diff --git a/koboldai_settings.py b/koboldai_settings.py
index 4a77ad38..b2585500 100644
--- a/koboldai_settings.py
+++ b/koboldai_settings.py
@@ -2050,7 +2050,7 @@ class KoboldStoryRegister(object):
         import pydub
         sample_rate = 24000
         speaker = 'train_daws'
-        if self.tortoise is None:
+        if self.tortoise is None and importlib.util.find_spec("tortoise") is not None::
            self.tortoise=api.TextToSpeech()
         
         if importlib.util.find_spec("tortoise") is not None: