Your race engineer, talking. It collects the alerts from the whole suite (radar, flags, pit wall, coach, weather, damage) and says them out loud, one at a time and in order of importance, so you don't have to look at the screen.
It is a desktop tool: you set it up once and it works in the background. It is NOT an overlay, it doesn't sit on top of iRacing.
Free.
⚠ IMPORTANT, SO YOU AREN'T DISAPPOINTED Today PL SPOTTER is COMPLETE inside but the other apps DO NOT send it their alerts yet. That means: you can hear and tune all 18 alerts with the "test" button, but on track they don't speak on their own yet. Each app (radar, flags, pit wall…) still has to be wired to the sound engine. It's on the list.
A single panel with everything on show:
Language Spanish, English, German, French, Italian and Chinese Verbosity how much it talks: from urgent only to everything Voice speed and volume Catalogue the 18 alerts, grouped by who sends them
Each alert in the list has its own controls:
switch turn THAT alert on or off, not the whole source ▶ test hear it right now, with sample data 📁 upload use your own .wav instead of the synthetic voice 🎙 record record 3 seconds with your mic (only if you have one) ✕ remove go back to the normal voice
When two alerts land at once, the most important one speaks and the other is dropped. Two voices never talk over each other. The order:
1 RADAR safety: a car alongside. Always first. 2 FLAGS urgent 3 Braking / urgent pit entry 4 FLAGS informational 5 COACH 6 PIT WALL informational 7 DAMAGE 8 WEATHER 9 General information
Also, an alert that is no longer useful gets thrown away: if it warns you about a car on your left and by the time it would speak that car is gone, it stays quiet. Silence beats a stale warning.
Windows takes time to start its voice. Measured for real on the PC: about 400 milliseconds from the decision to the first sound. Nearly half a second. On a "car on your left", that's a lot.
The fix: the ⚡ GENERATE FAST VOICES button in the voice panel.
It records each fixed-text alert to a sound file ONCE. After that there is nothing to start up: it plays instantly.
Generating them all 5.3 seconds, one time only
After that 1 millisecond to start speaking
(400 times faster, measured)
They stay saved: you don't have to regenerate them every time you open the app. Only if you change language or voice.
NOTE: alerts whose text CHANGES on track (the litres of fuel to add, for example) cannot be pre-recorded — there is no single possible audio for them. Those keep the live voice. That's why the counter says "X of Y".
The "✎ My calls" button. This is where SONIDO stops being an app and becomes YOUR engineer: you tell it what to say and when.
HOW IT WORKS
THE CALL write what you want it to say. WHEN (optional) when it should say it. Add · Test · Remove
Calls are saved, and from then on they play by themselves.
THE VARIABLES Inside the call you can drop live data in curly brackets. Click a variable in the list and it types itself in. For example:
"you're {posicion}, {vueltas_restantes} laps to go
and {combustible} litres left"
The 18 available:
{posicion} race position
{vuelta} current lap
{vueltas_restantes} laps remaining
{combustible} litres of fuel
{vueltas_gasolina} laps of fuel left
{gap_delante} gap to car ahead
{gap_detras} gap to car behind
{piloto_delante} name of car ahead
{piloto_detras} name of car behind
{ultima_vuelta} your last lap
{mejor_vuelta} your best lap
{temp_pista} track temperature
{temp_aire} air temperature
{lluvia} rain intensity
{mojado} track wetness (1-7)
{incidentes} incident points
{reparacion} repair seconds
{stint} laps this stint
THE "WHEN" Written in plain language, comparing a variable against a number:
combustible < 5 when under 5 litres are left posicion == 1 when you are leading mojado >= 4 when the track is quite wet incidentes > 12 when you're past 12 incident points
You can use < <= > >= == !=
Leave WHEN blank and you fire the call yourself with Test. If you write a condition wrong, that call is ignored and you get told: it never takes the sound down with it.
⚠ This does NOT run code. It is a reader of our own that only understands comparisons of those variables against numbers. A config file should not be able to execute anything on your PC, and here it can't.
On opening, SONIDO leaves a channel open so ADVANCE tools can speak through it. It tells you at startup:
"Channel open" all set
"The channel could not open (port busy)" your calls and your alerts
still work exactly the same; only that link with
ADVANCE is left out.Any alert can play in YOUR voice instead of the computer's.
📁 upload a .wav file you already have 🎙 record 3 seconds with the PC's microphone
They are saved next to the program, in the voces_custom folder. If you delete the file, that alert goes back to the normal voice on its own (it doesn't go mute).
Only .wav is accepted. There's no mp3 converter inside: converting it outside takes a moment and this way the app stays small.
NOTE: we do not imitate the voices of famous drivers. Besides being poor form, it is a genuine legal problem. Your own voice is yours.
Language the suite's 6. Changes instantly. Verbosity turn it up in practice, down in the race if it's too much. Speed the Windows voice reads slowly by default; turn it up. Volume independent of the game volume.
Everything saves itself on closing.
"No voice installed for this language" → Windows only ships some
voices. On the PC where this was tested there was a voice for Spanish and English, but NOT for German, French, Italian or Chinese. The app warns you and uses whatever is available. To get the others you have to install them in Windows (Settings → Time & language → Speech).
It takes half a second to speak → normal with the live voice. Press
⚡ GENERATE FAST VOICES and it becomes instant.
Nothing plays at all → check the app volume isn't at zero and that
Windows hasn't switched sound device. Try ▶ on any alert: if that plays, sound is fine.
Nothing is said during the race, but the "test" button works → that's
expected today. The apps don't send it alerts yet (see the warning at the top). It's not something you did wrong.
I recorded a clip and it stopped playing → check the .wav is still in
the voces_custom folder next to the program. If you deleted it, that alert goes back to the synthetic voice.
The 🎙 record button doesn't appear → no microphone was detected.
Connect one and reopen the app.
Nothing. It's free and works offline: the voice is Windows' own, nothing is sent to any server. Your recorded clips never leave your PC.