Daily English 1280 Describing Poor Audio Quality

Dialogue/Story

Slow Speed begins at: 1:01
Explanation begins at: 2:46
Normal Speed begins at: 16:33

Complete Transcript

Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 1,280 – Describing Poor Audio Quality.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast episode 1,280. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

This episode is a dialogue between Young and Silvia about listening to something that is not recorded very well – that has poor audio quality. Let’s get started.

[start of dialogue]

Young: We have a major problem. The audio on the new presentation is really awful.

Silvia: Really? Let me listen to it. Oh, the volume fluctuates and keeps cutting out. We even have long periods of dead air!

Young: That’s only one of the many problems. Keep listening and you’ll hear lots of static in the background. Sometimes it’s so loud that it drowns out all other sounds.

Silvia: Oh no, the voices are distorted, too. Some speakers sound garbled and others sound muffled.

Young: And when you can make out what the speakers are saying, their voices are tinny.

Silvia: What are we going to do?

Young: I guess we can try to remaster it and see if we can make any improvements.

Silvia: What if we can’t?

Young: Worse comes to worst? We’ll use captions!

[end of dialogue]

Young begins our dialogue by saying to Silvia, “We have a major problem.” “Major” (major) means a big or important problem. Young says, “The audio on the new presentation is really awful” – is really bad, or terrible. “Audio” (audio) is sound that you hear that is recorded or copied. Usually it is recorded on some sort of electronic device. Most movies have “video” (video) as well as “audio.” “Video” is what you can see, what is recorded visually. “Audio” is what you can hear.

A “presentation” (presentation) is usually some information that is given to someone that includes both sound and visual information. A presentation at your office, where you work, might be someone standing up in front of you and talking about information, giving you information and showing you things. That’s a “presentation.” “The audio on the new presentation,” according to Young, “is really awful.” Silvia says, “Really?” She’s surprised. She then says, “Let me listen to it.” “Oh,” she says, “the volume fluctuates and keeps cutting out.” The “volume” (volume) of something is how loud it is. It is a measure of how much sound is being produced, we could say.

We talk about a “high volume” and a “low volume.” Something that is on “low volume” is not very loud. If you want to increase the volume, we would use the phrasal verb “turn it up” or “turn up the volume.” “To turn up the volume” means to increase the volume, to make something louder. The opposite would be “to turn down (down) the volume.” Here, the volume “fluctuates” (fluctuates). “To fluctuate” means to vary – to increase and then decrease, but not in a constant or steady way, to go up and down unpredictably.

The phrasal verb “to cut (cut) out” can mean simply to stop, but here it means for the sound to stop temporarily and then to begin again. If someone says the audio is “cutting out,” he means you can hear it and then suddenly you can’t hear it, and then you can hear it again. You know, what happens sometimes when you are listening to your music through your headphones or your earbuds on your phone, and suddenly you can’t hear the music, and then you can hear the music. That’s usually because you have a bad connection, perhaps. The wire is bad. That’s what we mean by audio “cutting out.”

Silvia says, “We even have long periods,” or long amounts of time, “of dead (dead) air (air).” “Dead air” is usually a phrase we associate with television or radio, when there is suddenly no sound. You can’t hear anything. That is usually because there is some technical problem at the radio station. Well, in this presentation, which was recorded electronically, there are times when there is dead air – and that of course is not good.

Young says, “That’s only one of the many problems. Keep listening and you’ll hear lots of static in the background.” “Static” (static) is noise in a recording that you don’t want there. Here’s an example of static that, if you’re old enough to remember, you might have heard on what we used to call a “record player,” something that played old vinyl albums. Listen. [static] That’s an example of static. There is static, Young says, “in the background” (background).

The “background” is what you hear in addition to the person talking on the audio. It’s the other noise in the room, or other noise that is present in addition to the person talking, or perhaps the music that is being played. Young says, “Sometimes it” – meaning the static – “is so loud that it drowns out the other sounds.” “To drown (drown) out” is a two-word phrasal verb meaning for the noise or the sound to be louder than something else so that you can’t hear what you want to hear.

If I’m talking to you and suddenly there’s a big motorcycle that drives by and makes a lot of noise, if that noise is very loud, it might drown me out. You won’t be able to hear me because the noise of the motorcycle is too loud. My neighbor likes to sing to himself sometimes, very loudly, and that sometimes drowns out my television that I am listening to, so I have to turn my television volume up, and then he sings louder, and then I turn my television up even louder. You get the idea.

Silvia says, “Oh no, the voices are distorted, too.” “To be distorted” (distorted) means to be difficult to hear or to understand, usually because there is some problem with the recording or because the device you are listening to has a problem. A voice that is “distorted” might be one that is suddenly very high or very low. This would be an example of a distorted voice. That’s really bad distortion. I apologize for that.

Silvia continues, “Some speakers,” meaning some of the people who are talking, “sound garbled and others sound muffled.” If someone sounds “garbled” (garbled), he is difficult to understand. It’s similar to “distorted.” “Muffled” (muffled) is when sound is not loud enough, perhaps because someone is covering the microphone or someone is not speaking very clearly. Young says, “And when you can make out what the speakers are saying, their voices are tinny.”

“To make (make) out what someone is saying” means to be able to understand what the other person is saying. We also use this phrasal verb when we are trying to read something that is very difficult because it isn’t written very clearly – maybe it was written with a pencil and it’s hard to read. “I can’t make out what this says.” I can’t understand it. Young also complains that some of the people in the recording have voices that sound “tinny” (tinny). If you have a “tinny” voice, it’s very high-pitched or difficult to understand. Well, that’s even more than tinny.

Silvia then says, “What are we going to do?” Young says, “I guess we can try to remaster it and see if we can make any improvements.” “To remaster” (remaster) is to use technology to improve the quality of sound that was recorded before, or often many years ago. Sometimes movie studios here in Los Angeles, movie companies, will “remaster” old movies, trying to improve the sound and the way they look. We usually use this term, however, to refer to improving the audio quality of something.

Silvia asks, “What if we can’t?” meaning what if we cannot remaster the audio to make it sound better. Young says, “Worse comes to worst? We’ll use captions.” The expression “worse (worse) comes to worst (worst)” is used to mean or describe a bad situation that gets even worse, that becomes as bad as possible. Young says in the worst situation, “We’ll use captions” (captions). “Captions” are when you have the words to what you are watching on the screen.

Captions are used in television and sometimes in movies when a person is difficult to understand, and so you put the words of what that person is saying on the bottom of the screen so that you can read them as well as listen to them. Watching programs, television shows, that are “captioned” in the language of the show – that is, not translated, but actually the same words that are being spoken by the person on the show or in the movie – is actually a very good way of improving your English. There’s some good scientific research about that.

Now let’s listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.

[start of dialogue]

Young: We have a major problem. The audio on the new presentation is really awful.

Silvia: Really? Let me listen to it. Oh, the volume fluctuates and keeps cutting out. We even have long periods of dead air!

Young: That’s only one of the many problems. Keep listening and you’ll hear lots of static in the background. Sometimes it’s so loud that it drowns out all other sounds.

Silvia: Oh no, the voices are distorted, too. Some speakers sound garbled and others sound muffled.

Young: And when you can make out what the speakers are saying, their voices are tinny.

Silvia: What are we going to do?

Young: I guess we can try to remaster it and see if we can make any improvements.

Silvia: What if we can’t?

Young: Worse comes to worst? We’ll use captions!

[end of dialogue]

I hope you can always make out what I’m saying, especially when I am talking about the wonderful scripts by our wonderful scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Tse.

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thanks for listening. Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.

Glossary

audio – recorded sounds; sound that are transmitted (sent through the air or wires) or copied

* Jerry downloads audio files of his favorite Internet radio show to listen to on his train ride to work each day.

presentation – a speech and other information, including visual aids, such as slides and handouts, provided to a live audience

* Are you nervous about giving a presentation to the board of directors?

volume – a measure of how loud something is; a measure of how much sound is being produced

* Could you please turn up the volume on the TV? I can’t hear what the reporters are saying.

to fluctuate – to vary; to increase and decrease in number and amount; to not be steady or constant

* Retail sales fluctuate with the weather. When it’s too cold and stormy, people stay home instead of going out to shop.

to cut out – for a signal or connection to temporarily break; for audio information to stop being heard

* My cell phone service was cutting out as we drove through the mountains.

dead air – a period of time when nothing is heard on the radio or nothing is seen or heard on television because there is a technical problem with the broadcast

* The radio station experienced a power outage during the storm, so there were a few minutes of dead air.

static – unintended (not planned) hissing or crackling noises heard in recorded audio messages or a phone call

* As we drove north of the city, our favorite radio station started to fill with static, so we had to find other stations that were nearby.

background – what happens behind the main action or event, which should not be the focus of the audience, listener, or reader

* The students tried to listen to their teacher, but they were distracted by the noise in the background as other children played outside.

to drown out – to be louder than something else, so that the other thing cannot be heard

* Carla turned up her radio to drown out the sounds of the fighting couple next door.

distorted – changed in a negative way; unclear and difficult to read or hear clearly, especially due to a problem with an electronic signal

* For the first few hours after dental surgery, Christof’s words were distorted because he couldn’t move his tongue properly.

garbled – unclear; distorted; not easily understood

* The drunk man’s words were garbled, but we thought he was asking to use a phone.

muffled – not loud and difficult to hear, because the source of the sound has been covered by something

* Their words were muffled by the scarves they had put over their mouth during the ice storm.

to make out – to be able to read or understand something that is difficult to see, interpret, or hear

* How do teachers make out what students with poor writing put on their tests?

tinny – having a high-pitched, unpleasant, metal-like sound

* Why do all the drive-thru restaurants have microphones that make the employees’ voices sound so tinny?

to remaster – to use technology to improve the quality of sounds that were recorded in the past

* The film academy is trying to remaster the soundtrack of films that were made more than 70 years ago.

worse comes to worst – a phrase meaning that a bad situation has gotten worse, becoming as bad as possible

* The flooding is going to be bad. Worse comes to worst, we can always stand on the roof and wait for someone to rescue us.

captions – words shown while an audio message is heard or a television broadcast is shown, so that people can read the words they are hearing

* On the news, when people who are interviewed are difficult to understand, viewers appreciate being able to read the captions.

Comprehension Questions

1. What’s wrong with the audio?
a) It’s too loud.
b) Too many people are speaking at the same time.
c) The voices are not clear.

2. What will they do if worse comes to worst?
a) They’ll re-record all the audio.
b) They’ll show the words for people to read while listening.
c) They’ll ask to get their money back.

Answers at bottom.

What Else Does It Mean?

static

The word “static,” in this podcast, means unintended (not planned) hissing or crackling noises heard in recorded audio messages or a phone call: “Do you think static from outer space could actually be messages from other forms of life?” The word “static” also means not moving or changing: “These web pages are static, meaning they never update.” Or, “It’s not realistic to think that housing prices will remain static.” Finally, the phrase “static electricity” describes the electrical charge that builds up on a surface and can produce an unpleasant shock when touched: “Rubbing a balloon on your hair can generate enough static electricity to make the balloon stick to a wall.” Or, “If you walk around on wool carpet, it creates enough static electricity that you can get shocked if you touch a piece of metal.”

tinny

In this podcast, the word “tinny” means having a high-pitched, unpleasant, metal-like sound: “The poor quality strings on the violin make is sound tinny.” Normally “tin” is a soft, silver-colored metal: “Have you considered installing a tin roof”? Or, “Where can I recycle tin scraps?” A “tin” can also be a metal container with a lid, often use for holding cookies or tea: “Thank you for the tin of Earl Grey tea. It’s delicious.” Or, “They baked holiday cookies and put them in decorative tins to give to the neighbors.” Finally, a “tin can” is a tin or aluminum can, a cylinder with a sealed top and bottom, used to store food for a longer period of time: “I didn’t feel like cooking, so I just heated up some soup from a tin can.”

Culture Note

The Vinyl Revival

The way in which people listen to music has changed “dramatically” (in major ways) over the past few decades (10-year periods, such as the 1960s, 1970s, etc.). Beginning in the late 1940s, people were listening to “pop music” (popular music) on “vinyl records,” or a disc of flat, normally black plastic with many “grooves” (small carved areas) that a record player “needle” (the pointed part of a record player) rested in to produce recorded sounds. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, vinyl records “gave way to” (became less common or popular as something else became more common or popular) to “4-tracks” and “cassette tapes” where music was recorded on long tapes that required rolling forward or backward to find a particular song. “Compact discs,” or “CDs” became popular in the 1980s, but then they gave way to “MP3s” (digital sound) and “streaming audio” (music that is heard while it is played on the Internet).

Usually, the old “audio format” (a way of listening to recorded sound) “fades away” (begins to disappear) as buyers begin to like and use new technologies. But beginning in the early 2000s, there was a “vinyl revival” in which people began “bringing back” (using again) vinyl records. There is a “resurgence” (an increase back to previous levels) of the popularity of vinyl, especially among “Millennials” (young people; the generation of people who became adults around 2000), who do not even remember the time when records first “came out” (became available for consumers to buy).

Vinyl records “represent” (make up) only a small “portion” (part; fraction or percentage) of all music sales, but “fans” (people who enthusiastically like something) “rave” (say good things) about the “tactile quality” (the ability for something to be touched and felt) of vinyl records.

Comprehension Answers

1 - c

2 - b