Audio Feedback

I thought this thread was interesting.  I didn't know it existed. Seems that periodically, someone's got something they want to point out about the files. Maybe this is still a good place to do it, or maybe not.

Pete, no problem listening to Love Tangle Review. Thanks!

@sebire We've always filtered the phone voice to make them more realistic, I'll let Dave in the studio know and he'll come up with something more audible (he is, after all, extremely excellent at what he does).

Paul, maybe he had a sore throat?

I do have one point regarding the audio: I typically find it hard to hear the dialogues that have somebody on the phone in them. The person on the phone is soften too quiet to hear when in a less than ideal listening environment, e.g. walking along a busy road, on trains and in cars. It's fine if I'm at home, but I am sure that I am not the only person that listens to CPod on the move. Any chance of turning them up a notch?

Hi RJ,

I wasn't asking for a specific octave or key ... of course that would be too much.

I'm simply providing feedback that Pete has lowered his voice from previously and this has made it more difficult for me to catch his words and sentences when hearing them for the first time. Just compare his voice in the Lao Wang Plans Revenge recorded in March (which was great!) to the recent Lao Wang Final Episode.

@RJ Thanks, I do appreciate your follow up. :)

@Paulinurus We will always strive for perfection, and to do our best to satisfy increasing expectations, resulting in an ever improving product.

Matt

CPod PM

Matt,

Thank you for a mature and professional response to these recent issues. I look forward to a continuation of this same spirit in the future.

Tal, Matt,

The volume on the tabs you mention - (meaning the dialogue and expansion pages where you can click to hear individual sentences) did drop to almost an inaudible level after the change. This is better now with the mouse lesson and probably acceptable, but still below volume levels of past lessons. I wouldn't really call it a problem, just an observation.

Paul

Could it be that comments about individual's voices has made them a little self-conscious? I think they just need to relax and speak naturally. I dont know how such comments got mixed into the sound mixing software issue but I think they were out of place. To ask for a specific octave and key is a bit much dont you think?

The main Show podcast and the Review podcast are the two most important ones for me. I download them to my laptop and listen to them either while driving to work or returning home. I don't have the help of screen dialogue and vocab text and so have to depend solely on the sound, tone, and diction of the presenters to hear the words and sentences clearly. 

In the Review podcast, Connie's voice is always great. I just love her voice. Her pitch, diction, and tone makes it easy to catch what she says.  

Pete's voice has changed and it is now more difficult to catch his words and sentences. Just compare his voice in the Lao Wang Plans Revenge recorded in March to the recent Lao Wang Final Episode and you'll see what I  mean.

I reckon Pete's voice has dropped a full octave, from a baritone F to a bass F. A low bass voice is naturally more difficult to catch the words spoken than a baritone voice, specially when the words are also swallowed and spoken fast. Just listen to this sentence and you'll see what I mean       

 (You couldn't even take care of such a simple matter. I really doubt your competence.)

Tal_ 

I just listened, they seemed nomal to me, I'll have David analyze them in the studio tomorrow to make sure.

Also I'm having trouble downloading the audio review for 1237 - says broken link. We are trying to fix now.

Matt

CPod PM  

:p  

There is just one more thing actually. I've just been playing the onsite sounds in the Mouse lesson. Dialogue, Vocab and Expansion tabs all still seem to have low sound levels. Are you aware of this matt, is it something else waiting to be fixed?

"please add to the list: 1237 (Mouse Upstairs) audio review"

Actually, scratch that comment. Listening to it again it seems okay. Thanks for fixing these!

please add to the list: 1237 (Mouse Upstairs) audio review

Dear All,

Despite some suggestions, lesson errors have NOT been overlooked.

We have a spreadsheet for fixes, Funny Business, Part Two is on that list.

The tech team finally managed to fix our PDF problems, hence the translation edit was finally able to be added to the PDF, upon regeneration.

Due to the our outsourced server caching issues mentioned earlier in this thread you may not be able to see the new PDF for another day or two.

But rest assured, the translated sentence will finally read:

"Xiao Zhao, you’ve been at the company for a few months. You’re probably getting pretty good at your job, huh?"

RATHER THAN THE PREVIOUS:

"Xiao Zhao, you’ve been at the company for a few weeks. You’re probably getting pretty good at your job, huh."

ORIGINAL CHINESE:

“小赵，你来公司已经有几个月了。工作都上手了吗？”

I hope that this finally brings some satisfaction to those affected by this issue. We are endeavouring to fix all issues on our list, but please understand that this is one of the many tasks that our team is currently dealing with, hence this task will be scheduled into our daily workload. In time, I hope to fix all the errors. We are striving for perfection. 

Thanks for for your continued support and constructive feed back.

Regards,

Matt

ChinesePod Product Manager

Maybe the new ovens instructions were in Chinglish:

..and perhaps the troubleshooter wasn't much help either:

..and then when you try to follow the troubleshooting flowchart and arrive at domestic,you're confronted with this sign:

..so the search was on for a dustbin in an airport who's security forbade such things.

Everett took the words right out of my mouth, but in a much more elegant, poignant, and diplomatic writing style.

Cpod no doubt is the most innovative and forward looking supplier in preparing menus for people wanting to learn Chinese. It offers the best buffer in town, and perhaps even among all its other competitors in the world. Patrons can choose what and how much they wish to eat from the very wide range and variety of food available. They can stuff themselves to the tilt, or pick and choose only a few items discriminately. The only core expectation of the patrons (like in any other eating establishment) is that quality should always precede variety.

No doubt there are poddies like myself who give priority to just one or two menus - our core learning levels, say, intermediate and/or upper intermediate. We have a study pattern that we follow whenever a new lesson is released - listen to the show podcast and listen to the review podcast while on the run before visiting the site to do all the other screen related things. When there is a disruption to our routine, of course we are a bit unhappy.  

Of course due to the wide range of food and the speed needed to produce them for the weekly menu, there could be slips in the contents, but hopefully occasionally and not frequently. When a slip occurs and is reported such as the one in the translation of Funny Business II, the natural assumption is that the error will be corrected and not overlooked. 

When there is a problem with the food preparation, it can be expected that caring patrons will complain. Even one complain should be felt seriously heeded to, be acknowledged, and responded accordingly. If the complain is unjustified, tell us why so. If it is justified, tell us what's being done to resolve the problem and roughly the time frame for doing so. This is the transparency standard of any company in the world which truly has customer-service as its corporate mission.

When the same complain is made again and again it shouldn't be a surpise then if tolerance turns into anger. When you've subscribed to a long-term diet program it's not like you can just walk away and go to another diet plan immediately. If there is a problem with the kitchen oven or the food processing system that is interfering with our diet program which may require perhaps an indeterminate amount of time to fix (although at this day and age one would find it hard to believe that any computer related system problem would require an indeterminate amount of time to fix), we would require frequent updates of the situation so that we can manage our expectations and frustrations. Please don't tell us to eat other food or remind us about the variety of other food available - they may not be part of our diet program.  

Lots of great points in here and very interesting reading. I hope you don't mind some feedback from a big fan (as the panda said) and user.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems as if over the last year or so the CP lessons have been getting consistently stronger at integrating grammatical, lexical and pronounciation topics, and in developing a new topic or vocab item over the course of several lessons.  The lessons seem to be becoming better planned and more solid across the board.

I really appreciate that, thanks! People must have been putting in good work on that front; there's no way it just happened by itself. To everyone who is thinking hard about the best way of teaching this language and making it happen in the lessons, a big thank you! I just felt like this needed saying.

The lessons are the main thing, but when it comes to how they are presented I guess I'm the kind of customer who appreciates the basics:

• accurate pdfs and translations;

• good sound quality in the recordings;

• a responsive, simple user interface.

Please don't skimp on the most important details – especially proofreading and quality control of the recordings. The bells and whistles aren't worth it if they take time away from the basics. CP's high-quality lessons deserve to backed up with error-free supporting content.

If I were able to ask for one development, it would be a greater level of designed interactivity in the audio reviews. We need to train patterns rather than just be asked to burp up a memorized expansion sentence to "use the words in context". This one thing would be worth more than all the chrome of the last year.

But most of all, just keep doing what you've been doing – producing the best lessons out there for modern spoken Chinese. The corporate people on here seem to really know what they're talking about in terms of professionalism. But I've never minded the image – myth or not – that that CP started out as happy amateurs making recordings in a closet with homemade styrofoam soundproofing. The fresh energy and alternative approach are a big part of this site's attraction; don't lose that in the name of trying to appear too professional. But for goodness sake, proofread your stuff!

@tal_ awesome, glad its better - now to regenerate all the audio reviews done on AMS2 over the next week.

Okiedoke, I've redownloaded the audio review files for Funny Business 4 and Lao Wang Finale and the sound quality is now superb, big thank you once again. In fact it was great to enjoy Pete and Connie, (and your good self Matt,) loudly and clearly as they were meant to be.

I'm sure Pete could have had a great career doing voice-overs for Beer commercials and movie trailers. Man, how come you've thrown your life away on being a Scholar of Chinese History and Poetry? (kidding!)

And connie just turns the sounds of Mandarin into sweet music! Enough said!

Thanks to those of you who remained patient and understanding, and gave constructive criticism.

I'm interested to hear your feedback on the status of the audio reviews despite the caching setback, but alas I'm on a bus from Ningbo to Shanghai and only able to comment, not download.

May I remind everyone that personal attacks are NOT tolerated in this community.

As always, play nice.

Matt Coleman

ChinesePod Product Manager

Matt,

I've never had reason to complain about the quality of the audio on any of the lessons that I have downloaded and I have been with Chinesepod since the beginning.  Maybe the younger poddies have better hearing than me. 

In my book, quality assurance is all about fixing issues when they arise and continually improving the product.  Chinesepod does both.

Keep up the good work.

Ray

Is everyone here talking in code or somethinh? Ive reread my 2 posts & cant see anything mysterious in them - no more mysterious than any other anonymous poster here anyway. I thought I understood what irony was but I cant see any here, so I guess I must be stupid.  Please keep these kinds of comments up to aid in my analysis of you. I hereby dub this place Cybersylum.

mankiniman

Considering your mysterious nature, I would have to say that is an ironic statement.

Wow!  What an interesting group of people.  A psychologist could have a field day here.

Zaijian - and try to chill.

The Audio Review Files for the lessons mentioned before have been regenerated and re-uploaded, however due to our 3rd party file hosting cache-ing issues, it may take a few hours or even a day or two for you to access the new versions of these files (Caching is when versions of the files are backed up by the file hosts, a safety procedure in case of natural disasters etc, while this is a great idea, it is an inconvenience when we need to update files and have those updates available straight away). Over the next week, we will regenerate all the Audio Reviews published in August - to make sure you get the best quality that we can offer.

Matt Coleman

ChinesePod Product Manager

A big thank you from me then. Sorry I have been a tad outspoken re. this issue. (I too was never "angry" however, just a little impatient.) And I am grateful not only for CPod sorting this out but for all the recent improvements to the site.

You guys are the greatest, that's why we get hot and bothered when it's less than perfect! ;)

changye and RJ,

Both excellent suggestions.  Our top priority right now is fixing the disruptive bugs you're experiencing, but after that, I'd like to move on those.

Matt

Perhaps 7 day trial users should not be granted posting privledges. That would eliminate the sock puppet problem. Trial users would be instructed how to pm a staff member if they had a question. Just a thought.

Hi matt

I'm sorry for this off-topic comment.

Why don't you Chinesepod staff use icons/images that can tell users you are a member of Cpod staff. The problem is that newcomers usually have difficulty telling Chinesepod teachers/members from poddies here in the forum.

Audio Review audio levels problem is fixed. Please see Funny Business 4.

Now is the time for constructive assistance - I have a list of lessons that need fixing, if you have any other lessons ID's to add to this list please do. 

1222 Regenerated, currently beinhg uploaded

1226 Regenerated, currently beinhg uploaded

1227 Regenerated, currently beinhg uploaded

1228 Regenerated, currently beinhg uploaded

1229 Fixed

1235 Regenerated, currently beinhg uploaded

Wow.. what kind of tangled spiderweb of code did whoever (trevelyn?) weave? As a programmer who frequently digs into 15 year old vax/vms C code mixed with assembly, no matter how complex the system is i haven't spent more than 10 minutes locating the code in question, and this is across hundreds of loosely documented files.

Mankini is no sock puppet of ours. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we have no need to use sock puppets.

@Paulinurus Despite what you think, I use the title not for your benefit, but for the benefit of the newcomers who may not know me, so they know that the communication is an official message from Middle Management.

Our tech team has fixed the bugs, we are now testing. I am currently personally re-recording the English audio for 'Funny Business 4' with Connie rerecording the Chinese. We will then regenerate the audio review in the Academic Management System. If we have succeeded in solving the problem, I will republish and re-upload the lesson - then proceed to fix the other faulty audio reviews.

Matt Coleman

ChinesePod Product Manager

RJ,

I hear you, and I don't disagree with what you've said.  The problems are getting fixed.

I would like to echo some comments here and say that that ChinesePod should give more concrete time frames for solving problems and adding new features.  After all, as some have expressed, one man's ASAP is one hour; another man's is ten days.  In my mind it is perfectly acceptable to create a tentative time frame to deliver results.  If you can't make the deadline, then update us.  Yes, that does create some more pressure because you can't always fail to reach your target, but it would be better than getting a collective gripe session thrust onto the staff.

I think that it is time for a ChinesePod staff run group that is dedicated to updating this kind of stuff.  It seems ChinesePod only places notices up when there is a fire to put out or there is some sort of big release.

And if I haven't mentioned it enough, I too love ChinesePod.

PS: I know many people like the new gadgets and toys around here.  I'm not against them by any means.  But to be honest, I have my system.  I just want my pdfs, mp3s and message board access.  I say that only to point out that some of us do exist and are frustrated (although try to be understanding) of the core services getting less attention because of the new bells and whistles.

RJ, your words were really on the harsh side and it's good to see you putting them back in relation now.

Seems, that sockpuppet mankini says some right words here, whoever (s)he is.

I mean, I'm missing the pinyin in the iPod lyrics as well, but I informed the staff and am sure that it will be resolved.

You all are right, that cpod could sometimes stick to an established channel rather than running around, jumping onto every virtual train they can catch (twitter, google talk, uservoice, blog, forum, conversation policies, ...), just to realize that the ressources are not there to keep them all up and running, but isn't exactly this also one of the features we love so much: Trying new stuff, playing around just to staying fresh ?!

Look what we gained within a few weeks - new exercises, qing wen pdfs, skritter support - for a few minor glitches.

I remember one of my remarks on uservoice. "Don't tell us that you are awesome. You are, and finds out why himself." Didn't get too many vote back than, but I clearly felt that the self-advertisement was seriously reduced later on.

We got here an honest excuse from Matt - something quite difficult to get in some cultures (enterprise or country). Let's appreciate it.

Mankini

I can not speak for everyone but I for one am not angry, just a little disappointed at times and yes I agree with you, cpod is a great deal, and I like it very much. The minor glitches are not as bad as how they are handled. I could live with all of them. Its because we love Cpod that we strive to make it better and sometimes things that are not easy to say, need to be said. Once.

  All I ask is that cpod say what they mean and do what they say. And I dont think its too much to ask if we expect them to function using globally accepted practices based on common sense and good business strategies that offer some consistency. This is indeed a great product, and for that reason, some of us strive to make it better. It was never my intent to hurt anybody's feelings but rather to say something that needed to be said.

The question I have for you is who would have to create a new identity just to express their opinion here? Obviously you know the history and you have  strong feelings that you wanted to voice here but felt you could not do it as you, but instead needed to create a trial period "sock puppet" to hide behind. Who needs to do this and why?

RJ

Cpod's next venture should be sockpuppet.com!

mynash returns! Here's another opportunity to respond to an imposter!

My god, so many angry people. Some people need to learn to chill. $400 for 2 years of premium membership, giving you access to about 300 hours of podcasts, and now Skritter, and personalised answers to your questions on the discussion boards. My mandarin course costs $330 for 25 hours, and I believe that is relatively cheap. You guys are acting as though you think you are paying top dollar. They say you get what you pay for, and I think you are getting MUCH more than you are paying for. Its one thing to ASK for an improvement, its another thing to act like spoilt brats.

Yes, I had my hat on as an irated customer and shouted with the CAPS ON after receiving yet another horrible sound quality lesson. Business is all about roles and responsibilities toward customer service..... didn't they teach you this in management training courses?

@Matt, after all the weeks of flap about the sound quality, it didn't occur to you that before releasing the Lao Wang lesson that you should have first put out a notice saying that the sound situation has not been resolved and that you're still releasing the lesson because "I'm sure you'd prefer a lesson with slightly varying volumes in the audio review than us holding the lesson back due to quality issues."?

@Pete, I do sympathize with your loss of the poems program but it seems to me you should really take this issue up with your boss rather than inject poetic twists in your other responsibilities at Cpod. When I am listening to the review lesson, I'm trying to learn Chinese and it'll be a real help if you don't mumble and slur words out as if you're a personaliity acting in a play.    

@John, as RJ indicated there are some poddies here with years of successful corporate business and management experience. I am just a customer and it is not my role to tell you how to manage Cpod, but I will say this as a comment from a poddie: if Cpod aspires as a company objective to attract corporations as customers, you need to put more money in the budget for management training and customer service skills of staff. A comment such as "It may be hard to believe, but the problems we've had during the switchover to AMS2 are actually quite minor compared to problems with AMS1 in the past" just won't fly well with the real money corporate clients. Just like RJ said, in the real world heads would have been chopped for  releasing the AMS program without first conducting and testing for bugs. It is just unbelievable that basic functions such as correcting a file had not been tested and for Matt to say "I put in the corrected HTML document for the Funny Business II lesson but the AMS system continued to produce the erroneous pdf file." 

p.s. and Matt, don't you know that frequently displaying your title as a Cpod Product Manager just don't fly well with people here in the West. Unlike China, we here don't care about job titles even if you're a CEO of a company. In fact, it is a mockery on yourself displaying your job title when the operations are not well managed for superb customer service.  

Matt,

I have said my piece. Its up to you now. I noticed that you hedged your bets with the well known double acronym, "ASAP," which can be used as:

"Always Stop and Pray" 

or, the in a pinch back-up: 

"After September, April Possibly." ;-)

Im sure all will be well.  (AWBW).

Cheers

RJ

Tal_, RJ,

            QC is done before lessons are rolled out, however this problem wasn't able to be fixed in time for publication. I'm sure you'd prefer a lesson with slightly varying volumes in the audio review than us holding the lesson back due to quality issues.

The problem, as John said, is about tweaking the sound level normalization process.

Funnily enough, the audio sounds fine on my Macbook and headphones. Perhaps I should QC each lesson on a PC  as well just to make sure.

We made some progress today but I am still not satisfied that the file is up to the standards you expect.

Please bear with us on this. It WILL be fixed ASAP.

Regards,

Matt Coleman

John

With all due respect, this is a real business now and should be run like one. Time to grow up. I know some of these things come from above you in the chain of command, but:

1. software should be thoroughly tested before roll-out.

2. All lesson files should be checked by a QC third party before release and errors should be fixed (also before release). This is not the case, otherwise the roll-overs, lists, and sound files would not be riddled with errors. (separate from this sound issue).

3. Whatever needs to be done to provide an error-free product (such as manual re-works) should be done while you are working the real problem and until the real problem is fixed, regardless of addtional cost, overtime, and additional resources required. Its your job to put out the product the customers are paying for and expect. Its not their fault, its yours.

4. Dont patronize the customers.

This, plus the awesome content that you have,  would put you on a sure path to financial success. Maybe Im being too hard on you. After all this is just a website. If all you want to be is just a website, then never mind, but I kind of thought you wanted to be more. Many of your customers are working in the real business world and many of us would literally be fired for some of the things I see go on at Praxis. Forgive me if Im setting the bar too high. Its what Im paid to do, and old habits die hard. Good luck.

Of course I know, no sweat! ;)

tal

I think you know, but just to be sure, my comment wasn't aimed at you.

I have no complaints about the voices here, or the diction, (all excellent). All along I'm talking about the sound mix (lack of).

Actually pete I'll put it in writing that I love your voice, so... American. There's a whole continent in your vowels. With lakes and stuff, and Hiawatha.

And 怎么说呢？connie's is a voice to die for。

Pete

Don't get insecure about your voice.  It projects bad-ass braniac-ness.

John

Thanks for your explanation. I gotta admit, I don't know what it takes to make a professional sounding recording, so I'll trust you.

Hi quasifrog,

That's actually my clear speaking voice ;-) I know that I have a tendency to run my words together (and that's before a sip of the ole firewater) but I do try to enunciate clearly for the recordings.

And when I record the vocab/sentences in the sound booth, they sound good (volume-wise) to me. Something is getting lost on the way to the customers.

We're also frustrated about the audio system. All I can say is please be patient. We will get this sorted out as soon as possible.

So in other words, if the errors had been noticed by the 'quality control' department before they were even made available for download, none of these faulty files need have appeared. Just too much work to do that you see,太麻烦了。 Ah.

xiaophil,

It may be hard to believe, but the problems we've had during the switchover to AMS2 are actually quite minor compared to problems with AMS1 in the past.

All the raw files are in the system; that's not the issue.

It would be possible to manually edit the files, but it's a lot of work for just one file, when the work really needs to go into the normalization/file generation process.  Once that's done, regenerating and re-uploading the offending audio review files is trivial.

Not that it is terribly important, but my post should read:

The AMS1 creator must be having a laugh now. 

Are the raw audio files also missing?  I say this because I'm wondering if ChinesPod can use Audacity to remix the files?