version: "1.0.0" name: text-to-speech description: Text to speech, powered by AudioSonic — synthesize natural speech from 200+ voices across 200+ languages, with inline directing and optional word-level timestamps. license: MIT

Skill: text-to-speech

Turn text into natural, expressive speech. AudioSonic is AudioPod's text-to-speech engine — 200+ stock voices, custom clones, or designed voices, across 200+ languages.

When to use

Invoke when the user wants:

• A voiceover, narration, or spoken version of some text
• Expressive delivery (emotion, emphasis, pauses, non-verbal sounds)
• A follow-along / karaoke transcript with word timing
• Speech in a specific voice, language, or speaking rate

API

POST https://api.audiopod.ai/api/v1/voice/voices/{voice_id}/generate

Headers:

• X-API-Key: ap_your_api_key (or Authorization: Bearer ap_your_api_key)
• Content-Type: multipart/form-data

Body (form-data):

• text: the text to speak (up to 20,000 characters; supports inline directing below)
• language: ISO 639-1 (default en)
• speed: 0.5–2.0 (default 1.0)
• generation_params: optional JSON string — delivery_mode (stable | balanced | creative), timestamp_type (word | character), text_normalization (bool)

List voices with GET /api/v1/voice/voices. Use the clone-voice or design-voice skill to create a custom voice_id.

Inline directing (all tiers)

Write directing directly inside text:

• Emotion / delivery — a leading bracket per segment: [whispering, tense] Did you hear that?
• Non-verbal sounds — [laugh] [sigh] [clear throat] [breathe] [cough] [yawn] [chuckle] [gasp] [groan]
• Pauses — <break time="500ms"/> (≤10s each, ≤20 per request)
• Pronunciation — inline IPA between slashes: the city of Worcester /ˈwʊstər/

Timestamps

Set generation_params.timestamp_type to word (or character). The job response then includes a presigned timestamps_url sidecar (word/segment start + end times) for follow-along or karaoke UIs.

Response

{ "job_id": 12345, "status": "PENDING" }

Poll GET /api/v1/voice/tts-jobs/{job_id}/status until COMPLETED, then download the audio (and timestamps_url if requested).

Pricing

Start free. See https://www.audiopod.ai/developers/pricing for per-minute rates.