> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.telnyx.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Clone from Audio

> Clone a voice from a short audio recording — capture a speaker's identity from a sample.

## What voice cloning does

Voice cloning captures a speaker's vocal characteristics — timbre, cadence, accent, pronunciation — from a short audio sample and applies them to new speech synthesis.

The clone is a *representation* of the voice, not a recording of it. The system learns patterns from your audio and encodes them into parameters that guide TTS. This means:

* The cloned voice can say things the original speaker never said
* Clone quality is bounded by what the model can learn from your sample
* Poor recordings, background noise, or inconsistent delivery degrade the clone

## What cloning doesn't do

A clone is not a recording. It's a statistical approximation of a voice -- the model extracts patterns (formant frequencies, prosodic tendencies, spectral characteristics) and applies them during synthesis. This means:

* Output passes through the TTS model, which has its own characteristics. A clone sounds *like* the speaker, but through the lens of the model.
* Quality has a ceiling set by your source audio. No amount of API parameters will fix a noisy or inconsistent recording.
* The clone may not handle speech styles far from the original sample well. A voice cloned from calm narration may sound different when asked to express strong emotion.

## Two ways to create a clone

| Method                  | What it does                                  | When to use                          |
| ----------------------- | --------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------ |
| **Upload audio**        | Send an audio file directly                   | You have a recording ready           |
| **From a voice design** | Save a previously generated design as a clone | You used Design a Voice to create it |

Both produce the same output: a voice clone with a voice ID you can use in production.

## Recording best practices

1. **Match your recording to your use case.** Don't read a monotone script if you want an expressive clone. The AI replicates what it hears — including energy, emotion, and pacing.
2. **Speak clearly, avoid background noise.** Use a decent microphone in a quiet space. Background noise gets cloned too. You don't need a $10K mic — a $100-300 USB condenser in a quiet room is sufficient.
3. **Avoid long pauses.** The cloned voice will mimic pauses between sentences. Keep speech flowing naturally.
4. **Trim your recording.** Speech from start to finish, no dead air at the beginning or end.
5. **Speak in the target language.** If you want the clone to speak Spanish, record in Spanish.
6. **Keep it consistent.** Same tone, accent, and energy throughout. Wide fluctuations confuse the model. The AI clones everything — including stutters, "uhms", and inconsistencies.
7. **Aim for the right volume.** Target -23 to -18 dB RMS with peaks no higher than -3 dB. Too quiet = noise floor issues. Too loud = clipping.
8. **Audio codec doesn't matter much.** MP3 at 128 kbps or above is fine. WAV is ideal but higher bitrate MP3 won't noticeably hurt quality.
9. **Optimal duration by model:**
   * **Qwen3TTS:** 5–10 seconds. Auto-trims to 10s. More isn't better.
   * **Ultra:** Up to 10 seconds.
   * **Minimax:** 1–2 minutes is the sweet spot. Longer recordings capture more vocal range, but beyond 3 minutes yields diminishing returns.