ElevenLabs voice settings advisor
ElevenLabs gives you three sliders that make or break a generation: stability, similarity boost, and style exaggeration. The right values depend entirely on what you are making — a steady audiobook narrator wants the opposite settings from a wild animated character. This advisor maps your use case and tone to a recommended starting point.
How it works
Each slider trades off in a predictable way:
- Stability (0–1) — low means expressive and variable but risky; high means consistent but flat. The sweet spot for most spoken content is the middle.
- Similarity boost (0–1) — how tightly the output hugs the source voice. High fidelity to a clone, but it also reproduces source noise.
- Style (0–1) — amplifies the original speaking style. Powerful but it slows generation and reduces stability, so use it deliberately.
The advisor starts from proven presets per use case, then nudges them based on whether you prioritize consistency or expressiveness.
Recommended starting points by use case
Different content types have very different requirements:
Audiobooks and long-form narration
Audiobooks demand consistency above everything else. A listener spending hours with a voice is acutely sensitive to sudden tonal shifts.
- Stability: 0.50–0.65
- Similarity boost: 0.70–0.80
- Style: 0.00–0.05
- Enable speaker boost: yes
Character voices and animation
Animated or game characters need expressive variation and a distinctive personality. Consistency matters less than impact.
- Stability: 0.20–0.40
- Similarity boost: 0.60–0.75
- Style: 0.30–0.60
- Enable speaker boost: optional
Advertisements and short-form content
Ads need energy and clarity. The delivery should grab attention in the first two seconds without sounding mechanical.
- Stability: 0.35–0.50
- Similarity boost: 0.70–0.80
- Style: 0.10–0.25
- Enable speaker boost: yes
Conversational IVR and chatbots
Conversational systems prioritize low latency and natural pacing over expressiveness. High stability keeps the delivery predictable.
- Stability: 0.55–0.75
- Similarity boost: 0.70–0.85
- Style: 0.00
- Enable speaker boost: no (adds latency)
Training data and synthetic datasets
Consistency is paramount so variation does not contaminate labels.
- Stability: 0.80–1.00
- Similarity boost: 0.50–0.70
- Style: 0.00
Tips for dialing it in
- Generate the same line twice at your chosen settings. If the two takes sound wildly different, raise stability.
- Noise in, noise out. If a cloned voice sounds hissy, lower similarity boost rather than re-recording.
- Reach for style last. Get stability and similarity right first; only add style if the read still feels lifeless.
- Long-form needs steadiness. For anything over a minute, bias toward higher stability so the listener is not jolted by tonal swings.
- Text formatting is part of the performance. Em dashes create pauses, ellipses slow the pace, and exclamation marks increase energy. Tune phrasing alongside the sliders.