diff --git a/whispercpp.pyx b/whispercpp.pyx
index 98b5020..2737063 100644
--- a/whispercpp.pyx
+++ b/whispercpp.pyx
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ cimport numpy as cnp
 
 cdef int SAMPLE_RATE = 16000
 cdef char* TEST_FILE = b'test.wav'
-cdef char* DEFAULT_MODEL = b'tiny'
+cdef char* DEFAULT_MODEL = 'tiny'
 cdef char* LANGUAGE = b'fr'
 
 MODELS = {