Model reference · open weights

bark-small

Audio suno Text→speech 1 build Open weights 29k dl/mo

bark-small is an open-weight audio or speech model from suno. bark-small (BF16) weighs 1.7 GB; the smallest configuration that runs it is RTX 3060 12 GB.

  • Bark-small is a transformer-based text-to-audio model developed by Suno that generates multilingual speech, music, and sound effects.
  • The model is intended for research purposes and is licensed under the MIT license.
  • It supports languages including English, German, Spanish, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, and Korean.

Summary of the suno/bark-small model card, 2026-10-01

What it is

Released bysuno
Released2023-07-18
VRAM1.7 GB for the weights

What it runs on

Memory and cards for bark-small (BF16)

1.7 GBweights, file size
1.6 GBruntime overhead
CardOne streamMemory
RTX 3060 12 GBfits11.6 GB
RTX 4060 Ti 16 GBfits15.4 GB
RTX 3090 24 GBfits23.4 GB
RTX 4090 24 GBfits23.4 GB
RTX 5090 32 GBfits31.0 GB
L40S 48 GBfits44.0 GB
A100 80 GBfits78.2 GB
H100 80 GBfits78.1 GB
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96 GBfits93.8 GB
DGX Spark (GB10) 128 GB unifiedfits107 GB
H200 141 GBfits138 GB
B200 180 GBfits176 GB

From the model card

What suno says about bark-small

Read the model card

Bark is a transformer-based text-to-audio model created by Suno. Bark can generate highly realistic, multilingual speech as well as other audio - including music, background noise and simple sound effects. The model can also produce nonverbal communications like laughing, sighing and crying. To support the research community, we are providing access to pretrained model checkpoints ready for inference.

The original github repo and model card can be found here.

This model is meant for research purposes only. The model output is not censored and the authors do not endorse the opinions in the generated content. Use at your own risk.

Two checkpoints are released:

Example

Try out Bark yourself!

  • Bark Colab:

  • Hugging Face Colab:

  • Hugging Face Demo:

🤗 Transformers Usage

You can run Bark locally with the 🤗 Transformers library from version 4.31.0 onwards.

  1. First install the 🤗 Transformers library and scipy:
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install --upgrade transformers scipy
  1. Run inference via the Text-to-Speech (TTS) pipeline. You can infer the bark model via the TTS pipeline in just a few lines of code!
from transformers import pipeline
import scipy

synthesiser = pipeline("text-to-speech", "suno/bark-small")

speech = synthesiser("Hello, my dog is cooler than you!", forward_params={"do_sample": True})

scipy.io.wavfile.write("bark_out.wav", rate=speech["sampling_rate"], data=speech["audio"])
  1. Run inference via the Transformers modelling code. You can use the processor + generate code to convert text into a mono 24 kHz speech waveform for more fine-grained control.
from transformers import AutoProcessor, AutoModel

processor = AutoProcessor.from_pretrained("suno/bark-small")
model = AutoModel.from_pretrained("suno/bark-small")

inputs = processor(
    text=["Hello, my name is Suno. And, uh — and I like pizza. [laughs] But I also have other interests such as playing tic tac toe."],
    return_tensors="pt",
)

speech_values = model.generate(**inputs, do_sample=True)
  1. Listen to the speech samples either in an ipynb notebook:
from IPython.display import Audio

sampling_rate = model.generation_config.sample_rate
Audio(speech_values.cpu().numpy().squeeze(), rate=sampling_rate)

Or save them as a .wav file using a third-party library, e.g. scipy:

import scipy

sampling_rate = model.config.sample_rate
scipy.io.wavfile.write("bark_out.wav", rate=sampling_rate, data=speech_values.cpu().numpy().squeeze())

For more details on using the Bark model for inference using the 🤗 Transformers library, refer to the Bark docs.

Optimization tips

Refers to this blog post to find out more about the following methods and a benchmark of their benefits.

Get significant speed-ups:

Using 🤗 Better Transformer

Better Transformer is an 🤗 Optimum feature that performs kernel fusion under the hood. You can gain 20% to 30% in speed with zero performance degradation. It only requires one line of code to export the model to 🤗 Better Transformer:

model =  model.to_bettertransformer()

Note that 🤗 Optimum must be installed before using this feature. Here's how to install it.

Using Flash Attention 2

Flash Attention 2 is an even faster, optimized version of the previous optimization.

model = BarkModel.from_pretrained("suno/bark-small", torch_dtype=torch.float16, use_flash_attention_2=True).to(device)

Make sure to load your model in half-precision (e.g. `torch.float16``) and to install the latest version of Flash Attention 2.

Note: Flash Attention 2 is only available on newer GPUs, refer to 🤗 Better Transformer in case your GPU don't support it.

Reduce memory footprint:

Using half-precision

You can speed up inference and reduce memory footprint by 50% simply by loading the model in half-precision (e.g. `torch.float16``).

Using CPU offload

Bark is made up of 4 sub-models, which are called up sequentially during audio generation. In other words, while one sub-model is in use, the other sub-models are idle.

If you're using a CUDA device, a simple solution to benefit from an 80% reduction in memory footprint is to offload the GPU's submodels when they're idle. This operation is called CPU offloading. You can use it with one line of code.

model.enable_cpu_offload()

Note that 🤗 Accelerate must be installed before using this feature. Here's how to install it.

Suno Usage

You can also run Bark locally through the original [Bark library]((https://github.com/suno-ai/bark):

  1. First install the bark library

  2. Run the following Python code:

from bark import SAMPLE_RATE, generate_audio, preload_models
from IPython.display import Audio

# download and load all models
preload_models()

# generate audio from text
text_prompt = """
     Hello, my name is Suno. And, uh — and I like pizza. [laughs]
     But I also have other interests such as playing tic tac toe.
"""
speech_array = generate_audio(text_prompt)

# play text in notebook
Audio(speech_array, rate=SAMPLE_RATE)

pizza.webm

To save audio_array as a WAV file:

from scipy.io.wavfile import write as write_wav

write_wav("/path/to/audio.wav", SAMPLE_RATE, audio_array)

Model Details

The following is

Quoted from the model card on Hugging Face. The full card is behind the Hugging Face link above.

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