Install the local speech model

Prerequisites

• About 2 GB of free disk space.
• A network connection for the initial download.
• Nothing else. The model is free and open source, and no account or key is involved.

You can skip this entirely if you have RoughCut Pro and intend to use Cloud transcription for every job — that path uses OpenAI instead of a local model.

Steps

1. Open Settings and select the Models & Data tab.
2. Under the speech model section you will see either Model ready (ggml-large-v3-turbo.bin) or the notice The speech model (~1.6 GB) is required for transcription.
3. Click Download from Hugging Face.
4. Watch the progress. RoughCut shows Downloading model… <n>% and, once byte counts arrive, Downloading model… <n>% (<written> of <total>). The same live status also appears on the New Rough Cut and Transcribe Only screens, so you do not have to sit in Settings.
5. When it finishes, the section switches to Model ready and Process becomes available.

Manual install when the download will not finish

RoughCut exposes the exact file rather than hiding it, so you can always fall back to a browser.

1. In Settings → Models & Data, click Copy download link. RoughCut copies the address to your clipboard and confirms with Model download link copied.
2. Paste it into a browser and download the file. The address is: ``text https://huggingface.co/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/resolve/main/ggml-large-v3-turbo.bin ``
3. Back in Settings → Models & Data, click Import model file….
4. Select the .bin file you downloaded. RoughCut copies it into its own models folder, replacing any existing file of that name.

Expected result

The model section reads Model ready with the model name, and transcription runs locally. RoughCut caches exactly one copy in its application container and never downloads it again.

Where the model lives and how it runs

The file is stored inside RoughCut's own Application Support container, in a models folder. Because that lives in the app's sandbox, deleting RoughCut removes the model, and you would download it again on a fresh install.

Transcription runs with Metal acceleration on the GPU by default. The Whisper device setting offers auto, cpu, and metal; metal is correct on Apple Silicon and cpu exists for debugging and is much slower.

Advanced users can point RoughCut at a model stored elsewhere using the Whisper model path setting, which overrides the default location. Leave it empty unless you have a specific reason.

Common mistakes

• Downloading a different Whisper model. RoughCut expects ggml-large-v3-turbo.bin. It is the tested default for the word-level timestamps that the cut plan and SRT export both depend on.
• Importing a partial download. RoughCut treats the model as ready only when the file is larger than roughly 100 MB, which catches truncated downloads — but a partly written file that clears that bar can still fail at transcription time. If transcription behaves strangely after a manual import, download the file again.
• Expecting the model to survive app deletion. It does not.
• Waiting on the model when you do not need it. Cloud transcription (Pro) needs no local model at all.

Troubleshooting

If the job itself fails rather than the download, start from Troubleshooting by symptom.