Yoruba text/audio don't match

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Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby elvisrules on January 1st, 2010, 2:25 pm

Hello,

Does the Yoruba Basic Course text come from the same source as the audio? Because I've just started it and already noticed a number of deviations. Most are minor wording differences but some are larger such as:
Yoruba Phonological Drills: 1. Low Rise vs. Low Low has a->d in the text, but only a and b on the audio.

Do you know if the complete audio was uploaded, whether the audio is an older version or if parts were damaged?

Thank you very much for your work on this resource.

elvisrules
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Re: Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby elvisrules on January 1st, 2010, 2:45 pm

It's the same for the ones afterwords as well, only a and b with c and d missing. Also, the last few seconds are sometimes cut off.
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Re: Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby VagabondPilgrim on January 4th, 2010, 9:27 pm

It's been a while since this has been posted. I'll have to go back and see what I can find.

Thanks,
-VP
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Re: Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby sawasawaya on January 26th, 2010, 2:12 pm

elvisrules,
You are correct. Some of the audio is missing. I checked out the first few cassettes of the FSI Yoruba Basic Course from my local library and listened to the audio for the first two phonological drills. They do not stop at B, but continue on with C and D.

I am a bit puzzled though - I began listening to what I believe is side A of the first cassette, but the cassette started with the phonological drills and had none of the introductory stuff. These are government-issued tapes, NOT from a third party reseller.

The audio quality on the first cassette is fine, though it remains to be heard if the rest of them are. Also, I don't think the library's set is complete. Some cassettes seem be missing and a few have lost their labels so I won't know exactly what's here until I listen to them all.

I can WAV these cassettes easily enough, and can convert those to mp3s. I won't try editing them out into separate lessons, much less separate exercises, though.

VagabondPilgrim,
When I convert to mp3, should I use constant bit rate or variable bit rate? Uploading is not an option for me but I can drop a disc in the mail if you'll provide an address, privately. I'll make a few jpegs to prove they're public domain.

Also, let me just add my own thanks for all the hard work you and so many contributors have made to create and maintain this site. Your efforts are profoundly appreciated.
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Re: Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby elvisrules on January 26th, 2010, 4:37 pm

sawasawaya,

Thank you for your interest in helping with the Yoruba course.

I anxiously await your upload! It doesn't matter to me what format they are in, so long as they are playable!
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Re: Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby VagabondPilgrim on January 26th, 2010, 5:31 pm

sawasawaya,

Variable bit rate is fine. Just let me know when you're ready to send them, and I'll send an address.

It appears that when the material was broken down into the various exercises that some of it was chopped off accidentally. It'll help quite a bit to have whole tapes to compare.

Thanks!
-VP
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Re: Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby sawasawaya on February 2nd, 2010, 8:30 pm

elvisrules and any others studying Yoruba,

I got some help from a friend and uploaded the unedited phonological drills for FSI Yoruba, covering up to page 70 in the book. These links are only good for 10 downloads, so please folks use them only if you're currently studying Yoruba. They'll be properly loaded to this site soon enough for anyone else. Or, if anybody wants to set up mirrors, have fun. The audio is from a legal source. The audio quality for Drills 13-14 is poor but the rest is good. I have made no attempt to clean up the audio.

http://rapidshare.com/files/345042236/FSI_Yoruba_Drills_112kbps_part1.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/345046083/FSI_Yoruba_Drills_112kbps_part2.zip

I'm currently digitizing the audio for Units 1-28. The library is missing the cassettes for Units 29-49. Then, there will be four more cassettes with "Supplementary materials" and that will be all I can do for Yoruba. The person who provided the earlier Yoruba materials thoughtfully broke down the supplementary material and sorted it in with each applicable lesson, but that's not the way the tapes were originally formatted. So far, it seems only the phonological drills were heavily edited. I haven't noticed missing material in the lessons proper, at least not yet.
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Re: Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby sawasawaya on February 3rd, 2010, 6:25 pm

Please forget what I said about the lessons proper not missing material. They are. The person who did the earlier editing seems to have wanted to hit all the highlights and remove some of the repetition. This is not *necessarily* a bad thing, particularly if you're using that audio to review the material, but for the first go-through I believe repetition was part of the point of the course. YMMV.
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Re: Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby Oberon on February 3rd, 2010, 9:52 pm

I downloaded and listened to the first zip mp3 files. Was there some sort of noise reduction or compression applied? I loaded them into Audacity and looked at the frequency response in the gaps between the spoken sections. Usually this just a flat response from 0 to about 10Khz. On these files the frequency never exceeds 5KHz.

Anyway, here are a couple of suggestions from my experience working with old tapes:

    1. These old FSI tapes were originally recorded in mono. If a stereo recording is created, the noise level can be reduced by converting to mono. Conversion to mono sums the values from both channels and divides the new total in half. The hiss noises on each channel are random and will partially cancel each other out, but the voice sounds on each channel are in sync and will reinforced each other.

    2. Don't use Dolby B or Dolby C on the player unless the tapes are marked as having been originally recorded with Dolby (doubtful on these old tapes). I use to think using Dolby was a good way to reduce the hiss, but it has the undesirable effect of reducing the high frequencies.

    3. Down sample to 22050 Hz in order to reduce the file size. This sampling rate will provide a frequency response up to about 11Khz. The human voice only goes up to about 10 KHz.
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Re: Yoruba text/audio don't match

Postby sawasawaya on February 4th, 2010, 1:07 pm

Oberon,

Thank you very much for sharing your technical expertise. Clearly I need help! :D

You're correct that I was using stereo, but I'll go back and redo them in mono. I'm glad I didn't take the first set of tapes back to the library already.

I didn't even think to check about the dolby settings on the cassette player. I'll take a look.

I don't have Audacity. I was using a Roxio package to convert the analog output to digital WAVs, and then Sound Editor to convert the WAVs to mp3s. I made no attempt to mess with the audio in any other way.

I'm not sure I understand your third point, but I'll poke around in the software to try to find what you're referring to. If all else fails I may have to try to get hold of Audacity.

Please keep the constructive criticism coming. I want to get this right, so it's appreciated. When I redo some files I'll post another link to ask for feedback before proceeding with the rest.

Thanks again.
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