sensitive-blue•2mo ago
ElevenLabs voice sounds rushed — no natural pauses between sentences in Vapi
Hi everyone,
I’m using an ElevenLabs voice with my Vapi assistant. The issue I’m running into is that the speech comes out rushed — it goes straight from one sentence to the next with almost no pause. Even when punctuation is there (periods, commas, ellipses), the delivery doesn’t respect it and sounds robotic.
On the ElevenLabs platform, the same voice has natural pacing with pauses, but inside Vapi it loses that and feels too tight. I’ve tried adjusting all the available voice settings, but the problem persists.
Has anyone else experienced this issue with ElevenLabs voices in Vapi? How did you solve it?
1 Reply
Hi Saltlife Kid,
To improve the natural pacing of your ElevenLabs voice within Vapi, consider the following adjustments:
1. Smart Endpointing: Utilize LiveKit smart endpointing to control when the assistant begins speaking. This can help achieve smoother transitions by responding at natural pauses in conversation.
2. Wait Time Before Speaking: Increase the
waitSeconds setting in your Vapi speech configuration. A longer wait time can help ensure that the assistant doesn't rush through responses.
3. Custom SSML: Apply SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) tags to your content to explicitly define breaks. Although I noticed issues with SSML usage, fine-tuning the use of pause tags within spoken text might bring better results alongside the endpointing adjustments.
4. Voice Pipeline Configuration: Check your voice pipeline configuration to ensure it aligns with pacing needs. Fine-tune parameters like backoffSeconds in the stop speaking plan for more controlled interruption management.
These steps should help regain natural sentence pacing similar to your experience directly on the ElevenLabs platform.Speech configuration | Vapi
Control when your assistant starts and stops speaking
Voice pipeline configuration | Vapi
Complete guide to configuring VAPI's voice pipeline for optimal conversation timing and interruption handling