# Generating Audio > ALWAYS read this skill before generating spoken audio or calling audio_generate — a voiceover, narration, an ad read, a character line, or any script read aloud. Turns a script into speech — picks the model and voice, prepares the text for reading, and splits a long script into clips. Use whenever the user asks for text-to-speech, a voiceover, narration, or to have something read or spoken aloud. - Skill: `aiskillstore/generating-audio` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 4 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add aiskillstore/generating-audio` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/aiskillstore/generating-audio/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - License: Apache-2.0 - Author: aiskillstore (https://skillmd.com/u/aiskillstore) - Updated: 2026-09-09 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/aiskillstore/generating-audio --- # Audio Generation Turn a script into spoken audio via the `audio_generate` tool. Two decisions drive quality: **which voice** reads it, and **how the script is written for the ear**. **Scope.** Speech — a voice reading written words, delivered as its own audio file. Nothing here makes non-speech sound, alters audio that already exists, or combines two tracks into one. Lip-synced dialogue spoken by a character *inside* a video clip belongs to `generating-videos`. ## Workflow ### Step 1: Settle the script Generate only from the exact words that will be spoken. - **Supplied** → use them verbatim. - **Enough to write them** — the product, audience, platform, and length are known → draft the script and show it before generating. - **Not enough** → ask. Never invent a tagline, product claim, or brand name to fill the gap. **Write to a duration.** Speech runs about two to three words a second, so a fifteen-second read is thirty to forty-five words. Set the word count before writing, and trim words rather than speeding up the delivery. ### Step 2: Pick the model **`eleven-v3` is the default** — the most expressive read, and right for anything heard as a performance. Reach for another only on a clear signal: | Reach for another model when the script… | Model | | --- | --- | | Is a long, even read — an explainer, documentary narration, an audiobook chapter — where the voice must not drift | `eleven-multilingual-v2` | | Is high-volume, a throwaway draft, or cost-sensitive, and expressiveness doesn't matter | `eleven-flash-v2.5` | When the user names a model, use it. Per-request character limits differ sharply between models, and an over-limit script is rejected rather than truncated — `list_audio_models` carries each ceiling. ### Step 3: Pick the voice Call `list_voices`, filtered by what the brief demands — `gender`, `accent`, `age`, `use_case`, `language`, or free-text `search`. Each row carries a `preview_url`. **There is no default voice**: every request needs a `voice_id` chosen here, passed as `voice`. Display names are not accepted. - A stated **gender, accent, or age is a hard filter** — apply it, don't trade it away on tone. Read the attribute back from the row's own fields; **never infer it from the voice's name**. - **Let the user hear the options.** Unless they named a voice, offer two or three candidates with their `preview_url`s and let them pick. - **Choose on tone**: what is the listener doing (half-watching a social clip wants attack and momentum; following an explainer wants a voice that stays out of the way), and whose voice is it meant to be (a brand narrator should stay neutral enough to reuse; a character should match the age and register of the writing). - **Non-English script** → check the row's `language`, and that the model of Step 2 covers it. - A `voice_id` the user pastes themselves is taken as given. - Reuse the chosen `voice_id` for every clip in the job. - **Nothing matched** → a normal result, not a dead end. Drop the narrowest facet — `use_case` first, then `age` — and search again. Only when gender and accent alone come back empty is the account genuinely short of voices; then relay the tool's hint verbatim, since the cause and the fix differ by provider and by whose key is in use. ### Step 4: Prepare the text `text` is read out word for word, so write it the way it should sound. - **Strip anything unspoken** — stage directions, speaker labels, bracketed cues, markdown. - **Spell out** numbers, dates, currency, acronyms, and URLs as a person would say them. - **Punctuate for pacing** — commas and full stops become pauses, and are the main lever on rhythm. Direct the delivery with `stability` and `style` (`references/directing-the-read.md`), never with instructions written into the text. ### Step 5: Generate Speech comes **only** from `audio_generate`. If it errors, or no voice fits, say so and stop — never substitute another text-to-speech tool the host happens to expose. A different engine means a different voice, no access to the account's voices, and output outside the media directory. Call `audio_generate` with a `requests` list — one object per clip, up to ten per call. - Per object: `text` and `voice` (both required — the `voice_id` from Step 3); `model` only when Step 2 chose a non-default; `speed`, `stability`, `style`, `similarity_boost`, `format` as needed. - **Split only where the audio will actually be cut** — per scene, or per section placed separately. Objects generate independently, so a continuous read split across two of them seams audibly. - **Hold one `voice` and `model` across every object**, for the same reason. In a dialogue, one voice per character, consistent across that character's lines. - **Repeat a line to get alternate takes** — different voices when the choice is unclear, or the same voice twice at low `stability`. Worth it on one short line, not a whole script. ### Step 6: Return Share the audio file path(s). When the script was split, label each with the section it covers. ## Edge cases - **Something other than speech is asked for** (music, sound effects, ambience, re-voicing, dubbing, cloning a voice from a sample) → say so plainly rather than substituting something else. In particular, do not generate a clip through `generating-videos` to get music or effects out of its native audio: that bakes the sound into the picture, so it can never serve as a track the user mixes. An already-cloned voice still works by its `voice_id`, and another language works by translating the script and generating it fresh. - **Tracks need mixing or timing** ("the voiceover under the music", "a swoosh on the logo") → deliver clean speech and let the user assemble it in their editor. - **Part of the brief is speech and part isn't** → state the limits in one message up front, then deliver the speech. Never generate first and disclose the gaps after. - **Script over the model's character limit** → split it at a natural break, or switch to a higher-ceiling model. - **`error: "no_voices_available"`** → relay the hint; it distinguishes an empty account from a key lacking permission to read voices, and the fixes differ. - **Part of a batch fails** → keep the takes that worked and resend only the failed lines. - **The read itself came out wrong** (flat, erratic, mispronounced, stress on the wrong word) → `references/directing-the-read.md` diagnoses it symptom by symptom. - **Safety rejection** → remove the sensitive wording and retry once. - **Generic failure** → retry once as-is, then report the error. - **`error: "no_provider_configured"`** → relay the tool's `hint` (the user must set their key). ## Reference - `references/directing-the-read.md` — tuning the delivery with `stability`, `style`, `similarity_boost` and `speed`, and diagnosing a read that isn't working.