Claude Desktop Text to Speech: Connect Clonylab and Ask for Voice-Overs

Claude Desktop is a chat app. You ask, it answers in text. With a text to speech MCP server connected, you can also ask it to speak: “turn this script into a voice-over in a warm US voice.” Claude calls Clonylab, your voice-over is made, and you get a link to the MP3 right in the chat.

Clonylab’s MCP server offers Claude 14 tools. They cover voices, speech jobs, History, Studio settings and usage. The tools are the same for every AI app, so if you want the full list first, read our guide to the text to speech MCP server. This guide is only about Claude Desktop.

There are two ways to connect. The first is a custom connector, which is a screen inside Claude where you paste an address and sign in. It is the easiest. The second is a config file with a small helper called mcp-remote. It takes a few more minutes and needs Node.js. We cover both, and we tell you when to choose which.

Anthropic’s help pages describe custom connectors as the main way to add a remote MCP server to Claude. Local servers that you start from claude_desktop_config.json are a separate mechanism that runs on your own computer. Clonylab is a remote server, so the connector is the natural fit.

If both are open to you, start with the connector. Use the file route if the connector screen is missing or if your organisation has switched custom connectors off.

Claude Desktop’s config file starts local programs. It does not take a web address directly. That is why this route uses mcp-remote, a small helper that runs on your computer and talks to a remote server for Claude. It runs through npx, so you need Node.js installed.

Create a token

On the Connector screen, give a token a name such as “Claude Desktop” and copy it. It starts with swr_ and is shown only once.

clonylab.com/connect

Open the config file

In Claude Desktop open Settings, then Developer, then Edit config. This opens the folder with claude_desktop_config.json.

Paste the Clonylab block and restart

Add this to the file, with your own token. Then quit Claude Desktop fully and start it again.

claude_desktop_config.jsonCopy

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "clonylab": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://clonylab.com/mcp", "--header", "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"]
    }
  }
}

clonylab.com/connect

Open a new chat. Claude shows the Clonylab tools in its tools menu. It asks before it uses a tool, so you stay in control.

The link works for 30 minutes. Open it in your browser to listen, or tell Claude to keep a list of the files for you. Clips under 1 MB also come back as audio that the chat may be able to play.

With the connector route you press Allow once, and Clonylab lists the app on the Connector screen. Remove it there to cut access. With the file route, the token sits in a file on your computer, so look after the file.

Prefer a terminal? The same server works in Claude Code, Cursor and Codex CLI. For listening and tuning one clip by ear, the Studio is still the best place. The text to speech online page explains it.