CrossComms

CrossComms is a Windows desktop app that listens to your mic, translates what you say, turns it back into speech, and sends that speech into a virtual microphone for Discord, in-game voice chat, or other apps.

What It Does

• Captures your microphone live
• Transcribes your speech with local faster-whisper
• Translates the text with either Web mode or Local OPUS mode
• Speaks the translated result with local Piper voices
• Routes the translated voice into a virtual mic such as VB-CABLE

What You Need First

Before you run CrossComms, make sure you have:

• Windows
• Python 3.11+ installed and available on PATH
• VB-CABLE installed if you want the translated voice to appear as a microphone in Discord or games
• a working microphone
• internet access for Web translation and for first-time Local OPUS model downloads

Important:

• The app setup script installs the Python packages, local OPUS helper package, Piper runtime, and default Piper voices for you
• The app does not install Python or VB-CABLE for you

Setup Checklist

1. Install Python 3.11+
2. Install VB-CABLE
3. Open the folder where you cloned or downloaded CrossComms
4. Run:

.\setup.ps1

Or just double-click:

setup.bat

5. Launch the app with:

pythonw CrossComms.pyw

Or double-click:

CrossComms.pyw

What Setup Downloads

The setup script downloads and installs:

• local Python dependencies into .packages
• local OPUS translation helper dependencies into .packages-opus
• Piper runtime into .piper-runtime\piper
• the default Piper voice set into .piper-runtime\voices

Default voices included by setup:

• English
• Spanish
• French
• German
• Italian
• Portuguese
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Russian
• Vietnamese
• Chinese (Simplified)

VB-CABLE Checklist

If you want CrossComms to speak into Discord or a game, use this routing:

1. In CrossComms: Input Microphone = your real mic
2. In CrossComms: Virtual Cable Out = CABLE Input (VB-Audio Virtual Cable)
3. In Discord or your game: microphone/input device = CABLE Output (VB-Audio Virtual Cable)

That means:

• your real mic goes into CrossComms
• CrossComms speaks into CABLE Input
• Discord/game listens to CABLE Output

First App Test

After launch:

1. Pick your Source Language
2. Pick your Target Language
3. Pick your real mic as Input Microphone
4. Pick CABLE Input as Virtual Cable Out
5. Click Start
6. Say a short phrase

If you just want to test without talking, use the Manual Test section in the app.

Translation Modes

CrossComms currently has two translation modes:

• Web Uses the online translation backend. This is the most broadly compatible mode right now.
• Local OPUS Uses local OPUS/CTranslate2 models first. If a local pair is missing, CrossComms automatically falls back to the web translator instead of echoing your English back.

Current Local OPUS target coverage that I verified:

• local-first working: es, fr, de, it, ru, vi, zh-CN
• web fallback currently used: pt, pt-BR

So if you want the safest setup today, use:

• GPU Only + Local OPUS for the fastest local-first path
• GPU Only + Web if you want the broadest compatibility

Supported Languages

Current built-in language list:

• en English
• es Spanish
• fr French
• de German
• it Italian
• pt Portuguese
• pt-BR Portuguese (Brazil)
• ru Russian
• vi Vietnamese
• zh-CN Chinese (Simplified)

These are defined in languages.json.

Adding More Languages

To add another language:

1. Add it to languages.json
2. Add the matching Piper .onnx and .onnx.json voice files to .piper-runtime\voices
3. If you want public setup to download that voice automatically too, add it to setup.ps1
4. Restart the app

Example:

{
  "code": "pl",
  "name": "Polish",
  "voice_family": "pl",
  "default_target_voice": "pl_PL-darkman-medium.onnx"
}

Current Limits

This build works, but it is still an MVP.

Current limitations:

• some Local OPUS language pairs still fall back to Web
• first use of a Local OPUS pair may pause while its model downloads
• latency is not fully optimized yet
• it is not fully streaming end-to-end yet
• mic sensitivity is not exposed as a simple UI slider yet
• VB-CABLE routing still depends on correct Windows device selection

Handy Commands

Run tests:

python -m unittest discover -s tests

Compile check:

python -m compileall src app.py CrossComms.pyw

Launch with console hidden:

pythonw CrossComms.pyw