Qwen3-TTS MLX

Run Qwen3-TTS locally on Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) using MLX. Supports 11 languages, 9 built-in voices, voice cloning, and voice design from text descriptions.

When to Use

• Generate speech fully offline on a Mac
• Produce narration, audiobooks, podcasts, or video voiceovers
• Create multilingual TTS with controllable style and emotion
• Clone any voice from a short audio sample
• Design custom voices from text descriptions

Quick Start

Install

pip install mlx-audio
brew install ffmpeg

Basic Usage

python scripts/run_tts.py custom-voice \
  --text "Hello, welcome to local text to speech." \
  --voice Ryan \
  --output output.wav

With Style Control

python scripts/run_tts.py custom-voice \
  --text "Breaking news: local AI model achieves human-level speech." \
  --voice Uncle_Fu \
  --instruct "news anchor tone, calm and authoritative" \
  --output news.wav

Model Variants

mlx-community/Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-0.6B-CustomVoice-4bit

mlx-community/Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-1.7B-VoiceDesign-5bit

mlx-community/Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-0.6B-Base-4bit

Supported Languages

auto

Chinese

English

Japanese

Korean

French

German

Spanish

Portuguese

Italian

Russian

Built-in Voices

Voice Selection Guide:

Modes

1) CustomVoice

Use built-in voices with optional emotion/style control via

--instruct

python scripts/run_tts.py custom-voice \
  --text "This is amazing news!" \
  --voice Vivian \
  --instruct "excited and happy" \
  --output excited.wav

Style instruction examples:

• "calm and warm"

  - Soft, friendly delivery

• "news anchor, authoritative"

  - Professional broadcast style

• "excited and energetic"

  - High energy, enthusiastic

• "sad and melancholic"

  - Emotional, somber tone

• "whispering, intimate"

  - Quiet, close-mic feel

2) VoiceDesign

Create a completely new voice by describing it in natural language.

python scripts/run_tts.py voice-design \
  --text "Welcome to our podcast." \
  --instruct "warm, mature male narrator with low pitch and gentle tone" \
  --output podcast_intro.wav

Voice description examples:

• "young cheerful female with high pitch"

• "elderly wise male with deep resonant voice"

• "professional female news anchor, clear articulation"

• "friendly young male, casual and relaxed"

3) VoiceClone

Clone any voice from a reference audio sample (5-10 seconds recommended).

python scripts/run_tts.py voice-clone \
  --text "This is my cloned voice speaking new content." \
  --ref_audio reference.wav \
  --ref_text "The exact transcript of the reference audio" \
  --output cloned.wav

Tips for voice cloning:

• Use clean audio without background noise
• 5-10 seconds of speech works best
• Provide accurate transcript of the reference
• Reference and output language should match

CLI Parameters

--text

--voice

--lang_code

--instruct

--speed

--temperature

--model

--output

--out-dir

--ref_audio

--ref_text

Python API

Using generate_audio (recommended)

from mlx_audio.tts.generate import generate_audio

# CustomVoice with style control
generate_audio(
    text="Hello from Qwen3-TTS!",
    model="mlx-community/Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-0.6B-CustomVoice-4bit",
    voice="Ryan",
    lang_code="english",
    instruct="friendly and warm",
    output_path=".",
    file_prefix="hello",
    audio_format="wav",
    join_audio=True,
    verbose=True,
)

Using Model directly

from mlx_audio.tts.utils import load
import soundfile as sf
import numpy as np

# Load model
model = load("mlx-community/Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-0.6B-CustomVoice-4bit")

# Generate audio (returns a generator)
audio_chunks = []
for chunk in model.generate_custom_voice(
    text="Hello from Qwen3-TTS.",
    speaker="Ryan",
    language="english",
    instruct="clear, steady delivery"
):
    if hasattr(chunk, 'audio') and chunk.audio is not None:
        audio_chunks.append(chunk.audio)

# Combine and save
audio = np.concatenate(audio_chunks)
sf.write("output.wav", audio, 24000)

VoiceDesign

from mlx_audio.tts.generate import generate_audio

generate_audio(
    text="Welcome to the show.",
    model="mlx-community/Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-1.7B-VoiceDesign-5bit",
    instruct="warm, friendly female narrator with medium pitch",
    lang_code="english",
    output_path=".",
    file_prefix="voice_design",
    join_audio=True,
)

VoiceClone

from mlx_audio.tts.generate import generate_audio

generate_audio(
    text="New content in the cloned voice.",
    model="mlx-community/Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-0.6B-Base-4bit",
    ref_audio="reference.wav",
    ref_text="Transcript of the reference audio",
    output_path=".",
    file_prefix="cloned",
    join_audio=True,
)

Batch Processing

Use

scripts/batch_dubbing.py

python scripts/batch_dubbing.py \
  --input dubbing.json \
  --out-dir outputs

See

references/dubbing_format.md

Performance

Troubleshooting

--lang_code