ElevenLabs Setup

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ElevenLabs produces the highest quality voices available — expressive, human-like speech with real personality. Setup takes about 2 minutes.

Free Tier

ElevenLabs gives you 10,000 characters per month for free. A typical annotated game uses 2,000-4,000 characters, so you can review 2-5 games per month at no cost. If you find TTS valuable:

• Starter — $5/month, 30,000 characters (solid upgrade)
• Pro — $22/month, 100,000 characters (heavy use)

Step 1: Create an Account

1. Go to elevenlabs.io
2. Click Sign Up in the top right
3. You can sign up with Google, GitHub, or email — pick whatever’s easiest
4. After signing up, you’ll land on the ElevenLabs dashboard

Step 2: Get Your API Key

1. In the bottom-left corner of the dashboard, click your profile icon (or your name)
2. Click Profile + API key
3. You’ll see an API key section. Click Reveal to show your key, or Generate if you don’t have one yet
4. The key looks like: sk_...about 30 characters...
5. Click the copy icon to copy it to your clipboard

Step 3: Configure En Parlant~

1. Open En Parlant~ and go to Settings (gear icon) > Sound tab
2. Scroll down to the TTS section
3. Set TTS Provider to ElevenLabs
4. Click inside the ElevenLabs API Key field and paste your key (Ctrl+V)
5. The TTS Voice dropdown will populate with your available voices. Adam is a great default — clear, natural, and works well for chess commentary
6. Set Text-to-Speech to On
7. Click the Test button next to the voice selector

You should hear a chess move spoken aloud. If you do — you’re all set!

Troubleshooting

• No sound after clicking Test? Make sure you pasted the full API key. Try clicking Generate again on the ElevenLabs website to get a fresh key.
• “Unauthorized” error? Your API key may have expired or been revoked. Generate a new one from your ElevenLabs profile.
• Voices not loading in the dropdown? Check your internet connection. The voice list is fetched from ElevenLabs servers.
• Running out of characters quickly? The character count includes all text sent to ElevenLabs, including chess move notation. Use the TTS Audio Cache — once a phrase is generated, it’s cached locally and doesn’t use characters again.

Voice Tips

ElevenLabs has dozens of voices. Some favorites for chess narration:

• Adam — clear, professional, neutral tone
• Antoni — warm, slightly accented, engaging
• Bella — expressive female voice, great for dramatic annotations
• Elli — calm female voice, good for study sessions

Browse the full list in the TTS Voice dropdown. Each voice has its own personality.