTS models and integrate them into UncloseAI Speech
Documentation Index
Comprehensive Research
- 📊 TTS Models Overview & Research - Complete comparison matrix, feature analysis, and integration roadmap
Individual Model Documentation
Each model has detailed documentation covering technical specs, integration status, and Raccoon Mission notes:
Currently Integrated:
- 📄 Coqui TTS (XTTS-v2) - High-quality multilingual TTS with voice cloning
- 📄 Piper TTS - Fast, lightweight neural TTS with 100+ voices
- 📄 Silero TTS - CPU-friendly, actively maintained, 5 languages (NEW! ✨)
High Priority Candidates:
- 📄 Chatterbox - Emotion control, 23 languages, zero-shot cloning
- 📄 Kokoro TTS - Fast decoder-only architecture, Apache-2.0
Specialized Models:
- 📄 Mimic 3 - Privacy-focused, offline, lightweight
- 📄 eSpeak NG - 100+ languages, accessibility-focused
- 📄 Maya1 - Indic languages, diverse accents
- 📄 Step-Audio-EditX - LLM-based audio editing (experimental)
Historical/Archived:
- 📄 Mozilla TTS - Superseded by Coqui TTS
- 📄 Tortoise TTS - Studio-quality but slow (archival)
Currently Integrated
1. Piper TTS ✅
📖 See detailed documentation for comprehensive technical specs and integration guide
Status: Working with absolute paths
Original Project: rhasspy/piper (abandoned)
Fork: OHF-Voice/piper1-gpl v1.3.0
Current Package: PyPI piper-tts>=1.2.0
Features:
- Fast CPU-based neural TTS
- ~100+ high-quality voices
- Multilingual support
- ONNX runtime
- Low memory footprint (~100MB per voice)
Voices Available:
- English (US, GB, multiple accents)
- Spanish, French, German, Italian
- Russian, Polish, Ukrainian
- Chinese, Japanese, Korean
- Many more languages
Model Source:
- HuggingFace:
rhasspy/piper-voices - Direct download:
https://huggingface.co/rhasspy/piper-voices/resolve/v1.0.0/
Integration:
- Used for
tts-1model (fast, lower quality) - Models stored in
/app/voices/en/en_US/libritts_r/medium/ - Configuration via absolute paths in
voice_to_speaker.yaml
Example Config:
tts-1:
alloy:
model: /app/voices/en/en_US/libritts_r/medium/en_US-libritts_r-medium.onnx
speaker: 79
Raccoon Notes:
- Original rhasspy project abandoned
- OHF-Voice fork has no PyPI package
- Need to create our own PyPI package or vendor the code
- Mirror all voices to prevent HuggingFace dependency
2. Coqui XTTS v2 ✅
📖 See detailed documentation for comprehensive technical specs and integration guide
Status: Integrated as tts-1-hd
Original Project: coqui-ai/TTS (company shut down, archived)
Current Package: PyPI coqui-tts[languages]
Features:
- High-quality multilingual TTS
- Voice cloning from 6-second samples
- Emotional prosody control
- GPU accelerated (NVIDIA/ROCm)
- ~1.8GB model size
Languages:
- English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese
- Polish, Turkish, Russian, Dutch, Czech
- Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, Hungarian, Korean, Hindi
Model Source:
- HuggingFace:
coqui/XTTS-v2 - Auto-downloaded on first use
Integration:
- Used for
tts-1-hdmodel (slow, high quality) - Voice cloning with custom WAV samples
- Language auto-detection with
langdetect
Example Config:
tts-1-hd:
alloy:
model: xtts
speaker: /app/voices/alloy.wav
language: en
Raccoon Notes:
- Coqui company shut down in 2024
- Repository archived but code still works
- Community forks emerging
- Must mirror XTTS-v2 weights before they disappear
- Consider forking to uncloseai-xtts
High Priority Integration Targets
3. Silero TTS ✅
📖 See detailed documentation for comprehensive technical specs (documentation pending)
Status: INTEGRATED as tts-1-silero Project: snakers4/silero-models (actively maintained!) License: Apache 2.0
Integration Benefits:
- ACTIVELY MAINTAINED - no abandonment risk!
- Fast, small models (~50-100MB each)
- High quality for size
- Easy integration via PyTorch Hub
- Commercial-friendly license
- CPU friendly - no GPU required
Features:
- Multilingual: English, Russian, German, Spanish, French
- Multiple speakers per language (English: 117 speakers!)
- Emotion control
- Real-time capable on CPU
- 48kHz sample rate
Models:
- English: 117 speakers (v4_en)
- Russian: 8+ speakers (v4_ru)
- German: 1 speaker (v3_de)
- Spanish: 2 speakers (v1_es)
- French: 1 speaker (v3_fr)
Model Source:
- PyTorch Hub:
torch.hub.load('snakers4/silero-models') - Models downloaded on first use
- Cached in
/app/voices/directory
Integration:
- Used for
tts-1-sileromodel (fast, CPU-friendly) - Loaded via torch.hub on demand
- 6 OpenAI-compatible voices mapped to Silero speakers
Example Config:
tts-1-silero:
alloy:
language: en
speaker: en_0
silero_speaker: v4_en
Makefile Targets:
make voices-silero # Download Silero models (en, ru, de, es, fr)
make test-silero # Test Silero TTS endpoint
Example Usage:
import torch
model, symbols, sample_rate, example_text, apply_tts = torch.hub.load(
repo_or_dir='snakers4/silero-models',
model='silero_tts',
language='en',
speaker='v4_en'
)
audio = apply_tts(text=text, speaker='en_0', sample_rate=sample_rate)
Raccoon Priority: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Active project, great quality/size ratio)
4. StyleTTS2 🎯
Status: NOT INTEGRATED - HIGH PRIORITY Project: yl4579/StyleTTS2 (research, somewhat active) License: MIT
Why Integrate:
- State-of-the-art quality
- Best prosody and naturalness
- Voice cloning capability
- Style/emotion control
- Research-grade results
Features:
- Human-level prosody
- Zero-shot voice cloning
- Style transfer
- Emotion and speaking style control
- LibriTTS trained models
Challenges:
- Complex dependencies
- Requires phonemizer
- Slower than other engines
- GPU recommended
Model Source:
- HuggingFace:
yl4579/StyleTTS2-LibriTTS - GitHub releases
Estimated Integration Effort: 6-8 hours
- Complex dependency chain
- Need phonemizer setup
- Create custom engine wrapper
- May need model quantization for production
Raccoon Priority: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Best quality, but complex)
5. Fish Speech 🎯
Status: NOT INTEGRATED - MEDIUM PRIORITY Project: fishaudio/fish-speech (active) License: Apache 2.0
Why Integrate:
- Fast and efficient
- Good multilingual support
- Active development
- Clean API
Features:
- Fast inference
- Multilingual (EN, ZH, JA)
- Voice cloning
- Streaming support
- Modern architecture
Model Source:
- HuggingFace:
fishaudio/fish-speech-1 - GitHub releases
Estimated Integration Effort: 4-6 hours
Raccoon Priority: ⭐⭐⭐ (Active, good quality, but newer/less proven)
Medium Priority Targets
6. Kokoro TTS
📖 See detailed documentation for comprehensive technical specs
Status: NOT INTEGRATED Project: hexgrad/kokoro (new, active) License: Apache 2.0
Features:
- Fast, small, quality
- Multiple voices
- Good English support
- Emerging project
Raccoon Priority: ⭐⭐⭐ (Promising but new)
7. Bark (Suno AI)
Status: NOT INTEGRATED Project: suno-ai/bark (archived, company pivoted to music) License: MIT
Why Consider:
- Can generate music and sound effects
- Non-verbal sounds (laughs, sighs)
- Multiple languages
- Background audio
Why Low Priority:
- Very slow generation
- Large models (~10GB)
- Company abandoned it
- Quality inconsistent
Raccoon Priority: ⭐⭐ (Unique features, but slow and abandoned)
Low Priority / Archived
8. Tortoise TTS
📖 See detailed documentation for comprehensive technical specs
Status: NOT INTEGRATED Project: neonbjb/tortoise-tts (low activity) License: Apache 2.0
Features:
- Very high quality
- Voice cloning
Why Low Priority:
- Extremely slow (minutes per sentence)
- Not practical for API use
- Better alternatives exist now
Raccoon Priority: ⭐ (Too slow for production)
9. MetaVoice
Status: NOT INTEGRATED Project: metavoiceio/metavoice-src (partially abandoned) License: Apache 2.0
Features:
- Long-form TTS
- Emotional control
- Voice cloning
Why Low Priority:
- Unclear maintenance status
- Complex setup
- Alternatives are better
Raccoon Priority: ⭐ (Uncertain future)
10. Mozilla TTS
📖 See detailed documentation for historical context and relationship to Coqui
Status: NOT INTEGRATED Project: mozilla/TTS (archived, became Coqui) License: MPL 2.0
Why Skip:
- Fully superseded by Coqui
- No unique capabilities
- Outdated architecture
Raccoon Priority: ⛔ (Skip - use Coqui instead)
Integration Roadmap
Phase 1: Quick Wins (Next 1-2 weeks)
- ✅ Fix Piper absolute paths
- ✅ Audit repository
- ✅ Integrate Silero TTS (COMPLETED!)
- Set up model mirror on ai.foxhop.net
- Integrate Chatterbox (emotion control)
- Integrate Kokoro (fast decoder)
Phase 2: High Quality (2-4 weeks)
- Integrate StyleTTS2
- Create engine abstraction layer
- Refactor speech.py to use engines
- Add Fish Speech support
Phase 3: Resilience (1-2 months)
- Implement binary mirror system
- Create fallback download logic
- Archive critical models to Archive.org
- Document all model sources
Phase 4: Advanced Features (2+ months)
- Voice cloning API endpoint
- Emotion/style control
- Streaming TTS
- Multi-speaker conversations
Model Storage Requirements
Current:
- Piper voices: ~2GB (all languages)
- XTTS v2: ~1.8GB
With all planned engines:
- Silero models: ~500MB (all languages)
- StyleTTS2: ~2GB (base model)
- Fish Speech: ~1.5GB
- Total: ~8GB for complete coverage
Mirror storage needed: ~20GB (with redundancy and archives)
Performance Targets
| Engine | Speed (RTF) | Quality | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Piper | 0.05x | Good | Fast API responses |
| Silero | 0.1x | Good | Balanced speed/quality |
| XTTS | 0.3x | Excellent | Voice cloning |
| StyleTTS2 | 0.5x | Best | Premium quality |
| Fish Speech | 0.15x | Very Good | Multilingual |
RTF = Real-time factor (lower is faster, 1.0 = real-time)
Additional Models Under Research
The following models have detailed documentation but are not yet integrated or prioritized:
Chatterbox
Priority: High - Emotion control features 📄 Full Documentation
- Multilingual zero-shot TTS from Resemble AI
- 23 languages with emotion exaggeration control
- Production-grade, actively maintained
- License: Apache-2.0
Mimic 3
Priority: Medium - Privacy/embedded use cases 📄 Full Documentation
- Lightweight offline TTS from Mycroft AI
- 20-50MB models, SSML support
- Privacy-focused, embeddable
- License: Apache-2.0
eSpeak NG
Priority: Low - Niche accessibility use 📄 Full Documentation
- Formant-based synthesis for 100+ languages
- Extremely portable (<10MB)
- Actively maintained by accessibility community
- License: GPL-3.0
Step-Audio-EditX
Priority: Research - Experimental 📄 Full Documentation
- New LLM-based audio editing (November 2025)
- Post-generation emotion/style editing
- Cutting-edge but experimental
- License: Apache-2.0
Maya1
Priority: Research - Emerging 📄 Full Documentation
- India-based multilingual voice model
- Strong Indic language support (Hindi, Tamil, etc.)
- High benchmark rankings
- License: MIT
Last Updated: 2025-11-09 Raccoon Status: 🦝 3 models rescued! Silero TTS integrated successfully Integration Status: ✅ Piper, XTTS, Silero | 🎯 Next: Chatterbox, Kokoro Documentation Status: 📚 10 models fully documented, 1 comprehensive research overview