Scenario Audio Generation
Overview
Scenario generates audio through the same loop as images. The live catalog covers three generation
lanes (music, sound effects, voice/speech) plus video-to-audio soundtrack models and audio
utilities. Connection and the core generation loop: see the scenario skill. If a sibling skill
named here is missing from your available skills, ask the user to install it
(npx skills add scenario-labs/skills --skill <name>); unattended, proceed from tool schemas and
flag the gap.
Quick reference
| Step | Tool | Notes |
|---|
| Find a model | recommend with the need in the user's own words; search only for a member known by name | capability="txt2audio" covers music, SFX, and TTS; optional, inferred from the prompt when omitted |
| Inspect inputs | model_schema_get | audio schemas vary widely: durations, lyrics, voices, looping |
| Generate | model_run | schema-conformant parameters; wait=false for long jobs |
| Wait | jobs_wait | blocks server-side; on timeout re-call with pending_job_ids |
| Listen | asset_display | renders an inline audio player |
| Save | asset_download | the file as produced (WAV, MP3, ...): curl -L -o out.<ext> "<url>", <ext> from the mimeType it returns, else ffprobe |
Find existing audio assets with search target="assets", filters={kind: "audio"}. Team and project
scope (team_id, project_id): see the scenario skill.
What the audio surface covers
- Music: text-to-music models produce short beds or full-length songs with vocals; the song lane has
its own contract, below.
- Sound effects: text-to-SFX models generate short clips from a description; some support seamless
looping.
- Voice and speech: text-to-speech with preset voices, multilingual output, and emotion or pacing
controls; some clone a voice from a short clip, and speech-to-speech re-voices a recording.
- Video to audio: models that score a silent video or add synchronized effects.
- Utilities:
model_scenario-audio-cut, model_scenario-audio-split,
model_scenario-audio-extract, and model_scenario-compose-video (fixed ids: each is Scenario's
single deterministic tool for its operation, so discovery would only re-derive them); the
compositor lays a finished track (score, voiceover, re-voiced take) over a clip as an audio layer,
per scenario-video-assembly; for speech-to-text transcription, recommend with the need in the
user's own words.
- Stem separation: one named stem per run (discover with
recommend), vocals included, with no
instrumental option. Voice isolation returns the clean speech and never the removed music and
effects as a second stem, so a two-stem split (voice against everything else) is a gap to report,
not a member to keep hunting for.
Per-family contracts: scenario-elevenlabs (speech, dubbing, re-voicing, music, SFX),
scenario-ace-step and scenario-minimax-music (songs), scenario-sonilo (SFX and video scoring).
Worked example: a game sound effect
recommend with capability="txt2audio" and the user's own words as prompt ("a game sound
effect: a heavy wooden chest creaking open"). The ranking returns txt2audio models such as
model_elevenlabs-sound-effects-v2 (example only).
model_schema_get with that model_id. Returns the exact fields: prompt plus controls such as
duration or looping.
model_run with the same model_id and parameters={"prompt": "heavy wooden treasure chest
creaking open, single event, dry, no music"}.
jobs_wait job_ids=["job_xxx"] on any job_id returned without assets (in_progress after a
timed-out wait, the backend's queued or in-progress after wait=false), re-calling with the
returned pending_job_ids on timeout.
asset_display asset_id="asset_xxx" to play it inline.
asset_download with no format, then save the returned URL with curl -L under the extension
its mimeType names.
Prompting tips:
- SFX: name the source, material, action, and acoustic space, and say what to exclude ("no music",
"no reverb"). One event per clip; generate variations as separate runs.
- Music: give genre, mood, tempo, and instrumentation. Short beds usually take a single prompt, with
duration or looping in the schema.
- Speech: keep the text field to the words to speak; voice, language, emotion, and pacing live in
separate schema fields or inline tags.
Speech and dialogue
Discover a voice member with recommend (capability="txt2audio", the user's words, "two-person
dialogue" when it is one), then read its text field's description in model_schema_get: that is
where a member usually states its own delivery grammar.
- Tag syntax is per member, even within one family: square brackets (
[whispers]), angle
brackets (<sigh>, <short pause>), parentheses ((sighs)), or wrapping pairs
(<whisper>text</whisper>), and some read none. A tag in the wrong grammar can be spoken aloud,
so copy the spelling from the text field's description; where it names none, from the member's
catalog description or recommend's notes, and with no source write no tags. A correctly spelled
tag is a request, not a guarantee: two identical runs have disagreed on one, so have the user
listen before a take is final and re-run a take whose tag was skipped.
- Two voices, one take. A member with a multi-speaker array (up to 2 rows of a speaker label and
a voice at authoring time) reads the text as turns, one
Name: line per turn, each Name
matching a row's label exactly; an unprefixed line continues the previous turn, and the
single-voice field is ignored in that mode. Preset voice names say nothing about gender, age, or
tone, so state which preset plays whom and let the user confirm before the paid run. A scene with
more speakers is split into takes of at most two, delivered in order or laid over the picture per
scenario-video-assembly.
- Text is capped and priced. The text field carries a
max_length (5000 characters on one
member at authoring time), an overrun is a 400, and cost_impact marks it as the price driver:
split a long script at turn boundaries and dry_run the first take.
- Pin the language through the schema's language field when there is one, rather than naming it
in the text.
Songs with vocals
A full-length song is not a longer music bed, and song schemas vary more than the rest of the lane,
so model_schema_get decides the shape: a style prompt plus a separate lyric sheet, one prose
prompt carrying both, or an ordered section array with per-section text and styles.
- Words never go in a style field. Where the schema splits the two, the style field carries
genre, mood, tempo, key, vocal style, and instrumentation; the lyric field carries the words,
shaped by section tags such as
[Verse] and [Chorus].
- Instrumental and auto-lyrics are flags where the schema has them; asking for either in prose
is unreliable, and where no flag exists the text fields are the only lever. Flipping the
instrumental flag on a rerun gives a different take, not the same song:
seed, where a model has
one, only repeats identical settings. For an instrumental of a track you already have, try an
audio2audio cover model (discover with recommend), checking the schema since not all carry the
flag.
- Text fields are length-capped per model and field, and going over is a 400 rather than a
truncation.
Where the schema exposes a duration field (flagged cost_impact), it caps both length and price;
where none exists, the lyric sheet or prompt sets both. Either way, price the song with
dry_run: true before committing, then launch with wait: false; both are model_run arguments,
not parameters keys.
Repeatability and batching are per member, not per lane: at authoring time the repaint members took
numOutputs (1 to 4) and no seed, so a repaint that must keep the same singer is run as a batch
and picked from, while the section composers had seed and no numOutputs. Read both off
model_schema_get before promising either.
Extending a song
Making an existing track longer is its own audio2audio lane, not a longer text-to-music run:
recommend with capability="audio2audio" and the extension need in the user's words; use search
only when the member is already known by name. The member that does it takes the song as audio and
an ordered sections array (up to 30 at authoring time) where each entry either keeps a slice of
the original (sourceStartSeconds and sourceEndSeconds) or generates a new one (text with
[Verse]-style tags, durationSeconds, positiveStyles as an array), with contextAdherence
deciding how closely new sections follow their neighbors. Kept slices bill like generated audio of
the same length, so dry_run the whole plan first. The repaint, edit and add-layer members
regenerate inside the original's duration and never lengthen it, and recommend ranked an older
text-to-music member for "extend a song" at authoring time: an extension is not a txt2audio need,
so do not take that pick.
Common mistakes
- Hardcoding generative model IDs: availability differs per team and evolves. Re-discover each
session,
recommend for the need or search for a name; only the fixed first-party tool ids
above stay constant.
- Skipping
model_schema_get: one audio model's parameters will not fit another (voices, durations,
and lyric fields all differ).
- Polling
job_get in a loop: music jobs can run minutes. Use jobs_wait; on timeout re-call with
pending_job_ids.
- Pasting raw asset URLs into chat: use
asset_display to play audio.
- Passing
format to asset_download for audio: it converts image formats only, so omit it. WAV is
requested at generation, through the output-format field where the member's schema has one.
- Putting voice direction inside TTS text ("say this angrily"): direction can end up spoken. Use the
schema's emotion or voice fields.
- Writing a dialogue as one voice reading both parts: on a multi-speaker member, fill the speaker
rows and prefix every turn with its label, since with the rows empty the member reads everything
in its single voice.
- Pasting lyrics into the style field: the model then describes a song instead of singing one.
- Answering "make it longer" with a repaint or a new text-to-music run: the first keeps the
duration, the second loses the song; the extend lane above keeps the slices the user chose.
- Putting
dry_run or wait inside parameters: they are model_run's own arguments, so a stray
dry_run still charges and a stray wait blocks up to 180s.