voxtral-tts-api

name	voxtral-tts-api
description	Text-to-speech via Mistral Voxtral TTS API. Generate natural, emotionally expressive speech in 9 languages. Supports voice cloning from 3s audio samples, preset voices, streaming, and cross-lingual synthesis. Use when you need to generate speech, narrate content, create voice messages, or build voice agents.
metadata	{"category":"productivity","author":"ManniTheRaccoon","version":"1.0","api_docs":"https://docs.mistral.ai/capabilities/audio/text_to_speech"}
compatibility	Requires curl, jq. API key via MISTRAL_API_KEY env var.

Voxtral TTS 🎙️

Text-to-speech via Mistral's Voxtral TTS API. 4B parameter model, 70ms latency, $0.016/1k chars.

Setup

export MISTRAL_API_KEY="your-key"
# or
cat ~/.openclaw/secrets/mistral.key

Quick Start

# Generate speech with a preset voice
curl -s "https://api.mistral.ai/v1/audio/speech" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MISTRAL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "input": "Hello, this is a test.",
    "voice_id": "<voice-id>",
    "response_format": "mp3"
  }' | jq -r '.audio_data' | base64 -d > output.mp3

# Clone a voice from a 3-5 second sample
REF_AUDIO=$(base64 -w0 reference.wav)
curl -s "https://api.mistral.ai/v1/audio/speech" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MISTRAL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{
    \"input\": \"Speaking with a cloned voice.\",
    \"ref_audio\": \"$REF_AUDIO\",
    \"response_format\": \"mp3\"
  }" | jq -r '.audio_data' | base64 -d > cloned.mp3

API Reference

Generate Speech

POST https://api.mistral.ai/v1/audio/speech

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
input	string	✅	Text to speak
voice_id	string		Preset or saved voice ID
ref_audio	string		Base64-encoded audio for zero-shot voice cloning (3-25s)
response_format	string		mp3 (default), wav, pcm, flac, opus
model	string		Model override (default: voxtral-tts)
stream	bool		Enable SSE streaming (default: false)

Auth: Authorization: Bearer $MISTRAL_API_KEY

Response (non-streaming):

{"audio_data": "<base64-encoded-audio>"}

Response (streaming): SSE events:

event: speech.audio.delta
data: {"audio_data": "<base64-chunk>", "type": "speech.audio.delta"}

event: speech.audio.done
data: {"type": "speech.audio.done", "usage": {"prompt_tokens": 42, ...}}

Note: Either voice_id or ref_audio should be provided. If neither is given, a default voice is used.

Voice Management

List voices:

curl -s "https://api.mistral.ai/v1/audio/voices?limit=50" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MISTRAL_API_KEY" | jq '.items[] | {id, name, gender, languages}'

Create a saved voice (from audio sample):

SAMPLE=$(base64 -w0 my-voice.wav)
curl -s -X POST "https://api.mistral.ai/v1/audio/voices" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MISTRAL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{
    \"name\": \"My Custom Voice\",
    \"sample_audio\": \"$SAMPLE\",
    \"sample_filename\": \"my-voice.wav\",
    \"gender\": \"male\",
    \"languages\": [\"en\", \"de\"]
  }" | jq '{id, name}'

Update voice metadata:

curl -s -X PATCH "https://api.mistral.ai/v1/audio/voices/<voice-id>" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MISTRAL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "Updated Name", "tags": ["narrator", "warm"]}'

Delete voice:

curl -s -X DELETE "https://api.mistral.ai/v1/audio/voices/<voice-id>" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MISTRAL_API_KEY"

Languages

9 languages supported natively:

Language	Code	Dialects
English	en	American, British
French	fr	French
German	de	German
Spanish	es	Spanish
Dutch	nl	Dutch
Portuguese	pt	Portuguese
Italian	it	Italian
Hindi	hi	Hindi
Arabic	ar	Arabic

Features

Voice Cloning

Pass ref_audio (base64, 3-25 seconds) for zero-shot voice cloning. Captures accent, rhythm, intonation, pauses, and emotional patterns. No pre-registration needed.

Cross-Lingual Synthesis

The model handles cross-lingual voice adaptation: a French voice prompt with German text produces natural German speech with a French accent. Useful for translation pipelines.

Streaming

Set stream: true for SSE streaming. Useful for real-time voice agents. Events: speech.audio.delta (audio chunks) and speech.audio.done (completion + usage).

Long Text

The model natively generates up to 2 minutes of audio. The API handles longer text automatically with smart interleaving.

Pricing

$0.016 per 1,000 characters. A typical 500-character message costs ~$0.008.

Use Cases

Use Case	How
Voice messages in chat	Generate mp3, send via message tool
Narrate content	Feed article/summary text, save as audio
Voice agent	Stream with stream: true, pipe to audio output
Storytelling	Use ref_audio for character voices
Accessibility	Convert any text response to speech
Multilingual support	Pass text in any supported language

Shell Helper

# One-liner: text to mp3 file
voxtral() {
  curl -s "https://api.mistral.ai/v1/audio/speech" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $MISTRAL_API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"input\": \"$1\", \"voice_id\": \"${2:-}\", \"response_format\": \"mp3\"}" \
    | jq -r '.audio_data' | base64 -d > "${3:-output.mp3}"
  echo "Saved: ${3:-output.mp3}"
}

# Usage:
# voxtral "Hallo Welt!" "voice-id" "hallo.mp3"
# voxtral "Quick test"  # uses default voice, saves to output.mp3

Comparison

Feature	Voxtral TTS	ElevenLabs	OpenAI TTS
Price/1k chars	$0.016	$0.18 (v2)	$0.015
Latency (TTFA)	70ms	~100ms	~200ms
Voice Cloning	✅ (3s)	✅ (30s)	❌
Languages	9	29	57
Streaming	✅	✅	✅
Open Weights	✅ (CC BY NC)	❌	❌
Self-Hostable	✅ (~3GB RAM)	❌	❌

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v1.0 -- Voxtral TTS API skill. ManniTheRaccoon 2026-03-30. 🎙️