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Announcer I keep hearing on Sirius radio

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Ian View Drop Down
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    Posted: 25 May 2012 at 3:14am
I don't have cable at my apartment so I miss out on most TV commercials. But I do listen to a lot of radio while working, Sirius in particular.

There's this one guy who does the voicing in almost every commercial, and his voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me. He's got sort of a high voice, and he's so damn cheery it makes me want to puke (Is it possible to get super excited over business leads???). In addition there's all this overproduction and compression on his voice so that in some places he doesn't even sound human.

Here's a list of commercials he's done:

- Freshbooks
- Penny Talk
- Go 2 Meeting

And a ton more. I don't know the guy's name so I can't look up any of his offenses. If anyone can point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ad Endless Nauseum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 May 2012 at 1:12pm
Don't know the dweeb's name, but I know the ads you are talking about. I've had XM for years. Partly, I think, the way he sounds so compressed is due to the way SiriusXM really compresses a lot of the non-music channels (weather/traffic, sports, talk) so that they can stuff more channels in to the available bandwidth, of which there is never enough for everything they try to broadcast.

The traffic/weather channels are so compressed, and so much of the higher audio frequencies have been removed, that many times I can't understand them at all with ordinary road noise.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Jun 2012 at 8:41pm
Originally posted by Ad Endless Nauseum Ad Endless Nauseum wrote:

Don't know the dweeb's name, but I know the ads you are talking about. I've had XM for years. Partly, I think, the way he sounds so compressed is due to the way SiriusXM really compresses a lot of the non-music channels (weather/traffic, sports, talk) so that they can stuff more channels in to the available bandwidth, of which there is never enough for everything they try to broadcast.

The traffic/weather channels are so compressed, and so much of the higher audio frequencies have been removed, that many times I can't understand them at all with ordinary road noise.


That's interesting, I had no idea that compressing the audio made it easier to fit more content onto their channels.

I listen mainly to Howard and Opie and Anthony, and I never hear levels of compression this bad (However, Howard also has a ton of effects on his voice - If you've ever heard him call into the Wrap-Up Show, his voice is actually much weaker and less bass-y than on the air).

But on these commercials the compression is horrible, and I hear it with other voice actors, too. I notice there's some weird noise any time a prominent "D" or "T" is said, and the inhuman voice quality really comes through when there's a word with a prominent "E" sound, like "easy" or "TV".
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ad Endless Nauseum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 Jun 2012 at 9:02am
If you want to hear "horrible", just for a comparison, tune your receiver to one of the traffic/weather channels, or to one of the sports channels when there is no sports being broadcast.

Music channels get full spectrum sound, and some of the talk channels, especially those you pay extra money to get. The human voice when just talking does not need a huge hunk of bandwidth in order to be understood, so they can clip it quite a lot and most listeners don't hear the lack.

It is similar to the shenanigans they pull for the legalese disclaimers on too many ads. Used to be they would hire people that really could talk two thousand words a minute and make themselves understood. Now, they record it with a guy speaking normally, then the sound engineer runs it through a computer to first compress it, to squeeze two minutes of crap into 30 seconds or less, then they have the computer slice out and throw away, say, ten milliseconds of data every 30 milliseconds, and squeeze THAT together. It is really easy to hear the audio distortion when they do that! It does not have to sound nice, and doesn't. It just has to be understandable by most of the listeners.

I usually punch a button to change the channel or kill the radio entirely when they play that crap. It drives me nuts.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 2012 at 2:04am
That's really interesting, I had no idea so much work was put into these commercials. I've always been a fan of analog recordings, and these commercials sound like examples of everything that's wrong with digital recording.

And is it just me, or do most commercials on Sirius sound like scams? I keep hearing all these credit repair company or payday loan company commercials and they just sound like horrendous fly-by-night companies. This one guy, Larry Rough, has had a ton over the years. It seems like every few months he has a new company (Probably because the old company went under, or had to be closed due to legal pressures).
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Phil Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jun 2012 at 9:00pm
I thought satellite radio was supposed to be commercial-free?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Jun 2012 at 7:56pm
Originally posted by Phil Phil wrote:

I thought satellite radio was supposed to be commercial-free?


God no. I think initially it was supposed to, but now there are a TON of commercials. A prime example is the Howard Stern show - I think it was pretty much commercial free when it started, now it seems like there's a 10 minute commercial break every 30 minutes. I've heard that Sirius is losing subscribers, so they need to get more money in.

It's a bit like cable TV - You pay a subscription fee and there are no commercials. Now pretty much every channel has commercials out the wazoo.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dizrythmia Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 Jul 2012 at 9:28am
the channels i listen to still are thankfully, but i just stick to the music. it doesn't surprise me to hear sirius is losing money, either. when the two companies merged, they went with sirius's freaking business model! that's a great idea. i don't remember if xm was turning a profit but i remember sirius was a sinking ship bound to go under if they didn't get help. enter xm. why xm bent over and let themselves get gobbled up like this i'll never understand.

i'm only still a subscriber because i really have no choice. i bought a lifetime subscription with xm back when it was xm. now it's siriusxm and some of the music channels have djs talking over the songs right up to where the singing starts, and now i hear the commercials are out of control...how is this better than fm exactly? i still miss the xm station i listened to all the time (mostly because there was practically zero talk, i had no idea who the djs even were on that station) but its version on siriusxm is still better than any fm station in my city. besides, by this point the price i paid for my subscription has paid for itself and now i'm just mooching.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Jul 2012 at 3:14am
Originally posted by dizrythmia dizrythmia wrote:

the channels i listen to still are thankfully, but i just stick to the music. it doesn't surprise me to hear sirius is losing money, either. when the two companies merged, they went with sirius's freaking business model! that's a great idea. i don't remember if xm was turning a profit but i remember sirius was a sinking ship bound to go under if they didn't get help. enter xm. why xm bent over and let themselves get gobbled up like this i'll never understand.

i'm only still a subscriber because i really have no choice. i bought a lifetime subscription with xm back when it was xm. now it's siriusxm and some of the music channels have djs talking over the songs right up to where the singing starts, and now i hear the commercials are out of control...how is this better than fm exactly? i still miss the xm station i listened to all the time (mostly because there was practically zero talk, i had no idea who the djs even were on that station) but its version on siriusxm is still better than any fm station in my city. besides, by this point the price i paid for my subscription has paid for itself and now i'm just mooching.


I actually pirate my Sirius streams off the internet, I've never given them a dime. I'm not familiar with their music stations, but that's because in this day and age I can just download a song I like or look it up on Youtube and listen to it whenever I want. The appeal of satellite, to me, is that there are no FCC regulations, so the DJ's can say and do whatever they want, and they don't have to really stick to the rigid rules that terrestrial radio has to.

Radio is a dying medium, mostly because of the availability of MP3 players, websites like Youtube and Spotify, etc., allowing people to listen to any song when they want. To make matters worse, most music stations on terrestrial radio play the same 20 songs all day, and they're trying to keep afloat by playing humongous blocks of commercials.

Sirius XM is also playing more commercials, but the quality of these commercials....Well....I guess Sirius XM will take any sponsor they can get. There are a TON of commercials that deal with stock trading, payday loans, technology for businesses, and they sound like horrible, horrible scams. The big thing I hear now are commercials for Windham Hotels. I guess they're just standard hotels, but the commercials emphasize the AMAZING things they have....Like being on beaches...Having wi-fi...Having free breakfast...Essentially anything you can find at any other hotel. And guess what! Their commercials are so obnoxious that I doubt I'll EVER go there.
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