Gen AI Audio

Audio generation with gen-ai (CLI & MCP)

Audio is the cheapest modality — typically cents per line — and the fastest to iterate on. This skill covers every audio task you can accomplish via the Picsart gen-ai CLI or the @picsart/gen-ai-mcp MCP server.

When to use

Activate whenever the user asks to:

• Record / generate a voiceover, VO, narration, spoken line, ad read, or podcast intro
• Produce an explainer voice, audiobook snippet, dialogue, or character read
• Localize speech across languages
• Clone a voice or dub an existing line (speech-to-speech)
• Generate music — backing track, jingle, sting, loop
• Generate SFX — UI sounds, whooshes, impacts, ambiences
• Sync audio to a video (video-to-audio / foley)

CLI vs MCP — both work

• CLI when installed — best for scripting multi-market batches, JSON output, and video-audio handoff.
• MCP server (@picsart/gen-ai-mcp) when the user is in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, or ChatGPT and the CLI isn't installed — the agent calls gen-ai_generate natively.

Model selection cheat sheet

Run gen-ai models --mode audio to see current models.

Future-proofing: when new audio models arrive (e.g., new ElevenLabs voice families), gen-ai models --mode audio reflects them. Honor specific voices/models the user names; otherwise pick by intent.

Quick decision tree

Single voiceover line?                 → eleven-v3
Localized voiceover across markets?    → eleven-multilingual-v2 (batch)
Dub / voice-match an existing take?    → eleven-sts-v2   (pass --audio source.mp3)
Backing music for a reel?              → minimax-music
UI / foley sound effect?               → elevenlabs-sfx
Music-fill a video automatically?      → kling-v2a       (pass --video clip.mp4)
Produce a podcast intro?               → eleven-v3 + minimax-music stems; optional editor/local mix

Prompting best practices

Voice (TTS) — the character line is everything

Every VO prompt has three layers: voice character, delivery, and the text itself. Missing any one produces robotic output.

1. Voice character: warm, calm, 30s female, mid-range, confident — describe the persona you want.
2. Delivery: measured pace, friendly / urgent, energetic / intimate, breathy.
3. The text: end every sentence with proper punctuation. Commas and periods determine pacing. Ellipses = pause.

Template:

[VOICE_CHARACTER] [DELIVERY_NOTE] [TEXT]

Example:

warm, calm, 30s female, mid-range, confident. measured pace, friendly tone.

"Welcome to Picsart. Generate anything, from your terminal."

For ad reads: write short sentences. Voice models read punctuation literally — a long run-on sentence will rush.

Music — genre, tempo, mood, structure

Specify all four:

1. Genre: lo-fi piano, synthwave, orchestral, trap, acoustic folk.
2. Tempo: BPM — 80bpm, 128bpm.
3. Mood: melancholy, triumphant, meditative, tense.
4. Structure (optional): intro swells, drops at :15, outro fades.

Example:

lo-fi piano, rainy evening, 80bpm, melancholy. intro swells, soft drum enters at :10, outro fades.

For reel backing tracks, target 30s (--duration 30 where supported).

SFX — short and literal

SFX prompts should be concrete and named:

• glass shatter, close mic, high frequency
• whoosh, fast sweep, low-to-high pitch
• UI confirm ding, short, high quality, clean
• heavy mechanical thunk, bass, reverb

Under 1 second unless you explicitly want a longer ambience.

Common recipes

Single voiceover line

gen-ai generate -m eleven-v3 \
  -p "warm, calm, 30s female, confident, measured pace. \"Welcome to Picsart. Generate anything, from your terminal.\"" \
  --json --no-input | jq -r '.url' | xargs curl -L -o vo.mp3

Voiceover with a specific voice

gen-ai generate -m eleven-v3 --voice 21m00Tcm4TlvDq8ikWAM \
  -p "\"Welcome. Let's build.\"" \
  --json --no-input | jq -r '.url' | xargs curl -L -o vo.mp3

# See available voices:
gen-ai models info eleven-v3

Multilingual VO (5 markets, one batch)

cat > voice.json <<EOF
{
  "defaults": { "model": "eleven-multilingual-v2" },
  "jobs": [
    { "id": "en", "prompt": "Welcome to the show." },
    { "id": "de", "prompt": "Willkommen zur Show." },
    { "id": "ja", "prompt": "ようこそ、ショーへ。" },
    { "id": "pt", "prompt": "Bem-vindo ao show." },
    { "id": "es", "prompt": "Bienvenido al show." }
  ]
}
EOF
gen-ai batch run voice.json -o ./voice

Voice cloning / dubbing (STS)

Preserve a voice identity; change the words:

gen-ai generate -m eleven-sts-v2 \
  --audio source-take.mp3 \
  -p "\"This is the new line that should sound exactly like the source voice.\"" \
  --json --no-input | jq -r '.url' | xargs curl -L -o new-line.mp3

For localized dubbing with voice consistency:

gen-ai generate -m eleven-multilingual-sts-v2 \
  --audio source-en.mp3 --locale de \
  -p "\"Neue Zeile auf Deutsch.\"" \
  --json --no-input | jq -r '.url' | xargs curl -L -o new-line-de.mp3

Backing music for a 30s reel

gen-ai generate -m minimax-music \
  -p "upbeat confident synth, 120bpm, uplifting. intro drums, melody enters at :08, outro fades." \
  --duration 30 --json --no-input | jq -r '.url' | xargs curl -L -o music.mp3

SFX set for a UI

cat > ui-sfx.json <<EOF
{
  "defaults": { "model": "elevenlabs-sfx" },
  "jobs": [
    { "id": "confirm", "prompt": "soft UI confirm ding, short, high quality" },
    { "id": "error", "prompt": "subtle UI error buzz, short, low frequency" },
    { "id": "success", "prompt": "bright UI success chime, short, cheerful" },
    { "id": "hover", "prompt": "very subtle UI hover tick, tiny" }
  ]
}
EOF
gen-ai batch run ui-sfx.json -o ./sfx

Auto-matched audio for a video

gen-ai generate -m kling-v2a --video reel.mp4 --json --no-input \
  | jq -r '.url' | xargs curl -L -o reel-with-sound.mp4

Podcast intro — voice + music stems

# 1. VO line
gen-ai generate -m eleven-v3 \
  -p "warm, confident, energetic. \"This week on the show…\"" \
  --json --no-input | jq -r '.url' | xargs curl -L -o intro-vo.mp3

# 2. Backing music
gen-ai generate -m minimax-music \
  -p "cinematic opener, 110bpm, rising, 8s" --duration 8 \
  --json --no-input | jq -r '.url' | xargs curl -L -o intro-music.mp3

# 3. Deliver intro-vo.mp3 + intro-music.mp3 as stems, or mix in any DAW/editor.
# Optional preview mix if you already have ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -i intro-music.mp3 -i intro-vo.mp3 \
  -filter_complex "[1:a]volume=1.0[a1];[0:a]volume=0.35[a0];[a0][a1]amix=inputs=2:duration=longest" \
  -c:a libmp3lame intro.mp3

MCP / natural-language patterns

When the CLI isn't installed, the MCP server gives the agent the same capabilities:

• "Voice this line in a warm, confident read with Eleven v3: 'Welcome to Picsart.' Save as vo.mp3."
• "Localize this ad read across DE, FR, JP, BR, ES using Eleven Multilingual v2 — one batch."
• "Dub this source take into German, preserving the same voice character. Use Eleven STS."
• "Generate a 30-second uplifting synth backing track at 120bpm. Use MiniMax Music."
• "Make me a set of 4 UI sounds: confirm, error, success, hover. Short, clean."
• "Add AI-matched foley to reel.mp4."

The agent should:

1. Always include the voice character line for TTS — without it, reads sound robotic.
2. Batch multilingual requests rather than firing N serial calls.
3. Prefer eleven-v3 as the default TTS unless the user names another voice.
4. Call gen-ai_pricing on large batches (50+ lines) — character counts add up.

Voice catalog

ElevenLabs models accept --voice <id>:

gen-ai models info eleven-v3                # list available voices
gen-ai config set defaultModel eleven-v3    # set the default model if desired

Popular voice archetypes (IDs rotate; always verify with models info):

• Warm, mid-30s female, US English — default ad-read voice
• Deep, mid-40s male, US English — authoritative narration
• Bright, 20s female, US English — explainer / onboarding
• Neutral, 30s, RP British English — editorial / product launch
• Japanese / Spanish / German native speakers — see models info eleven-multilingual-v2

Cost control

Audio is cheap, but character counts add up on campaigns:

• Eleven v3 / Multilingual v2: ~1 credit per 250 characters
• Eleven STS: ~2 credits per 250 characters (costlier — voice-preserving)
• ElevenLabs SFX: ~1 credit per SFX
• MiniMax Music: ~5 credits per 30 seconds
• Kling T2A / V2A: varies — check pricing first

Check pricing and validate manifests before large batches:

gen-ai pricing eleven-multilingual-v2
gen-ai pricing minimax-music
gen-ai batch run voice.json --dry-run

Output hygiene

• Format: .mp3 for web delivery; .wav when downstream editing needs lossless; .m4a for iOS-first.
• Loudness: generated assets are usable as-is; normalize in a DAW/editor when needed. Optional local polish if ffmpeg is already available: ffmpeg -i in.mp3 -af loudnorm=I=-16:LRA=11:TP=-1.5 out.mp3.
• Silence trim: trim in a DAW/editor when needed. Optional local trim if ffmpeg is already available: ffmpeg -af silenceremove=1:0:-50dB.
• Stereo vs mono: VO is usually mono; music stereo. TTS models emit mono by default.

Troubleshooting

For agents

• Default TTS: eleven-v3 unless the user specifies another voice.
• For ads and marketing, always include the voice-character line — without it, reads sound robotic.
• For multilingual, prefer one batch over N serial calls — saves latency and keeps voice identity consistent.
• For STS (dubbing), require the source audio via --audio — STS cannot generate a voice from scratch.
• If the CLI isn't installed and MCP is available, call MCP tools directly.
• Never assume a voice ID — look it up via gen-ai models info eleven-v3 or the gen-ai_model_info MCP tool before committing.