Accent Detection

Accent Detection classifies the regional or national accent of the speech from the voice signal. Classification is acoustic, based on how the speech sounds rather than the words used. The endpoint produces no transcript, diarization, or enrichment data.

Accent Detection (batch)

Returns application/json.

Field	Type	Contents
`accent`	string	The label for the whole file. Always present, never null, at any file length.
`time_series`	array	Consecutive fixed-length windows over the file, each with its own label. Empty when the file is shorter than one window.
`time_series[].start_ms`	integer	Window start, in milliseconds from the beginning of the file.
`time_series[].duration_ms`	integer	Window length.
`time_series[].accent`	string	The label for that window.

There is no top-level duration field. Derive audio length from the last window if it is needed.

Try it

curl -X POST https://platform.modulate.ai/api/velma-2-accent-batch \
  -H "X-API-Key: $MODULATE_API_KEY" \
  -F "upload_file=@audio.mp3"

import os, requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://platform.modulate.ai/api/velma-2-accent-batch",
    headers={"X-API-Key": os.environ["MODULATE_API_KEY"]},
    files={"upload_file": open("audio.mp3", "rb")},
)
response.raise_for_status()
result = response.json()

print(f"Overall: {result['accent']}")
for window in result["time_series"]:
    end = window["start_ms"] + window["duration_ms"]
    print(f"  {window['start_ms']}-{end} ms: {window['accent']}")

import fs from "fs";
import FormData from "form-data";

const form = new FormData();
form.append("upload_file", fs.createReadStream("audio.mp3"), { filename: "audio.mp3" });

const response = await fetch(
  "https://platform.modulate.ai/api/velma-2-accent-batch",
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { "X-API-Key": process.env.MODULATE_API_KEY, ...form.getHeaders() },
    body: form,
  }
);

const result = await response.json();
console.log(`Overall: ${result.accent}`);
for (const w of result.time_series) {
  console.log(`  ${w.start_ms}-${w.start_ms + w.duration_ms} ms: ${w.accent}`);
}

Response

{
  "accent": "British",
  "time_series": [
    { "start_ms": 0, "duration_ms": 15000, "accent": "British" },
    { "start_ms": 15000, "duration_ms": 15000, "accent": "American" }
  ]
}

What you can configure

Form field	Default	Effect
`upload_file`	required	The audio to analyze.
`use_ensemble`	`false`	Set `true` for a slower, more thorough analysis. Labels may change and latency increases.
`training_permitted`	`true`	Set `false` to exclude this request’s audio from model improvement.

Audio formats

Accepted extensions: .aac, .aiff, .flac, .mov, .mp3, .mp4, .ogg, .opus, .wav, .webm. Maximum file size is 100 MB. Empty files are rejected with 400.

Labels

American, British, Australian, Southern, Indian, Irish, Scottish, Eastern_European, African, Asian, Latin_American, Middle_Eastern, Unknown. The same set is used by the accent_signal enrichment on Multilingual Transcription.

Working with the time series

Windows are consecutive and cover the file from the start. A trailing remainder shorter than one full window is dropped. A file shorter than a single window returns an empty time_series, but accent is still present, so the whole-file label is safe to rely on at any length. Results for a speaker with a consistent accent are typically stable across windows, and vary more on short or acoustically difficult segments.

result = response.json()

overall = result["accent"]

if result["time_series"]:
    shifts = [w["accent"] for w in result["time_series"]]
    print(f"{overall} overall; window by window: {shifts}")
else:
    print(f"{overall} (file shorter than one window)")

Accent alongside a transcript

Multilingual Transcription accepts accent_signal=true, which attaches an accent label to every utterance from the same label set, in the same call as the transcript. Use that when a transcript is also needed. This endpoint exists for whole-file classification with no transcript. See Transcription.

API reference

Accent Detection Batch

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