Explore Voicebox (Qwen3-TTS) for custom podcast voices

[valorengels]

Context

We previously tried ElevenLabs for custom voice synthesis for the podcast and hit issues. Found an open-source alternative worth exploring:

Voicebox - https://github.com/jamiepine/voicebox

• Open-source voice synthesis studio powered by Qwen3-TTS
• Could replace NotebookLM's default voices with custom ones
• Local/self-hosted = no API limits or recurring costs

Why This Matters

• NotebookLM gives us no control over voice selection or style
• ElevenLabs had quality/reliability issues when we tried it
• Open-source means we can iterate on voice quality locally
• Could enable consistent "host" voices across all episodes

To Investigate

• Verify repo exists and is actively maintained (link summary suggests it may not be live yet)
• Evaluate Qwen3-TTS voice quality vs ElevenLabs vs NotebookLM
• Test with a sample episode transcript
• Assess hardware requirements (can it run on our Mac?)
• Determine if it supports two-host conversational format
• Compare latency and generation time for 30-40 min episodes
• Evaluate voice cloning capabilities (custom host voices)

Integration Path

If viable, the workflow would be:

1. Generate script/transcript (current workflow up to report.md)
2. Use Voicebox to synthesize audio with custom voices
3. Replace NotebookLM step entirely

This would give us full control over the audio generation pipeline.