# How to install more voices for speech-dispatcher
**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-install-more-voices-for-speech-dispatcher/80025
**Category:** Help
**Created:** [September 10, 2026, 8:19am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-install-more-voices-for-speech-dispatcher/80025 "2026-09-10T08:19:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ammaratef45](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/ammaratef45)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2026, 8:19am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-install-more-voices-for-speech-dispatcher/80025/1 "2026-09-10T08:19:48Z")
Hello, I did browse few threads and web pages and I ended up with a configuration file that looks like this
```nix
services.speechd.enable = true;
## .....
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
## ....
speechd espeak-ng mbrola-voices mbrola
]
```
I thought this is all the magic I need to make the mbrola voices available for my speech-dispatcher, but this is what I see with or without the `mbrola-voices mbrola` packages
```bash
$ spd-say -O
OUTPUT MODULES
pico
flite
espeak-ng
$ spd-say -L
NAME LANGUAGE VARIANT
samantha en-US none
serena en-GB none
sabrina de-DE none
isabel es-ES none
virginie fr-FR none
silvia it-IT none
```
can someone help me with a simple explanation how can I add the mbrola voices to speech-dispacher?
---
### Author:  [@QuackHack-McBlindy](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/QuackHack-McBlindy)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2026, 7:04pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-install-more-voices-for-speech-dispatcher/80025/2 "2026-09-10T19:04:32Z")
**Hello** I’m glad you asked - I guess this is my area…
I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple.
Getting it to work properly involves a couple of steps and you’ll have to create a number of files.
To point you in the right direction - you can check out [dotfiles/home/.config/speech-dispatcher at main · QuackHack-McBlindy/dotfiles · GitHub](https://github.com/QuackHack-McBlindy/dotfiles/tree/main/home/.config/speech-dispatcher)
Not sure how much you’d want to integrate of the dispatcher, but glancing at [dotfiles/home/.local/share/orca/user-settings.conf at bd1b08091cf1bbff06f3389c86acd538920bc4df · QuackHack-McBlindy/dotfiles · GitHub](https://github.com/QuackHack-McBlindy/dotfiles/blob/bd1b08091cf1bbff06f3389c86acd538920bc4df/home/.local/share/orca/user-settings.conf) might be of use to you as well.
Good luck!
QuackHack-McBlindy
---
### Author:  [@susd](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/susd)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2026, 8:14am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-install-more-voices-for-speech-dispatcher/80025/3 "2026-09-11T08:14:29Z")
I opened a PR [here](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/562203); there was a bug in `pkgs.espeak-ng`.
Ran on my system and the command below works:
```auto
spd-say -o espeak-ng -y us-mbrola-1 "hello, this is an mbrola voice"
```
And also `spd-say -O` reports `espeak-ng-mbrola` now:
```auto
$ spd-say -O
OUTPUT MODULES
pico
flite
espeak-ng-mbrola
espeak-ng
```
To see the fix in action run:
```auto
nix-shell \
-I nixpkgs=https://github.com/marcg03/nixpkgs/archive/ac573131120c36eeeeed00a80ad21c7d2f229071.tar.gz \
-p espeak-ng \
--run 'espeak-ng -v mb-us1 "hello world"'
```
Current nixpkgs-unstable (broken):
```auto
nix-shell \
-I nixpkgs=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/refs/heads/nixpkgs-unstable.tar.gz \
-p espeak-ng \
--run 'espeak-ng -v mb-us1 "hello world"'
```
---
### Author:  [@ammaratef45](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/ammaratef45)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2026, 2:58pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-install-more-voices-for-speech-dispatcher/80025/4 "2026-09-12T14:58:10Z")
thank you but tbh I couldn’t even tell what am I looking at, is it supposed to be this complicated? 😅