1. A computer-implemented method for debugging and tuning synthesized audio, comprising the steps of: (a) receiving a user-supplied text with a visual user interface; (b) generating synthesized audio generated from concatenated phonetic units, the synthesized audio being a voice rendering of the user-supplied text; (c) displaying a waveform corresponding to the synthesized audio generated from concatenated phonetic units; (d) displaying parameters corresponding to at least one of the phonetic units, the parameters including configuration parameters comprising at least one weight for adjusting at least one search cost function, the at least one weight comprising at least one of a pitch cost weight and a duration cost weight; (e) displaying an original recording containing a selected phonetic unit; (f) receiving an editing input from the user; (g) adjusting at least one configuration parameter in accordance with the editing input and storing the at least one configuration parameter in a text-to-speech engine configuration file, wherein adjusting includes repositioning a phonetic alignment marker; (h) highlighting in the display of the original recording at least one user-selected phonetic unit; (i) correcting elements of a text-to-speech segment dataset of parameters corresponding to a segment of the synthesized audio identified as be problematic; (j) generating a new synthesized waveform corresponding to one or more adjusted parameters; and (k) repeating steps (b)-(j) until a desired synthesized output is generated.