#looking to minimize response time and make it sound natural and not wait too much
1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)
AI-generated Answer for royshein
Hereâs how to minimize latency while keeping speech natural, using only ElevenLabs-documented options:
Model choice
- For real-time/conversational use, prefer Flash v2/v2.5 (ultraâlow latency â75 ms). Turbo v2.5 is ~250â300 ms if you want a bit more quality. Avoid Eleven v3 for live use; it has higher latency. (elevenlabs.io)
Transport
- If you already have the full sentence/utterance, use the TextâtoâSpeech streaming (SSE) endpoint to reduce timeâtoâfirstâbyte while audio is generated. (elevenlabs.io)
- If text arrives incrementally (e.g., from an LLM), use the TextâtoâSpeech WebSocket. Enable auto_mode=true to reduce latency and avoid chunkâschedule stalls; otherwise the model may wait for your chunk size before starting audio. (elevenlabs.io)
- You can quickly measure TTFB to the WebSocket API with the elevenlabs-latency tool mentioned in the realtime guide. (elevenlabs.io)
Voice, settings, and output
- Voice choice affects speed: Default/Synthetic/Instant Voice Clones are faster than Professional Voice Clones. (elevenlabs.io)
- Keep output formats modest; higherâfidelity formats increase latency. (elevenlabs.io)
- Control pacing with the Speed setting (0.7â1.2). Extreme values can harm quality. (help.elevenlabs.io)
- For natural pauses:
- All models except v3: use SSML <break time="âŠs" /> (up to 3 s). Donât overuse, as excessive breaks can cause artifacts. (help.elevenlabs.io)
- Eleven v3 only: use [pause], [short pause], [long pause] tags. (help.elevenlabs.io)
Server location and routing
- Latency depends on geography. ElevenLabs serves multiple regions; typical TTFB with Flash over WebSockets is ~100â200 ms depending on region. You can pin US routing with base_url=https://api.us.elevenlabs.io or inspect the xâregion header. (elevenlabs.io)
Reduce avoidable delays
- Leave enable_ssml_parsing disabled on the WebSocket unless you are actually sending SSML. Use it only when needed. (elevenlabs.io)
- Avoid apply_language_text_normalization unless required (notably for Japanese); it âcan heavily increase the latency.â (elevenlabs.io)
- Voices with Live Moderation can add extra latency. (help.elevenlabs.io)
- The legacy optimize_streaming_latency parameter is deprecatedâdonât use it. Follow the latency bestâpractices instead. (help.elevenlabs.io)
Docs to follow
- Latency optimization best practices (models, streaming vs WebSockets, auto_mode, regions, voice impact). (elevenlabs.io)
- Streaming (SSE) usage. (elevenlabs.io)
- TextâtoâSpeech WebSocket API (parameters like auto_mode, output_format, enable_ssml_parsing). (elevenlabs.io)
- WebSocket realtime
ok im looking to add some bg noise to make it sound even more natural. and i want to make sure the ai is on track and not fulfilling the request of the user that is not related to the system prompt