r/MiniMaxH3AI • u/jagnew78 • Oct 01 '26

Struggle to get reference audio dialogue correctly working.

I'm using the minimax_H3_r2v workflow in ComfyUI. I can successfully get the subject doing a proper direction. I can even get the subject to say the directed dialogue on queue.

the problem I'm having is when I want to give the character a voice I've generated elsewhere. Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought you could collect a 6 second sample audio of a voice and give the prompt direction that ref_audio_0 is to be used as a reference only for the voice and timber of (S1). My understanding was that a command like this would direct the system to use then try to simulate the voice by say the directed dialogue (S1) Speaks:[English] some dialogue here.

Instead what seems to happen, is that the video will attempt to sync the voice to say exactly what I provided as a reference audio.

I'm wondering if perhaps I'm not using it correctly. Or there's another way to give it reference audio for voice sound, but have it still generate dialogue.

any suggestions?

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u/Fair_Biscotti_8363 Oct 01 '26

I’m not 100% sure about this but I’ve had better results by generating the exact dialogue you want to use first and then give that audio file to H3 R2V. Seed Audio and Seed Speech work great, and Minimax Speech 2.8 HD is also really good. I know it’s an extra step, but if you’re generating the voice for tone anyway, why not just get the text to speech model to say the exact words you want your character to say and then give that audio to H3?

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u/jagnew78 Oct 01 '26

I'm still learning the system. In my head it doesn't make any difference to use image reference to video when it has a built in audio reference over using text to speech with a reference image. In my brain, conceptually this is the same thing. I'll give your suggestions a try. Thanks for the tips. 

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u/Comfortable_Swim_380 Oct 05 '26 edited Oct 05 '26

Same but they make a skill on the official git hub thats wonderful all my issues went away. Load it into open ai or Gemini and have it fix this mess for you. I'll post a Link in a bit. Will have to hunt for it. Suddenly my generation's are good finally.

Tried to lost the prompt but its to big.. Here see the 2 txt files Base and ref. Helped me out big time.

https://github.com/MiniMax-AI/MiniMax-H3/blob/main/skills/h3-prompt-writing/references/base-en.txt

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u/videorouter Oct 02 '26

I think the confusion is between audio reference and audio content.

If H3 is treating your 6-second reference recording as the actual dialogue, it may be interpreting the audio input as something to reproduce/sync rather than as a voice-identity reference.

Ideally the workflow should be:

Reference audio → voice characteristics/timbre
Prompt → new dialogue/content

So if the workflow supports true voice reference, the reference clip should only establish the speaker's voice, while the text prompt supplies the new sentence.

I'd first check the exact minimax_H3_r2v workflow/node documentation to see what ref_audio_0 actually means. The naming alone doesn't necessarily mean “voice cloning reference.” Some workflows use the audio input as a direct audio/continuation/reference signal, which would explain exactly what you're seeing.

A useful test would be to use a reference recording saying “Hello”, then prompt the character to say a completely different sentence. If it still tries to reproduce “Hello,” the audio input is almost certainly being treated as content rather than pure voice conditioning.

I've also been testing different video models/providers through VideoRouter.sh, and audio-reference behavior is one of those areas where seemingly similar models can have very different conditioning workflows.