dauber Posted December 29, 2009 Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 Can anybody explain why sometimes when I take the Blue Line the automated announcements seem to be cut off? "Doors open on the at Jackson;" "Doors open on the at La Salle..." It sounds like they literally cut the door-open indication from the recording and spliced the rest back together, know what I mean??? I've only encountered this on the Blue Line....very strange.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted December 29, 2009 Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 Don't know the explanation for the exact stops, but, in essence, the recordings were created the opposite of how you think. Early on, there were TV news stories about Mr. CTA sitting in Wisconsin and saying "Jackson," "Clyboorne," "Goethe" (German pronunciation, not Chicago's), etc. Then the computer in the announcement module* puts the clips together. This process is similar to how commercials for syndicated shows are constructed. For instance, I remember a similar story about Alex Trebek recording segments "Watch Jeopardy today" "at" "one" "two" "three" "three thrity" "four" "four thirty" "on channel." In fact, Svengoolie and Roe Conn say that there is no more tape or film in broadcasting; everything is dumped into the computer. The Mr. CTA ones usually seem more smoothly constructed that the Mr. Metra ("North" "Glenview"; "North" "Brook") and Miss Pace ("Route" "2" "7" "0" "SOUTHBOUND" "to" "Jefferson Park" "CTA STATION") ones, here noting the discontinuities, and apparently higher volume on the Pace ones in caps. Thus, the likely explanation is that either the script left out the memory location for "left" or that memory location went dead. You probably can rule out the latter if "left" turns up at some other stop. ___________ *I originally said Clever Device, but forgot you were talking about the L. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dauber Posted December 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2009 Okay, so I guess you just answered another question for me -- is the bus announcer guy the same as the train? They sound alike, but they also sound slightly different....guess they're they same guy! BTW...what you describe has been going on longer than many people may realize. When I was in college studying for my journalism degree with a concentration in radio broadcasting, my radio advisor told us about how he was working for a satellite service, and one of the stations said they wanted to use his voice for their local weather reports. The only thing he could think of doing to be able to make it happen was to record himself saying literally every conceivable weather condition and letting them edit it together as needed. (BTW -- what is the "Chicago" pronunciation of "Goethe"??) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted December 31, 2009 Report Share Posted December 31, 2009 Okay, so I guess you just answered another question for me -- is the bus announcer guy the same as the train? They sound alike, but they also sound slightly different....guess they're they same guy! ... (BTW -- what is the "Chicago" pronunciation of "Goethe"??) Again, this is based on memory, but CTA originally had a woman's voice on the buses, but then used the same guy as previously used on the L for "uniform branding purposes." Also, the issue isn't so much the Chicago pronunciation of Goethe, which is as it is spelled (sort of like Goaty), but the correct German one, which is more like Gerta (sample found via Google).Again, this is more based on reports, while it is pretty easy to hear Clyboorn instead of Clyborn in the subway for North and Clybourn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted January 22, 2013 Report Share Posted January 22, 2013 Don't know the explanation for the exact stops, but, in essence, the recordings were created the opposite of how you think. Early on, there were TV news stories about Mr. CTA sitting in Wisconsin and saying "Jackson," "Clyboorne," "Goethe" (German pronunciation, not Chicago's), etc. Then the computer in the announcement module* puts the clips together. This process is similar to how commercials for syndicated shows are constructed. For instance, I remember a similar story about Alex Trebek recording segments "Watch Jeopardy today" "at" "one" "two" "three" "three thrity" "four" "four thirty" "on channel." The home page has a link to a DNAInfo about Mr. CTA, and the description indicates that it works about as I said. Defends the German pronunciation of Goethe, even though it is not the Chicago one. The reference to each number up to a thousand must be for run numbers, not route numbers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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