2f46be9520
The Korean render sounded formal because the Korean translation was in
합쇼체 (-입니다/-합니다/-습니다) - the written formal register, like a
news anchor. Every line used it.
Korean politeness is grammatical, not stylistic: it lives in the verb
endings. 합쇼체 -습니다, 해요체 -이에요/-예요, 해체 -아/-어 are different
morphemes, so no TTS instruction can convert them. The fix has to be in
the text. The same applies to Japanese です/ます and to the T/V languages,
where Sie->du changes the words themselves.
This was not a Korean-only problem. All 9 translated languages were in
formal register while the English source is neutral and friendly:
DE 12 markers FR 13 PT 5 ES 4 IT 3 RU 3 JA polite KO 합쇼체
ZH 3 honorific 您 EN 0 (source)
Applied:
KO 합쇼체 -> 해요체. 해체/반말 deliberately NOT used: speech level is
social, and Nanny speaking 반말 to Kainda would be wrong.
DE/FR/ES/IT/PT Sie/vous/usted/Lei/você -> du/tu/tú/tu/tu
RU kept вы; ты is too intimate for narration. Softened instead.
JA polite-but-warm, fewer ください
ZH 您 -> 你
Re-verified against the formal-pronoun probe (not the earlier loose one,
which flagged possessives: su/suo/seu are 'his', and Japanese です is the
copula while います is existential - both register-neutral).
This is Pass 3 from specs/27 (register and voice consistency), which was
specified and then never applied.
Also fixed a drift trap: build_sample_translations.py wrote to
scripts/translations, a directory nothing reads and nothing tracks, while
the tracked record is samples/translations and the renderer reads
<project>/samples/translations. One regeneration silently left both stale.
It now writes the repo copy and, with --project, the renderer's copy in
the same run.
Re-rendered 120 clips, 0 failed. All 120 bitwise-different from the
formal render, confirming the new text was synthesized rather than a
replay. Korean total 117.8s -> 110.1s, consistent with the shorter 해요체
endings. Previous render kept as Lang_test_formalRegister.
Suite: 721 passed, 8 pre-existing.
UmbraAudio
Quality-first multi-pass audiobook generation from English manuscripts.
Features
- 5-pass pipeline: Analysis → Voice Design → Mapping → Test → Generate
- Multi-engine TTS: Chatterbox (primary), Qwen3-TTS (secondary)
- LLM-enhanced: BookNLP for NLP, LLM for profiling/emotion/pronunciation
- Web review: FastAPI + HTMX at checkpoints for human approval
Quick Start
python -m umbraaudio.cli init <manuscript.epub> --name 'My Book'
python -m umbraaudio.cli analyze
python -m umbraaudio.cli voices
python -m umbraaudio.cli review
Requirements
- Python 3.11+
- NVIDIA GPU with CUDA support (RTX 3060 or better recommended)
- ffmpeg
Development
pip install -e ".[dev]"
ruff check umbraaudio/
pytest tests/ -v
Commit cadence: commit at least once every Sunday. Never leave a week (let alone a month) of work uncommitted — a single accidental
git checkouton 2026-09-20 wiped out a month of changes toumbraaudio/web/routes.py. SeeAGENTS.md→ Commit Cadence.
scripts/commit_check.sh enforces the nudge: it exits non-zero once the tree has been dirty
longer than a week. The LaunchAgent com.umbraaudio.commitcheck runs it every Sunday at
18:00 and posts a macOS notification when there is uncommitted work.
scripts/commit_check.sh # warn if dirty > 7 days
scripts/commit_check.sh --days 3 # tighter threshold
scripts/commit_check.sh --any # warn on any uncommitted change
Rebuilding from source
The repo tracks source only; large runtime data is reconstructed as needed.
-
Models: weights are not committed (see
.gitignore). Download them:bash scripts/download_models.sh # ~9 GB, targets ./models -
Qwen3-TTS is a git submodule pinned to upstream commit
022e286:git submodule update --init --recursiveThe
tts_server/web-demo backend includes a local UI customization toqwen_tts/cli/demo.py. It is preserved as a patch — reapply it after checking out the submodule:cd Qwen3-TTS && git apply ../scripts/qwen3_tts_demo_umbra_patch.patch -
Environment: copy/keep
.env(contains secrets) and setUMBRA_TTS__*model paths undermodels/.
Book projects (e.g. DealHunterShip_...) are committed separately under their
own project directories and are not part of this program repository.