Author Topic: Problems hearing Alasdair?  (Read 9846 times)

lunastrixae

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on: October 30, 2009, 03:37:56 PM
Oh please don't feed me to the sarlacc...

I like Alasdair. Really I do! The intros and outros are great and thoughtful and the readings are usually right on. For whatever the reason I have to strain to listen to him and really concentrate to catch everything he says. Am I the only one with this issue?

At first I thought perhaps it was my American ears and his accent, but that is not it. I work with people from around the globe. I think it has something to do with his recording equipment. There also seems to be a natural tendency to speak more quickly and quietly as a sentence continues. If this is simply recording gear, I'd be all into a pledge drive to up the tech. I know a new mic can get pretty costly.

Ideas? comments? Sarlacc feedings?



DKT

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Reply #1 on: October 30, 2009, 03:51:26 PM
Sarlaac!

(Just kidding. Welcome to the forums, BTW.)


Bdoomed

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Reply #2 on: October 30, 2009, 03:55:26 PM
Sometimes I have trouble hearing him, especially on a recent episode (forget which one tho!)
But I usually just ignore it and just deal with it.  It would be nice if he had better recording equipment, but its not a big deal for me.
we should start a pledge drive :P i like that idea

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Scattercat

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Reply #3 on: October 30, 2009, 05:31:46 PM
I think it's likely a combination of the equipment and Alasdair's vocal patterns.  He tends to have strong beats, then a beat of silence, and then a series of unaccented beats in a quick patter.  He's also usually much softer than the main story, so there's a lot of volume range to deal with.



jalan

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Reply #4 on: November 02, 2009, 05:02:14 AM
No problem here!  I listen with headphones though, so who knows.



Boggled Coriander

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Reply #5 on: November 02, 2009, 02:17:57 PM
I agree that the recording quality's not always the best with Alasdair, but I've never had any problems understanding him. 

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Unblinking

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Reply #6 on: November 04, 2009, 09:07:20 PM
He sounds fine on my headphones, though I do usually have to up the volume during his parts.  Since the player is clipped to my pants, it's not a big deal.



Bdoomed

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Reply #7 on: November 04, 2009, 11:57:40 PM
Yeah my problem hearing him is when I'm listening on my computer, which is outputting sound through my tv, which puts on a heavier bass.  Same with my car

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


cdugger

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Reply #8 on: December 05, 2009, 01:24:15 AM
While there are problems, I don't think they are Alasdair's.

I think the problem is that he has one of those voices that just doesn't convert well to a 96 mbps mp3 file. The compression comes at the cost of highs and lows, so, the lower the mbps rate, the more of each end you lose.

His voice has quite a bit of high components with a rich bass add-in. The mp3 compression just fubars it. And, there's not a lot that can be done about it except to EQ his voice to the point that it isn't his.

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stePH

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Reply #9 on: December 05, 2009, 06:14:51 AM
While there are problems, I don't think they are Alasdair's.

I think the problem is that he has one of those voices that just doesn't convert well to a 96 mbps mp3 file. The compression comes at the cost of highs and lows, so, the lower the mbps rate, the more of each end you lose.

His voice has quite a bit of high components with a rich bass add-in. The mp3 compression just fubars it. And, there's not a lot that can be done about it except to EQ his voice to the point that it isn't his.

Maybe so, but there was a period not long ago when his recording quality fell off sharply and stayed poor for some time.  I don't remember exactly when it returned to its previous, nominal level, but it was really bad for some time.

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cdugger

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Reply #10 on: December 06, 2009, 01:09:34 AM
Maybe so, but there was a period not long ago when his recording quality fell off sharply and stayed poor for some time.  I don't remember exactly when it returned to its previous, nominal level, but it was really bad for some time.

That could have been the use of a new or different conversion software. I have one that converts wav to mp3 with a horrible static burst at the end. Don't know why, but my other software doesn't do that.

If it went bad, then came back, then I would almost bet on a change of some kind.

I'm afraid I don't know what their 'studio' is like, so I can't intellectually comment on their acoustic/software/microphone set up.

Me? I would run it through a good de-hiss or noise reduction pass. Just to sharpen it up some.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2009, 01:11:31 AM by cdugger »

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deflective

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Reply #11 on: December 06, 2009, 01:56:18 AM
sounds like the mic but i'm no expert.

if there is a simple software tweak that would improve the quality of audio recordings i'd like to know about it.  Alasdair, any chance you would post a flac so the audio guys can listen to it?



cdugger

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Reply #12 on: December 06, 2009, 02:12:53 AM
Just about any wav editor (if you are using a PC) will clean up a recording.

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cdugger

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Reply #13 on: December 08, 2009, 01:43:38 AM
I've been listening to older PPs. In the ones in the hundred-teens, and especially 121 (Blood, snow, and sparrows), he sounds really good. Whatever they were doing then was working.

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sixdeaftaxis

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Reply #14 on: March 06, 2010, 04:57:12 AM
I love Alasdair's voice. I love his intros and outros. However, the audio quality of is recordings makes it impossible to listen to in the car, which is where I always listen to podcasts. It sounds like some combination of microphone problems, background noise, and compression problems. I would love to know if there is anything g we faithful listeners can do to help the situation.

Sometimes it is barely listenable. At other times, it is bad enough that I have simply been unable to listen to some of the stories he narrates on Paeudopod and elsewhere.

I don't know if Alasdair is ever geographically proximate to any other podcaster/narrator, but I would love to hear him on someone else's recording setup, and then see what we listeners can do to help him upgrade his equipment!



Ben Phillips

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Reply #15 on: March 09, 2010, 01:25:06 AM
Please name specific episodes that you're having trouble hearing.  If you're listening to an episode more than a month or two old we probably don't even remember how the equipment was set up.  Alasdair is quite often tinkering with his setup and trying new equipment, trying to improve the sound.  I work with him as much as I can, and do what I can in the post-production.  We know the end result is more variable than we'd like, and it's hard to test it on a huge variety of listening devices (I usually just hear it through my headphones and then through my little external PC speakers).  So let us know what equipment you're using to listen to it, e.g., "factory issue car stereo from 1996", etc.  We'll try to figure out what works on the widest variety of things.



Listener

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Reply #16 on: March 09, 2010, 02:01:15 PM
I've been catching up on my PP backlog, and while I don't have any difficulty HEARING Alasdair, it seems as though there's a metallic "ringing" behind his intros and outros. Kind of like someone's sharpening a sword in his vicinity while he's recording.

I haven't heard it in any of the stories he's recently performed for any of the casts. I think it's an artifact of the amplification/normalization process, but I'm not sure. I ONLY hear it when he's actually speaking, but not between sentences.

I have a 2007 Prius with a Bose sound system, and the audio source is an iPhone 3G coming into the system on a 1/8"-to-1/8" audio cable. I usually listen to PP with the iPhone at 75% and the sound system at level 19.

For comparison's sake, I listen to all EA podcasts between 17 and 22, Drabblecast at 35-40, iPhone music at 10-15, and radio at 6-8.

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Reply #17 on: March 12, 2010, 03:19:50 PM
As of episode 183, Alasdair has done something to his setup that eliminates the "sword sharpening" sound. It's a tad quieter than the story, but otherwise sounds good.

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tyrelever

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Reply #18 on: May 12, 2010, 03:56:37 AM
Hi Ben/Al

First, let me say that this criticism is intended as constructive feedback to which I hope illustrates an issue with I am having with listening to the cast.  Also, I am a really big fan of Al's work; I really dig his intros and outros.  Keep up the good work Al!

But.

I am also having problems with hearing Al, not so much in a lack of volume but with large amounts of 'hiss' evident whenever his mic is turned on.  This is especially bad in the car when the volume must be set higher than normal.  As for which episodes have this problem, I must say all off the eps in the last year or so to differing degrees.  In particular the previous Christmas episode (I think Mur was the author) was a good example of noise, hiss or whatever you call it.  Personally it was that bad I could not hear a word over the hiss for the first 30 minutes then suddenly cleared up.  Previous to this timeframe, even as far back as Mur hosting the cast there were little or no problems in this regard.

Some would say that this is a free podcast and that you can still hear the works spoken.  At times I do forget this is so as the production values on the other EA podcasts are simply excellent, maybe I’m spoilt but it noticeable. 

I don’t know exactly what the problem is but in my very layman’s experience it sounds like a recording made by a low quality mic/sound recorder or very low bitrate.  Could this be looked at and fixed?  I hope so, I’m even happy to assist with funding such an endeavour if required as I’m sure many others would be too.

Keep up the good work and thanks for bringing horror fiction to those who cant read traditional books :D

Cheers



« Last Edit: May 12, 2010, 03:58:32 AM by tyrelever »



gelee

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Reply #19 on: May 12, 2010, 04:46:20 PM
Well, the only problem I'm having with hearing Al is that he hasn't read a story in quite a while.  Anything on the horizon?  We've been treated to some fine voice talent, but our intrepid host is one of my favorite readers.



Ben Phillips

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Reply #20 on: July 13, 2010, 03:21:29 AM
Please, let's take up a collection and get the man some decent gear!

He's got a decent mike.  I'm pretty sure what he needs is for someone who knows acoustics to come to York, England, with some sound insulation and help him figure out how separate his mike from his laptop fan.  It's just that loud, and there are other logistical problems that I can't see and we don't have any easy way to talk about in the ridiculous level of detail that would be necessary to make any more headway than we have.  (Three years working together and we've still never had a real time voice conversation, although hopefully soon we'll use Skype to finally accomplish what I apparently can't thanks to the mysteries of international dialing.)

Anyway, I do what I can with the recordings in the software, but it's just a torture for all involved, especially poor Al who's completely fed up with the entire problem, and at a loss.  We may have actually discovered a breakthrough the other day, although I have a bad feeling it'll be rendered moot when he records something longer than a short sample and the fan kicks in.  Hopefully that's just my fatalism talking, though.  In the past three years we have put literally days, all told, of troubleshooting time into trying to get his rig sounding as good as we can, and we won't give up until we get it sounding nice consistently.  If throwing money at the problem could have solved it, it would be solved by now.  What we need is personnel, which I suppose could theoretically happen if we threw enough money at it, but I don't know who does sound engineering house calls in York; so I think social networking is a better bet.  Put your feelers out for someone near York who can go look at the setup and experiment with it.  I'm guessing Ian Stuart either hasn't had time to do it or couldn't figure out the issue either.  We've upgraded the mike, and we've upgraded the laptop (although not to a bona fide silent one yet...  I suppose that would be the next step in the throw-$$-at-it tack).



eytanz

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Reply #21 on: July 13, 2010, 07:51:21 AM
Please, let's take up a collection and get the man some decent gear!

He's got a decent mike.  I'm pretty sure what he needs is for someone who knows acoustics to come to York, England, with some sound insulation and help him figure out how separate his mike from his laptop fan.

Well... my girlfriend is a phonetician and knows quite a bit about acoustics and recordings (and she knows people who know more than we do), and she (and I) live in York. We would be very happy to help if we can.

Alasdair/Ben - if you're interested in us having a look and seeing if we can help, just PM or email me.