Who at Northern.... (Poor quality audio for auto-announcements)

[S101]

Who at Northern uploaded the automated announcements to all the diesel stock that sounds like someone is talking through a dirty sock, and thought, bloody hell that sounds amazing, let's keep it.

 

[DownSlow10]

Used to be some other Yorkshire bloke and he was fine and spoke clearly, before then it was a woman too and clearly spoken aswell. Changes that didn’t need to happen and you are completely right.

 

[Buzby]

Just travelled on 2 Northern DMU’s from Sheffield to Carlisle. The first leg on a 158, as you say was abysmal - even the change in person stating the destination included a pregnant pause and was amateurish in the extreme. It was not as bad from Leeds on a later vintage 158 but still the same long pause before random name generator came up with it.

 

[jfollows]

Yesterday on a 323 I couldn’t tell whether the announcements were in Welsh or in English. Although the station announcements still refer to “Sandback”.

 

[Pinus contorta]

Kirkby-in-Furness is non existent on the 156 announcements. Like when it has a long pause . .. "and please do not use the foot crossing until the train has left the station."But doesn't scroll forwards to this specific station at all!

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

I believe the voice is now the guy in charge of the customer information systems. So it sounds like both Northern and Great Northern both have poor sounding, to my ears, announcements largely because the people who source them like the sound of their own voices, unfortunately for us.

 

[jamieh27]

I believe the voice is now the guy in charge of the customer information systems. So it sounds like both Northern and Great Northern both have poor sounding, to my ears, announcements largely because the people who source them like the sound of their own voices, unfortunately for us.

The man incharge of the PIS announcements is David Curtis.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

The man incharge of the PIS announcements is David Curtis.

Yes, I know. And he's the voice too.
Figures

 

[jamieh27]

Who at Northern uploaded the automated announcements to all the diesel stock that sounds like someone is talking through a dirty sock, and thought, bloody hell that sounds amazing, let's keep it.

It was ment to be a reply to this one but clicked the wrong one

 

[ainsworth74]

For me the issue is less how the people are speaking and more whatever the hell Northern have done to the recordings in post processing. They sound incredibly crackly as if the train speakers are knackered. Yet the speakers are clearly fine because any manual PAs are crystal clear. No idea what Northern did to their announcement files but it's bloody terrible.

 

[Parallel]

Not to mention, Northern have introduced some really long, wordy scripts. PA is also about the quality of delivery - announcements need to be delivered in a clear tone with suitable pacing. I wish they'd re-introduce Trisha as she was perfect in this regard. Well, until something went wrong with the 195/331 system and she started shouting all stations starting with a 'w'.

With the current situation, I have no idea how the audio is reasonable quality on the 331/195 system but yet some phrases are terrible on TrainFX when they are the same recordings. I also have no idea why they feel the need to change scripts so regularly, when other TOCs do not.

 

[Acathater]

A lot of the Northern 156/158 fleet have knackered speakers / PA systems

 

[Nym]

A lot of the Northern 156/158 fleet have knackered speakers / PA systems

Didn’t “Digital Train” replace all these?

 

[Acathater]

Didn’t “Digital Train” replace all these?

If it did, it hasn't

 

[Recessio]

A lot of the Northern 156/158 fleet have knackered speakers / PA systems

True but as mentioned up thread the manual announcements are often fine, so it's something specific to the automated ones

 

[S101]

A lot of the Northern 156/158 fleet have knackered speakers / PA systems

The two 158s and 170 were crisp and perfect when the guard used it. The issue is with the bloke talking through a dirty sock, and his creepy heavy breathing through the speakers. How did they get it so wrong, and why has it been allowed to stay for what is now, months. The audio is better through my ring doorbell. That cost £70. Just saying.

I'd just like to meet the person (not really) who listend to the first live test on a unit and said 'woah, that's good. Let's roll it out across the entire fleet' rather than, 'christ, that's awful, do not under any circumstance continue until this is sorted, it sounds like a creepy pervert.....' for example.

All good fun though, from Hull, with the locals guessing at quite some volume what the voice sounds like.... (I think it was the breathing sound that sparked their interest)

 

[londonmidland]

Something is seriously wrong with their automated announcements (including their station announcements) but despite several complaints, Northern have absolutely no interest in resolving these issues.

They simply have their heads buried in the sand.

I remember being on a Northern 170 (which the 170s generally have excellent P.A quality) yet the automated announcements sounded like someone was breathing down my neck. Awfully crackly too.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

his creepy heavy breathing through the speakers

I laughed out loud.

 

[py_megapixel]

I believe the voice is now the guy in charge of the customer information systems. So it sounds like both Northern and Great Northern both have poor sounding, to my ears, announcements largely because the people who source them like the sound of their own voices, unfortunately for us.

I don't have a problem with the person who manages the system voicing it. It makes quite a lot of sense in terms of being able to deploy new recordings easily etc.

I do agree however that the Northern ones sound poor. Surely at the very least they could have gone through and trimmed the silence off the start and end of each clip so you don't get comically long pauses ("This station is............. Stockport!").

But even then the recordings are so muffled and softly spoken that on many units - I find 170s and 323s by far the worst but Sprinters can be pretty bad as well - you can barely make out what they're saying, and I could imagine a passenger struggling to understand an unfamiliar station name.

It pains me to say this as I feel it gives a much better impression to use a real human voice, but I wonder if they've looked at TTS to generate the clips? Many bus companies, as well as train companies elsewhere in the world, now do this and it seems to work well. It would still allow them to make updates quickly but the clips would be output automatically in decent quality without being muffled and without any strange background noise or gaps around them, and modern TTS software can do an impressive job of pronouncing things clearly.

 

[ScottGallagher]

AI voice and video generation is advancing so much now its scary so surely this is one of the obvious areas to sort out once and for all by embracing that?

 

[adc82140]

There are hundreds of community radio stations up and down the country. It would be easy for Northern to approach one, ask one of their presenters to voice the files, and get some advice on audio processing. It would likely only cost them a donation to radio station coffers.

 

[Recessio]

There are hundreds of community radio stations up and down the country. It would be easy for Northern to approach one, ask one of their presenters to voice the files, and get some advice on audio processing. It would likely only cost them a donation to radio station coffers.

You could get Alan Partridge to do the recordings on Anglia trains

 

[jh64]

You could get Alan Partridge to do the recordings on Anglia trains

Now arriving at... Chunky Norwich!

 

[Recessio]

Or maybe they could get "the Barry White of Beckton" from the Docklands Light Railway?

 

[Skie]

For me the issue is less how the people are speaking and more whatever the hell Northern have done to the recordings in post processing. They sound incredibly crackly as if the train speakers are knackered. Yet the speakers are clearly fine because any manual PAs are crystal clear. No idea what Northern did to their announcement files but it's bloody terrible.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the codec required for them to be played back in good quality is only available in an application that runs on a yellowing Windows XP machine that can never be connected to the internet.

So they just used a more modern system which has “adequate” versions of everything.

 

[DownSlow10]

Anyone else remember the woman and man voices on northern trains couple years back?

 

[apinnard]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the codec required for them to be played back in good quality is only available in an application that runs on a yellowing Windows XP machine that can never be connected to the internet.

So they just used a more modern system which has “adequate” versions of everything.

My company sells a cloud based phone system from Gamma called “Horizon” that only accepts autoattendant or voicemail greeting .wav files in u-Law at 8kHz mono. Anything greater or more modern and the system refuses to accept them. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some such archaic restriction on the train’s PIS.