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Introduction

Our text to sound effects model enables you to create high-quality sound effects from a short description. These sound effects could be used in a variety of applications, including game development and building apps for music production. In this tutorial, we will use the text to sound effects API to generate a sound effect from a short description using the Python SDK. We’ll then save this sound effect to a file.
For general tips on prompting, see the sound effects product docs. And for information on the API configuration visit the API reference.

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How to generate a sound effect with the API

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Requirements

Before proceeding, please ensure that you have the following:
  • An ElevenLabs account with an API key (here’s how to find your API key)
  • Python or Node.js installed on your machine
Then, install the ElevenLabs SDK as shown below 
pip install elevenlabs
Install the necessary packages to manage your environmental variables: 
pip install python-dotenv
Next, create a .env file in your project directory and fill it with your credentials like so:
.env
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your_elevenlabs_api_key_here

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Using the sound effects SDK

Now we can use the SDK to generate a sound effect from a short description and save it to a file as shown below. 

import os
from elevenlabs.client import ElevenLabs

from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()

elevenlabs = ElevenLabs(api_key=os.getenv("ELEVENLABS_API_KEY"))


def generate_sound_effect(text: str, output_path: str):
    print("Generating sound effects...")

    result = elevenlabs.text_to_sound_effects.convert(
        text=text,
        duration_seconds=10,  # Optional, if not provided will automatically determine the correct length
        prompt_influence=0.3,  # Optional, if not provided will use the default value of 0.3
    )

    with open(output_path, "wb") as f:
        for chunk in result:
            f.write(chunk)

    print(f"Audio saved to {output_path}")


if __name__ == "__main__":
    generate_sound_effect("Dog barking", "output.mp3")

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Configuration

  • duration_seconds: The duration of the sound effect in seconds. If not provided, the API will automatically determine the correct length. The maximum value is 22
  • prompt_influence: The amount of influence the prompt has on the generated sound effect. If not provided, the API will use the default value of 0.3

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API pricing

The API is charged at 100 credits per generation with automatic duration or 20 credits per second with a set duration.

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Next steps

We’re excited to see what you build with the API. Here are some ideas of what you might want to use it for:
  • Adding sound effect generation to a video editing application
  • Enabling users to create on-demand samples for their music production
  • A new type of video game where every sound is generated dynamically
For higher rate limits of volume based discounts please contact sales.