Adding Free Windows Voices To P2ATC (VIDEO)

[TallTanBarbie 19]

I found this YouTube video with a good but simple and quick tutorial to do this -- and additional comments to make many voices available.

 

 

From user Alexey Smirnov :

Thanks for the guide! After a little tinkering I've somehow updated it.

1. Go to Windows Settings / Time and Language / Language. Press "Add a Language" and choose all that have TTS symbol next to it -- text bubble out of computer monitor. You'll have to click each language, press Next and tick Text-to-Speech option, others are not necessary. Then click Install and wait for the installation to end. This way you'll have all the voices. Bear in mind that some controllers have really heavy accents. It's actually realistic, but if you aren't up for a challenge, install only versions of English, maybe German, French, Russian and Italian.

2. Open Regedit as in video, find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech_OneCore\Voices\Tokens\, but instead of exporting each voice separately you can export all Tokens branch, it will include all the voices.

3. Open exported file with Notepad as in video, press Ctrl+H (Replace), in "Find what" field enter "_OneCore" (without quotation marks, ofc), in "Replace with" enter nothing (make sure it's really nothing, not space). It will remove all _OneCore's. Save and merge as in video. Now (re)start Pilot2ATC and choose individual voices for each controller. If you prefer to use random voices, assign them as described in the manual, or close Pilot2ATC, open %appdata%\P2A_200\Settings (folder is hidden by default) and edit ATCVoices.xml with Notepad (better Notepad++). You can use my file https://pastebin.com/WUiMT49S just add/delete voices that aren't installed on your system.

Start Pilot2ATC now and make sure you have a huuuuge list of random voices available.

Now there's a problem: you have MANY installed input languages. And if you uninstall them, you'll loose the voices too! There's a workaround though. Go back to Regedit, Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Keyboard Layout\Preload, and remove all the entries you don't need. Most people need only English (US) input and their local one. They are coded as string values: name is the number in order, data is the locale id. E.g. English US is 1 and 00000409. To find all the locales, go to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/default-input-locales-for-windows-language-packs?view=windows-11 and look for the code in the third column, it looks like (xxxx:CODE) for each language. After all the editing, you shoud have 2-3 string entries in Preload branch, each numbered in order 1, 2, 3 and with corresponding locale ids for value. Logout from Windows and log back in. Some eastern languages might not be removed this way, you'll have to uninstall them.

Don't forget to test all the voices inside Pilot2ATC!

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by TallTanBarbie

[pfpeter 3]

Just remember when there is an update to Windows they may disappear again, and you have to do it again. It happend for me when I updated my Windows to 2H22. Fortunately I had saved all my voice *.reg files, so it was just to doubleclick each *.reg file and answer yes to th question. Then they were all back.

[Bruce953 2]

This worked really well right until the end part - merging the edited reg files. . .Wouldn't  you know it, MS have deleted 'Merge' from the menu choices in Win11.

I haven't been able to find a way round this unfortunately.

[Flypops 50]

I'm using W11 and had no problem merging. You should see a "show more options" in the drop down and when you click that it will give you the merge option right on top.

[Bruce953 2]

14 hours ago, Flypops said:

I'm using W11 and had no problem merging. You should see a "show more options" in the drop down and when you click that it will give you the merge option right on top.

The top item here is Open and not Merge.  I am the only administrator on this PC. I wonder if ESET is interfering I'll look at that? 

Edit: No, I cant get 'Merge' to show.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Bruce953
Update

[Flypops 50]

Bruce,

When you right click on the "name.reg" file you will see Open at the top of the drop down menu. But at the bottom you should see "show more options". If you click that you should then see the Merge at the top of the new drop down menu.

[Bruce953 2]

4 hours ago, Flypops said:

Bruce,

When you right click on the "name.reg" file you will see Open at the top of the drop down menu. But at the bottom you should see "show more options". If you click that you should then see the Merge at the top of the new drop down menu.

Fraid that didn't work for me still no Merge option, just Open.  But - I found a little installer called reg.edit which is now in the 'Open with' menu option. 

So I open the saved voice with reg.edit click OK and the 'merge' is successful.  Phew it's taken hours. . .I now have four new voices in P2ATC.

Thanks for your help, BB

Edited December 13, 2022 by Bruce953
correction

[Flypops 50]

7 hours ago, Bruce953 said:

I now have four new voices in P2ATC.

Glad you got it to work.