Microsoft’s Text-to-Speech: Changing Your Voice in Windows 10

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With advancements in speech recognition technology, Microsoft has introduced neural voices for its Text-to-Speech (TTS) feature. This article will guide you through setting up and using these new voices on Windows 10.

Why Use Neural Voices?

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Traditional TSS synthesizers use a single voice model that attempts to accurately mimic human speech patterns. However, this can result in robotic sounding output that lacks emotional depth. Enter neural voices - advanced algorithms designed to simulate natural human speech by learning from large datasets of recorded audio samples.

Installing Microsoft’s Text-to-Speech on Windows 10

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To use the new neural voices with Microsoft's TTS feature on Windows 10, follow these steps:

1. Open Settings and navigate to Accessibility > Speech.

2. Under 'Text-to-speech,' select 'Get more Voices.'

3. In the resulting dialog box, choose a language from the list (for example: English).

4. Scroll down until you see an option that says 'Download' beside one of the voice packs available for your chosen language.

Configuring Neural Voice Settings

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Once installed, neural voices can be easily activated and customized within Windows 10's built-in TTS settings:

1. Open Start > Settings.

2. In Accessibility, click on Speech & Dictation.

3. Under 'Text-to-speech,' select the desired voice from the drop-down menu.

Building an Airliner PA System with Microsoft .NET TTS API

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As a practical application of using neural voices in your own projects, let's create a basic desktop airliner public address system prototype using the Microsoft .NET Text-to-Speech (TTS) API. We'll cover both client-side implementation and server-side setup.

Client Side Implementation:

1. Download and install Visual Studio Community 2017 or later from 'Microsoft’s official download page'(https://www.visualstudio.com/visual-studio-community).

2. Create a new Console Application (.NET Framework) project in Visual Studio.

3. Right-click on your newly created project, then select 'Manage NuGet Packages.'

4. Search for `Microsoft.NET.TTS.SSML` and install it.

Server Side Setup:

1. Install the Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services Speech service SDK by following 'these instructions'(https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/speech-service/getting-started-dotnet).

Now that you have both client and server components set up, here's an example code snippet to get started with your airliner PA system:

```csharp

using MicrosoftSpeechRecognition;

// ...

class Program

{

static void Main(string'' args)

{

// Create a new instance of the SpeechSynthesizer object.

var synthesizer = new SpeechSynthesizer(

new SpeechSynthesisConfig()

.SetOutputFormat(SpeechOutputFormatNeutral16kHz24BitMonoStereo));

string messageToSpeak = 'Attention passengers, please fasten your seatbelts and place all electronic devices in airplane mode.';

// Set the speech rate to medium.

synthesizer.SpeakRate = SpeechSynthesisRateMedium;

try

{

// Speak out our pre-defined announcement.

synthesker.Text/html(messageToSpeak);

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

Console.WriteLine($'An error occurred while speaking: {ex.Message}');

}

Console.ReadLine();

}

```

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In conclusion, Microsoft's Text-to-Speech feature offers a powerful tool for developers looking to add advanced speech recognition capabilities to their applications. By following the steps outlined above and using neural voices from within Windows 10 or through third-party libraries like .NET TTS API, you can easily integrate high-quality text-to-speech functionality into your next project.