diff --git a/vall_e/data.py b/vall_e/data.py
index 79889bf..4637ba6 100755
--- a/vall_e/data.py
+++ b/vall_e/data.py
@@ -192,7 +192,7 @@ def normalize_text(text, language="auto", full=True):
 	return text
 
 @cache
-def get_random_prompts( validation=False, min_length=0, tokenized=False, source_path=Path("./data/tongue_twisters.txt") ):
+def get_random_prompts( validation=False, min_length=0, tokenized=False, source_path=Path("./data/harvard_sentences.txt") ):
 	duration_range = [ 5.5, 12.0 ] # to-do: pull from cfg.dataset.duration_range
 	sentences = [
 		"The birch canoe slid on the smooth planks.",
diff --git a/vall_e/export.py b/vall_e/export.py
index d8e43e0..9b046f3 100755
--- a/vall_e/export.py
+++ b/vall_e/export.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ from .data import get_phone_symmap
 from .engines import load_engines
 from .config import cfg
 from .models.lora import lora_get_state_dict
-from .utils.io import torch_save, torch_load
+from .utils.io import torch_save, torch_load, json_read, json_write, Path
 
 # stitches embeddings into one embedding & classifier => lm_head, for use in a HF compatible weight
 # *will* require retraining because the classifier is in one contiguous space, and proms are NOT summed
@@ -22,7 +22,20 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 	n_task_tokens = state_dict['module']['tasks_emb.weight'].shape[0]
 
 	# the new tokenizer to use
-	tokenizer_append = {}
+	tokenizer = {}
+	tokenizer_vocab = {}
+
+	tokenizer_path = cfg.rel_path / cfg.tokenizer_path
+	if not tokenizer_path.exists():
+		tokenizer_path = Path("./data/") / cfg.tokenizer_path
+	if tokenizer_path.exists():
+		tokenizer = json_read( tokenizer_path )
+	else:
+		tokenizer = {
+			"model": {
+				"vocab": get_phone_symmap()
+			}
+		}
 
 	l_tokens = [
 		n_text_tokens, # text
@@ -77,14 +90,14 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 	token_start = token_end
 	token_end += l_tokens[1]
 	for l in range(n_resp_levels):
-		start = token_start + (l*n_resp_levels)
+		start = token_start + (l * n_audio_tokens)
 		end = start + n_audio_tokens
 		embedding.weight[start:end] = state_dict['module'][f'proms_emb.embeddings.{l}.weight']
 		# there's no corresponding classifier
 		#classifier.weight[start:end] = state_dict['module'][f'classifiers.proj.{l}.weight']
 		#classifier.bias[start:end] = state_dict['module'][f'classifiers.proj.{l}.bias']
 		for t in range(n_audio_tokens):
-			tokenizer_append[f'<P:{l}:{t}>'] = start + t
+			tokenizer_vocab[f'<|P|{l}:{t}|>'] = start + t
 
 	# inject AR
 	token_start = token_end
@@ -93,8 +106,8 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 	classifier.weight[token_start:token_end] = state_dict['module']['classifiers.proj.0.weight']
 	classifier.bias[token_start:token_end] = state_dict['module']['classifiers.proj.0.bias']
 	for t in range(n_audio_tokens):
-		tokenizer_append[f'<AR:0:0:{t}>'] = token_start + t
-	tokenizer_append[f'<AR:0:0:STOP>'] = token_start + 1024
+		tokenizer_vocab[f'<|AR|0:0|{t}|>'] = token_start + t
+	tokenizer_vocab[f'<AR|0:0|STOP|>'] = token_start + 1024
 
 	# inject NAR-len
 	token_start = token_end
@@ -103,20 +116,20 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 	classifier.weight[token_start:token_end-1] = state_dict['module']['classifiers.proj.8.weight']
 	classifier.bias[token_start:token_end-1] = state_dict['module']['classifiers.proj.8.bias']
 	for t in range(n_audio_tokens):
-		tokenizer_append[f'<NAR:0:0:{t}>'] = token_start + t
-	tokenizer_append[f'<NAR:0:0:STOP>'] = token_start + 1024
+		tokenizer_vocab[f'<NAR|0:0|{t}|>'] = token_start + t
+	tokenizer_vocab[f'<NAR|0:0|STOP|>'] = token_start + 1024
 	
 	# inject NAR
 	token_start = token_end
 	token_end += l_tokens[3]
 	for l in range(1, n_resp_levels):
-		start = token_start + ((l-1)*n_resp_levels)
+		start = token_start + ((l-1) * n_audio_tokens)
 		end = start + n_audio_tokens
 		embedding.weight[start:end] = state_dict['module'][f'resps_emb.embeddings.{l}.weight']
 		classifier.weight[start:end] = state_dict['module'][f'classifiers.proj.{l}.weight']
 		classifier.bias[start:end] = state_dict['module'][f'classifiers.proj.{l}.bias']
 		for t in range(n_audio_tokens):
-			tokenizer_append[f'<NAR:{l-1}:{l}:{t}>'] = start + t
+			tokenizer_vocab[f'<|NAR|{l-1}:{l}|{t}|>'] = start + t
 	
 	# inject RVQ level
 	token_start = token_end
@@ -124,7 +137,7 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 	embedding.weight[token_start:token_end] = state_dict['module'][f'rvq_l_emb.weight']
 	# there is no corresponding classifier
 	for l in range(n_resp_levels):
-		tokenizer_append[f'<RVQ:{l}>'] = token_start + l
+		tokenizer_vocab[f'<|RVQ:{l}|>'] = token_start + l
 
 	# inject len
 	token_start = token_end
@@ -133,13 +146,13 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 	classifier.weight[token_start:token_end] = state_dict['module']['classifiers.proj.10.weight'][0:n_len_tokens] # erroneously sized as 256
 	classifier.bias[token_start:token_end] = state_dict['module']['classifiers.proj.10.bias'][0:n_len_tokens] # erroneously sized as 256
 	for t in range(n_len_tokens):
-		tokenizer_append[f'<len:{t}>'] = token_start + t
+		tokenizer_vocab[f'<|len:{t}|>'] = token_start + t
 
 	# inject sep
 	token_start = token_end
 	token_end += l_tokens[6]
 	embedding.weight[token_start:token_end] = state_dict['module']['sep']
-	tokenizer_append['<sep>'] = token_start
+	tokenizer_vocab['<|sep|>'] = token_start
 	# there is no corresponding classifier
 
 	# inject langs
@@ -148,7 +161,7 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 	embedding.weight[token_start:token_end] = state_dict['module']['langs_emb.weight']
 	for l in range(n_lang_tokens):
 		lang = lang_map[l]
-		tokenizer_append[f'<lang:{lang}>'] = token_start + l
+		tokenizer_vocab[f'<|lang:{lang}|>'] = token_start + l
 	# there is no corresponding classifier
 
 	# inject tasks
@@ -157,7 +170,7 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 	embedding.weight[token_start:token_end] = state_dict['module']['tasks_emb.weight']
 	for l in range(n_task_tokens):
 		task = task_map[l]
-		tokenizer_append[f'<task:{task}>'] = token_start + l
+		tokenizer_vocab[f'<|task:{task}|>'] = token_start + l
 	# there is no corresponding classifier
 
 
@@ -167,7 +180,6 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 		if not k.startswith('model.'):
 			continue
 		model_dict[k] = state_dict['module'][k].clone()
-	del state_dict['module']
 
 	embedding_dict = embedding.state_dict()
 	classifier_dict = classifier.state_dict()
@@ -175,62 +187,46 @@ def convert_to_hf( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None ):
 	model_dict['lm_head.weight'] = classifier_dict['weight']
 	model_dict['lm_head.bias'] = classifier_dict['bias']
 
-	state_dict['module'] = model_dict
-	state_dict['vocab'] = tokenizer_append
+	# write files in an HF compatible way
+	out_dir = cfg.rel_path / "hf"
+	out_dir.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
+	# write weights
+	torch_save( model_dict, out_dir / "model.safetensors" )
+	# write vocab.json
+	tokenizer['model']['vocab'] |= tokenizer_vocab
+	json_write(tokenizer, out_dir / "tokenizer.json", pretty=True)
+	# write config.json
+	json_write({
+		"architectures": [
+			"LlamaForCausalLM"
+		],
+		"attention_bias": False,
+		"attention_dropout": 0.0,
+		"bos_token_id": 1,
+		"eos_token_id": 2,
+		"hidden_act": "gelu",
+		"hidden_size": model_dim,
+		"initializer_range": 0.02,
+		"intermediate_size": model_dim * 4,
+		"max_position_embeddings": 75 * 60 * 5,
+		"model_type": "llama",
+		"num_attention_heads": 16,
+		"num_hidden_layers": 12,
+		"num_key_value_heads": 16,
+		"pretraining_tp": 1,
+		"rms_norm_eps": 1e-06,
+		"rope_scaling": None,
+		"rope_theta": 10000.0,
+		"tie_word_embeddings": False,
+		"torch_dtype": "bfloat16",
+		"transformers_version": "4.40.0",
+		"use_cache": False,
+		"vocab_size": n_tokens
+	}, out_dir / "config.json", pretty=True )
+
 
 	return state_dict
 
-	"""
-	n_tokens = 256 + (1024 * 8) + (1024 * 8) + 1
-	token_dim = 1024
-	embedding = torch.nn.Embedding(n_tokens, token_dim)
-	embedding.weight.requires_grad = False
-
-	def move_value(k):
-		v = state_dict['module'][k]
-		del state_dict['module'][k]
-		return v
-
-	separator = move_value('sep')
-	out_proj = move_value('classifier.weight')
-	text_emb = move_value('text_emb.weight')
-	langs_emb = move_value('langs_emb.weight')
-	tasks_emb = move_value('tasks_emb.weight')
-	tones_emb = move_value('tones_emb.weight')
-	
-	proms_emb_weight = [ move_value(f'proms_emb.weight.{i}').item() for i in range(8) ] if "proms_emb.weight.0" in state_dict['module'] else [ [ 1 for _ in range(8) ] ]
-	resps_emb_weight = [ move_value(f'resps_emb.weight.{i}').item() for i in range(8) ] if "resps_emb.weight.0" in state_dict['module'] else [ [ 1 for _ in range(8) ] ]
-
-	proms_emb = [ move_value(f'proms_emb.embeddings.{i}.weight') for i in range(8) ]
-	resps_emb = [ move_value(f'resps_emb.embeddings.{i}.weight') for i in range(8) ]
-
-
-	start = 0
-	for i in range(256):
-		embedding.weight[start + i] = text_emb[i]
-	
-	start = 256
-	for layer in range(8):
-		for i in range(1024):
-			offset = start + 1024 * layer
-			embedding.weight[i + offset] = proms_emb[layer][i] * proms_emb_weight[layer]
-			
-	start = 256 + 1024 * 8
-	for layer in range(8):
-		for i in range(1024):
-			offset = start + 1024 * layer
-			embedding.weight[i + offset] = resps_emb[layer][i] * proms_emb_weight[layer]
-
-	state_dict['module']['model.embed_tokens.weight'] = embedding.state_dict()
-	# to-do: properly recreate the output head weights or something
-	state_dict['module']['lm_head.weight'] = out_proj
-	
-	del state_dict['module']['classifier.weight']
-	del state_dict['module']['classifier.bias']
-
-	return state_dict
-	"""
-
 # yanks a LoRA from the training checkpoint
 def extract_lora( state_dict, config = None, save_path = None, dtype = None ):
 	if dtype is None:
diff --git a/vall_e/utils/io.py b/vall_e/utils/io.py
index 2a4e3c7..7ab73bb 100644
--- a/vall_e/utils/io.py
+++ b/vall_e/utils/io.py
@@ -13,13 +13,12 @@ except:
 
 from .utils import truncate_json
 
-def json_stringify( data, truncate=False, pretty=False ):
+def json_stringify( data, truncate=False, pretty=False, raw=False ):
 	if truncate:
 		return truncate_json( json.dumps( data ) )
 	if pretty:
-		if use_orjson:
-			return json.dumps( data, option=json.OPT_INDENT_2 ).decode('utf-8')
-		return json.dumps( data, indent='\t' ).decode('utf-8')
+		s = json.dumps( data, option=json.OPT_INDENT_2 ) if use_orjson else json.dumps( data, indent='\t' )
+		return s if raw and use_orjson else s.decode('utf-8')
 	return json.dumps( data )
 
 def json_parse( string ):
@@ -34,11 +33,11 @@ def json_read( path, default=None ):
 	with (open( str(path), "rb" ) if use_orjson else open( str(path), "r", encoding="utf-8" ) ) as f:
 		return json_parse( f.read() )
 
-def json_write( data, path, truncate=False ):
+def json_write( data, path, **kwargs ):
 	path = coerce_path( path )
 	
 	with (open( str(path), "wb" ) if use_orjson else open( str(path), "w", encoding="utf-8" ) ) as f:
-		f.write( json_stringify( data, truncate=truncate ) )
+		f.write( json_stringify( data, raw=use_orjson, **kwargs ) )
 
 def coerce_path( path ):
 	return path if isinstance( path, Path ) else Path(path)
@@ -94,7 +93,7 @@ def torch_save( data, path, module_key=None ):
 	path = coerce_path(path)
 	ext = path.suffix
 
-	if ext in [".safetensor", ".sft"]:
+	if ext in [".safetensor", ".safetensors", ".sft"]:
 		data, metadata = state_dict_to_tensor_metadata( data, module_key=module_key )
 
 		return sft_save( data, path, metadata )
@@ -105,7 +104,7 @@ def torch_load( path, device="cpu", framework="pt", unsafe=True, load_metadata=T
 	path = coerce_path(path)
 	ext = path.suffix
 	
-	if ext in [".safetensor", ".sft"]:
+	if ext in [".safetensor", ".safetensors", ".sft"]:
 		state_dict = {}
 		with sft_load(path, framework=framework, device=device) as f:
 			for k in f.keys():
@@ -113,12 +112,13 @@ def torch_load( path, device="cpu", framework="pt", unsafe=True, load_metadata=T
 
 			if load_metadata:
 				metadata = f.metadata()
-				for k, v in metadata.items():
-					try:
-						metadata[k] = json.loads( v )
-					except Exception as e:
-						pass
-				state_dict = { module_key: state_dict } | metadata
+				if metadata is not None:
+					for k, v in metadata.items():
+						try:
+							metadata[k] = json.loads( v )
+						except Exception as e:
+							pass
+					state_dict = { module_key: state_dict } | metadata
 
 		return state_dict