IMPROVE TEXT-TO-SPEECH VOICE

Windows 10 saw the addition of the Cortana assistant. Whether you use it or not, the voice itself is quite a bit better in terms of quality.

However, by default, users wanting to utilize these voices using various Text-to-speech programs like DRE are not able to do this. It requires a workaround that’s fairly simple to do.

Below we will go through the few steps involved to unlock the Cortana voices to be used for TTS applications.

Note

• This fix is for Windows 10 and 11 only! 
• These voices are often part of Windows Language Packs. If you want more voices (like British English “George” or “Hazel”), go to Windows Settings > Time & Language > Language, and install the English (United Kingdom) language pack before applying this unlock.
• This guide is only needed when DRE uses local voices. This guide has no effect when using Neural Voices.

Making the backup

1. Before making the required edits to the Registry Editor, we first should back up the existing registry, in case anything fails in the following steps.
2. Hit the Windows Start key and type Registry Editor
3. 
4. In Registry Editor go to File -> Export and save the registry backup
5. Close Registry Editor and you’re now ready to unlock the new Cortana voices

Unlock Cortana voices

How it works
Windows includes high-quality “OneCore” voices (often used by Cortana and Narrator) that are normally hidden from standard text-to-speech apps like DRE. We can “unlock” them by copying their registry keys to the location DRE looks for.

1. Download this zip file that contains registry editor ‘reg’ files
2. Open or extract the downloaded zip file
3. Double click either of the reg files. For (UK) voices, ensure you have English (United Kingdom) language pack installed in Windows Settings.
4. That’s it! The voice is now unlocked

Set Cortana voice as TTS voice

The steps to select the voice remain largely the same, but on Windows 11, the classic Control Panel is harder to find.

• Windows 10: Open Control Panel > Speech > Text to Speech.

• Windows 11: Press the Start key, type “Change text to speech settings” (or look for the “Speech Properties” legacy menu), and select your new Microsoft Eva Mobile or Microsoft Mark Mobile voice.

That’s it. Now your TTS voice should be using one of the Cortana voices.

The alternative

If you want even higher quality text-to-speech voices there are some pretty good payware versions out there.

Finally, DRE Essentials, Performance, and Ultimate all have neural text-to-speech, which improves the quality immensely.