Does anyone know how I can get more voices?
You can download some more voices from many free TTS voices (which may not be so good). One of the sources for downloading free Microsoft and LTS TTS voices is Zero2000. You can also purchase very high quality TTS voices for Windows from companies like Ivona, Cepstral or CereProc.
Source Choose Text-to-Speech Voice in Windows 10
Answer from DavidPostill on Stack ExchangeDoes anyone know how I can get more voices?
You can download some more voices from many free TTS voices (which may not be so good). One of the sources for downloading free Microsoft and LTS TTS voices is Zero2000. You can also purchase very high quality TTS voices for Windows from companies like Ivona, Cepstral or CereProc.
Source Choose Text-to-Speech Voice in Windows 10
Narrator for Windows (all versions) has a few built-in options for male and female voices.
To set Narrator voice options (Microsoft)
Here is a good source for more voices:
Best Free Windows Narrator Voices You Can Use (Zero2000.com)
Excerpt:
In the world of today, more and more people use the text to speech computer technology to free their eyes and save time. As a vital component of the text to speech technology, voices, i.e. speech engines, are the core of text to speech software. Because text to speech software need to invoke voices to synthetic speech and output spoken audio.
There are many voices available on the Internet today, such as AT&T Natural Voices, Cepstral voices, IVONA voices, CereProc voices, NeoSpeech voices, etc.. But most of these voices are commercial and the prices are even higher than the prices of normal text-to-speech software. For example, the prices of AT&T Natural Voices are $35 (base required) plus $35 per additional voice, and the prices of Cepstral voices are &29.99 per voice.
Fortunately, there are also enough high-quality free voices we can use. Most of them are compatible with the Microsoft SAPI 4 or SAPI 5. Generally, the higher SAPI version, the better quality.
Here is the free voices list sorted by the recommended degree.
Microsoft Mike, Mary and Sam -
Microsoft Sam is the default English male voice shipped with Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Though not the default, Microsoft Sam is also available in Windows Vista Home Premium. It is used by Narrator, the screen reader program built into the operating system.
Microsoft Mike and Microsoft Mary are optional male and female voices respectively with better quality, available for download from the Microsoft website or other third party text-to-speech related websites.
The most noticeable feature of these three voices is there are both SAPI 4 and SAPI 5 versions of them. SAPI 5 voices are only available on Windows 2000 and later Windows NT-based operating systems. As an exception, the SAPI 5 versions of these voices cannot be installed on Windows Vista and Windows 7. The SAPI 4 versions are more compatible. They can be installed and used on Windows 98 and all the later Windows operating systems.
Microsoft Anna -
Microsoft Anna is the default English voice shipped with Windows Vista and Windows 7. Microsoft Anna is a SAPI 5-only voice and is designed to sound more natural than the previous system default voice Microsoft Sam.
This excellent female voice is base on the new Microsoft SAPI 5.3/5.4. So you cannot use it on Windows XP directly and also there is no standalone installer of this voice on the Microsoft website. The only way to use this fantastic voice on Windows XP is by the Microsoft Streets & Trips. The Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006 and later versions install the voice and the new Microsoft SAPI onto Windows XP computers for the voice-prompt direction feature.
Some third party text-to-speech related websites supply smaller repacked Microsoft Anna installers for Windows XP users. However, it's incomplete and not working correctly on Windows XP because the SAPI version of Windows XP is 5.1.
Lernout & Hauspie Voices -
Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, or L&H, was a leading Belgium-based speech recognition technology company. This company released dozens of high-quality SAPI 4 voices across multiple languages, including ten American English voices and two British English voices.
In addition, Lernout & Hauspie Michael and Michelle are also optional male and female voices licensed by Microsoft from Lernout & Hauspie, and available through Microsoft Office XP and Microsoft Office 2003 or Microsoft Reader.
Most of the above voices can be found on the Microsoft's website or downloaded directly from the 2nd Speech Center web site. Click here to download them immediately.
Hello reddit,
Today I am seeking as many free TTS voices for Windows offline. It leaves me baffled that not too many free, offline high quality voices exist, and those that do are very obscure.
I am seeking alternatives to the Microsoft runtimes and provided Windows voices.
Just use the tutorial on this page:
!!!WARNING!!!
This involves manual edits to your registry. If you mess it up, don't blame me. Do at your own risk.
Step 1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Install the Speech Platform v11
a) go here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27225
b) click "Download"
c) select the "x64_SpeechPlatformRuntime\SpeechPlatformRuntime.msi"
d) run the installer (duh :P)
Step 2: --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Get the alternate voices
a) go here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27224
b) click "Download"
c) select the voice files you want. They are the ones that have "TTS" in the file name.
There are 6 English (all female). I have not listened to the other languages, so I dont know how they sound. GB_Hazel and US_ZiraPro are IMO the better sounding voices.
MSSpeech_TTS_en-CA_Heather
MSSpeech_TTS_en-GB_Hazel
MSSpeech_TTS_en-IN_Heera
MSSpeech_TTS_en-US_Helen
MSSpeech_TTS_en-US_ZiraPro
MSSpeech_TTS_en-AU_Hayley
d) run the installers for each (duh :P)
Step 3: --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extract the registry tokens
a) Open Regedit
b) Under - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech Server\v11.0\Voices - right click the "Tokens" folder and export. Save this file to your desktop as voices1.reg so it will be easy to find later.
b) Under - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Speech Server\v11.0\Voices - right click "Tokens" and again export it, again to the desktop. Call it voices2.reg.
Step 4: --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit the voices1/2 files
a) open Voices1.reg in Notepad.
b) press "cntrl + H"
c) enter \Speech Server\v11.0\ into the "Find What" field
d) enter \Speech\ into the "Replace With" field
e) click "Replace All"
f) Save File
g) Repeat a-f with the Voices2.reg file
Step 5: --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Merge the new Registry files into your registry
a) double click to "run" both Voices1.reg and Voices2.reg
b) Click "Yes" when it prompts
You should now have access to the new voices in Voice Attack, and in the Windows TTS options menu.
This process may also work with other voice packs.
UPDATE (2024-11-11)
On Windows-11, the registry PATH is now: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech_OneCore\...
You might be installing 32-bit voices that are unavailable when using the 64-bit Speech Properties dialog that you normally see on 64-bit Windows.
Try using the 32-bit dialog by invoking %windir%\sysWOW64\speech\SpeechUX\SAPI.cpl.