Model reference · open weights

csm

Audio sesame Text→speech 2 builds Open weights 150k dl/mo

csm is an open-weight audio or speech model from sesame. csm-1b (FP16) weighs 4.2 GB; the smallest configuration that runs it is RTX 3060 12 GB.

  • CSM 1B is a 1.6B parameter text-to-speech model developed by Sesame that generates audio codes from text and audio inputs.
  • It utilizes a Llama backbone and a Mimi audio decoder, and is designed for English speech generation.
  • The model is released under the Apache-2.0 license and supports batched inference and fine-tuning.

Summary of the sesame/csm-1b model card, 2026-10-01. The estimate below is for another build of the family.

What it is

Released bysesame
Released2025-03-06
Parameters1.6B
VRAM4.2 GB for the weights

What it runs on

Memory and cards for csm-1b (FP16)

4.2 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

Builds

Sizes, precisions & builds

BuildParamsPrecisionWeightsSmallest setup
csm-1b ↗ 1.6BFP32 12.9 GBRTX 4060 Ti 16 GB
csm-1b (above) ↗
packaged by unsloth
1.6BFP16 4.2 GBRTX 3060 12 GB

From the model card

What sesame says about csm

Read the model card

CSM 1B

2025/03/13 - We are releasing the 1B CSM variant. Code is available on GitHub: SesameAILabs/csm.


CSM (Conversational Speech Model) is a speech generation model from Sesame that generates RVQ audio codes from text and audio inputs. The model architecture employs a Llama backbone and a smaller audio decoder that produces Mimi audio codes.

A fine-tuned variant of CSM powers the interactive voice demo shown in our blog post.

A hosted HuggingFace space is also available for testing audio generation.

Usage

Setup the repo

git clone git@github.com:SesameAILabs/csm.git
cd csm
python3.10 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

# You will need access to sesame/csm-1b and meta-llama/Llama-3.2-1B
huggingface-cli login

Generate a sentence

from generator import load_csm_1b
import torchaudio

generator = load_csm_1b(device="cuda")

audio = generator.generate(
    text="Hello from Sesame.",
    speaker=0,
    context=[],
    max_audio_length_ms=10_000,
)

torchaudio.save("audio.wav", audio.unsqueeze(0).cpu(), generator.sample_rate)

CSM sounds best when provided with context. You can prompt or provide context to the model using a Segment for each speaker utterance.

speakers = [0, 1, 0, 0]
transcripts = [
    "Hey how are you doing.",
    "Pretty good, pretty good.",
    "I'm great.",
    "So happy to be speaking to you.",
]
audio_paths = [
    "utterance_0.wav",
    "utterance_1.wav",
    "utterance_2.wav",
    "utterance_3.wav",
]

def load_audio(audio_path):
    audio_tensor, sample_rate = torchaudio.load(audio_path)
    audio_tensor = torchaudio.functional.resample(
        audio_tensor.squeeze(0), orig_freq=sample_rate, new_freq=generator.sample_rate
    )
    return audio_tensor

segments = [
    Segment(text=transcript, speaker=speaker, audio=load_audio(audio_path))
    for transcript, speaker, audio_path in zip(transcripts, speakers, audio_paths)
]
audio = generator.generate(
    text="Me too, this is some cool stuff huh?",
    speaker=1,
    context=segments,
    max_audio_length_ms=10_000,
)

torchaudio.save("audio.wav", audio.unsqueeze(0).cpu(), generator.sample_rate)

FAQ

Does this model come with any voices?

The model open sourced here is a base generation model. It is capable of producing a variety of voices, but it has not been fine-tuned on any specific voice.

Can I converse with the model?

CSM is trained to be an audio generation model and not a general purpose multimodal LLM. It cannot generate text. We suggest using a separate LLM for text generation.

Does it support other languages?

The model has some capacity for non-English languages due to data contamination in the training data, but it likely won't do well.

Misuse and abuse ⚠️

This project provides a high-quality speech generation model for research and educational purposes. While we encourage responsible and ethical use, we explicitly prohibit the following:

  • Impersonation or Fraud: Do not use this model to generate speech that mimics real individuals without their explicit consent.
  • Misinformation or Deception: Do not use this model to create deceptive or misleading content, such as fake news or fraudulent calls.
  • Illegal or Harmful Activities: Do not use this model for any illegal, harmful, or malicious purposes.

By using this model, you agree to comply with all applicable laws and ethical guidelines. We are not responsible for any misuse, and we strongly condemn unethical applications of this technology.

Authors Johan Schalkwyk, Ankit Kumar, Dan Lyth, Sefik Emre Eskimez, Zack Hodari, Cinjon Resnick, Ramon Sanabria, Raven Jiang, and the Sesame team.

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

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