> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cartesia.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Older TTS Models

<Note>
  We recommend using [Sonic 3.5](/build-with-cartesia/tts-models/sonic-3-5) for best
  results, most languages, and naturalness. We continue to serve these older
  models for compatibility.
</Note>

<Danger>
  Some models and snapshots are being discontinued on June 1, 2026 — see [API Changes](/build-with-cartesia/tts-models/api-changes) for details.
</Danger>

> <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#008000" /> the latest **stable** snapshot of the model\
> <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> to be discontinued June 1, 2026

All models have a base model name (e.g. `sonic-2`, `sonic-turbo`) and date-versioned model names
(e.g. `sonic-2-2025-06-11`).
We recommend using base model names for prototyping and development, then switching to a date-versioned model for production use cases to ensure stability.

## `sonic-3`

Sonic 3 is a streaming TTS model with high naturalness, accurate transcript following, and industry-leading latency. Sonic 3 supports fine-grained control on volume, speed, and emotion via API parameters and SSML tags — useful when those controls matter for your use case (these are temporarily disabled on `sonic-3.5`).

Key features:

* **42 languages** supported
* **Volume, speed, and emotion** controls — see [Volume, Speed, and Emotion](/build-with-cartesia/capability-guides/volume-speed-emotion)
* **Laughter** through `[laughter]` tags

### Language support

Sonic 3 supports the following languages:

<table id="language-support-sonic-3">
  <tbody>
    <tr><td>English (`en`)</td><td>French (`fr`)</td><td>German (`de`)</td><td>Spanish (`es`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Portuguese (`pt`)</td><td>Chinese (`zh`)</td><td>Japanese (`ja`)</td><td>Hindi (`hi`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Italian (`it`)</td><td>Korean (`ko`)</td><td>Dutch (`nl`)</td><td>Polish (`pl`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Russian (`ru`)</td><td>Swedish (`sv`)</td><td>Turkish (`tr`)</td><td>Tagalog (`tl`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Bulgarian (`bg`)</td><td>Romanian (`ro`)</td><td>Arabic (`ar`)</td><td>Czech (`cs`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Greek (`el`)</td><td>Finnish (`fi`)</td><td>Croatian (`hr`)</td><td>Malay (`ms`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Slovak (`sk`)</td><td>Danish (`da`)</td><td>Tamil (`ta`)</td><td>Ukrainian (`uk`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Hungarian (`hu`)</td><td>Norwegian (`no`)</td><td>Vietnamese (`vi`)</td><td>Bengali (`bn`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Thai (`th`)</td><td>Hebrew (`he`)</td><td>Georgian (`ka`)</td><td>Indonesian (`id`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Telugu (`te`)</td><td>Gujarati (`gu`)</td><td>Kannada (`kn`)</td><td>Malayalam (`ml`)</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Marathi (`mr`)</td><td>Punjabi (`pa`)</td><td /><td /></tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

### Snapshots

| Snapshot                                                                                 | Release Date     | Status |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- | ------ |
| <Icon icon="circle" iconType="solid" color="#008000" size="10px" /> `sonic-3-2026-01-12` | January 12, 2026 | Stable |
| `sonic-3-2025-10-27`                                                                     | October 27, 2025 | Stable |

<Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#008000" /> the latest **stable** snapshot of the model.

```python lines theme={null}
# Use the base model (auto-routes to latest stable snapshot)
model_id = "sonic-3"

# Or pin a specific snapshot
model_id = "sonic-3-2026-01-12"
```

For details on alias and snapshot conventions, see [Continuous updates and model snapshots](/build-with-cartesia/tts-models/sonic-3-5#continuous-updates-and-model-snapshots).

Sonic 3 remains a strong choice when you need **speed and volume controls** today — these are temporarily disabled on Sonic 3.5. See [Volume, Speed, and Emotion](/build-with-cartesia/capability-guides/volume-speed-emotion) and [SSML Tags](/build-with-cartesia/capability-guides/ssml-tags) for details.

Ready to move to Sonic 3.5? See [Migrating from Sonic 3 to Sonic 3.5](/build-with-cartesia/tts-models/sonic-3-to-sonic-3-5).

## `sonic-2`

Sonic-2 provides ultra-realistic speech with accurate transcript following, minimal hallucinations, and excellent voice cloning. It's latency optimized and achieves 90ms model latency.

Additional Capabilities:

* Higher fidelity voice cloning
* Timestamps for all 15 languages
* [Infill](/2024-11-13/api-reference/infill/bytes) support

| Snapshot                                                                                 | Release Date   | Languages                                                                                      | Status           |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- |
| <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#008000" /> `sonic-2-2025-06-11` | June 11, 2025  | en, fr, de, es, pt, zh, ja, ko                                                                 | Stable           |
| `sonic-2-2025-06-11`                                                                     | June 11, 2025  | <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> hi, it, nl, pl, ru, sv, tr | EOL June 1, 2026 |
| `sonic-2-2025-05-08`                                                                     | May 8, 2025    | en, fr, de, es, pt, zh, ja, ko                                                                 | Stable           |
| `sonic-2-2025-05-08`                                                                     | May 8, 2025    | <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> hi, it, nl, pl, ru, sv, tr | EOL June 1, 2026 |
| `sonic-2-2025-04-16`                                                                     | April 16, 2025 | en, fr, de, es, pt, zh, ja, ko                                                                 | Stable           |
| `sonic-2-2025-04-16`                                                                     | April 16, 2025 | <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> hi, it, nl, pl, ru, sv, tr | EOL June 1, 2026 |
| <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> `sonic-2-2025-03-07` | March 7, 2025  | en, fr, de, es, pt, zh, ja, hi, it, ko, nl, pl, ru, sv, tr                                     | EOL June 1, 2026 |

Read these pages to learn more about how to use Sonic-2:

* [Best practices](/build-with-cartesia/formatting-text-for-sonic-2/best-practices)
* [Inserting breaks](/build-with-cartesia/formatting-text-for-sonic-2/inserting-breaks-pauses)
* [Spelling text](/build-with-cartesia/formatting-text-for-sonic-2/spelling-out-input-text)

## `sonic-turbo`

All the power of Sonic 2, with half the latency (as low as 40ms).

| Snapshot                                                                                     | Release Date  | Languages                                                                                  | Status           |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------- |
| <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#008000" /> `sonic-turbo-2025-06-04` | June 6, 2025  | en, fr, de, es, pt, zh, ja, hi, ko                                                         | Stable           |
| `sonic-turbo-2025-06-04`                                                                     | June 6, 2025  | <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> it, nl, pl, ru, sv, tr | EOL June 1, 2026 |
| <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> `sonic-turbo-2025-03-07` | March 7, 2025 | en, fr, de, es, pt, zh, ja, hi, it, ko, nl, pl, ru, sv, tr                                 | EOL June 1, 2026 |

## <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> `sonic`

The first version of our flagship text-to-speech model. It produces high-accuracy, expressive speech, and is optimized for efficiency to achieve low latency.

| Snapshot                                                                               | Release Date      | Languages                                                  | Status           |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- |
| <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> `sonic-2024-12-12` | December 12, 2024 | en, fr, de, es, pt, zh, ja, hi, it, ko, nl, pl, ru, sv, tr | EOL June 1, 2026 |
| <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> `sonic-2024-10-19` | October 19, 2024  | en, fr, de, es, pt, zh, ja, hi, it, ko, nl, pl, ru, sv, tr | EOL June 1, 2026 |

## Deprecated and Preview Model Aliases

The following model aliases are now deprecated. Please use the recommended model names instead:

| Deprecated Alias                                                                         | Use Instead                                                                            |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `sonic-3-preview`                                                                        | `sonic-3`                                                                              |
| `sonic-preview`                                                                          | `sonic-2`                                                                              |
| <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> `sonic-english`      | <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> `sonic-2024-10-19` |
| <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> `sonic-multilingual` | <Icon icon="circle" size="10px" iconType="solid" color="#FF0000" /> `sonic-2024-10-19` |