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Will Celia replace Phil?

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Please redirect me if I'm repaiting a thread.

Will Celia replace Phil Sayer in the station pa systems? I know she had already replaced him at Northern stations (where she wasn't already the pa) before he passed away.

Will she be up and down announcements, global at Clapham Junction or even London Waterloo?

She sounds a bit intense at non-Northern stations.

Or is it more rollouts of the utopian Atos Anne?
 
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greaterwest

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She may well do, it really depends how long it will take for new announcements to be required, I hope so though if there is no other alternative.

For variation, there is also the Amey system used by Virgin Trains / some Southern stations and the Ruth system used by Arriva Trains Wales (I believe this is an older ATOS system, but Ruth sounds nice and her announcements flow extremely well, even with the new recordings)

I've heard the hardware SWT use (something to do with the platform screens) isn't compatible with the ATOS system so no worries there right now.

I don't want to see any more Anne on the network.
 
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Andyh82

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The cheapest option would be to get someone who could do a sound alike impression of Phil to record the odd new station or new TOC name.

If you think that sounds crass, I believe the famous X Factor voiceover man style that Peter Dickson uses on said show was based on a style used on digital channel E4 by a previous announcer who died. Peter then took over from him imitating the same style and then became more popular than the original when it used on The X Factor.
 

greaterwest

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The cheapest option would be to get someone who could do a sound alike impression of Phil to record the odd new station or new TOC name.

If you think that sounds crass, I believe the famous X Factor voiceover man style that Peter Dickson uses on said show was based on a style used on digital channel E4 by a previous announcer who died. Peter then took over from him imitating the same style and then became more popular than the original when it used on The X Factor.

The cheapest option would be to use Celia only.

I think if they were to get a soundalike to do it, they should get a new professional artist all together.
 

Bletchleyite

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I would imagine they will look for an another male announcer and re-record, as an advantage of having a male and female voice is that you can run two announcements in parallel on nearby platforms without understandability issues - the brain is very good at picking out a male voice from a female voice to listen to the one that is relevant.

ISTR at New St the islands alternated as to whether a male or female voice was used?

More generally I wonder how long before they move to a fully synthesized voice, or something like AviaVox where instead of recording words you just record speech fragments/phonemes.
 
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greaterwest

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I would imagine they will look for an another male announcer and re-record, as an advantage of having a male and female voice is that you can run two announcements in parallel on nearby platforms without understandability issues - the brain is very good at picking out a male voice from a female voice to listen to the one that is relevant.

ISTR at New St the islands alternated as to whether a male or female voice was used?

More generally I wonder how long before they move to a fully synthesized voice, or something like AviaVox where instead of recording words you just record speech fragments/phonemes.

I don't think a fully synthesised voice would ever replace the value of an actual person's voice (especially if recordings made by the person work well) although the disadvantage of that is that, sadly, nobody lives forever.

Clapham Junction alternates between islands I believe, and most other SWT stations do too (look at Southampton Central, Basingstoke, Woking)
 
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Bletchleyite

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I don't think a fully synthesised voice would ever replace the value of an actual person's voice (especially if recordings made by the person work well) although the disadvantage of that is that, sadly, nobody lives forever.

True, though you then get hybrids like AviaVox which I've mentioned before. The Dutch accent might grate, but it does work!

[youtube]ZrwZvwPmELA[/youtube]

FWIW the woman who did the recording of the phonemes used to be a manual announcer at Schiphol (may still be), so you sometimes got her from the system and sometimes manually - very confusing!
 

CyrusWuff

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I don't think a fully synthesised voice would ever replace the value of an actual person's voice (especially if recordings made by the person work well) although the disadvantage of that is that, sadly, nobody lives forever.

I'm not sure what system London Underground use at King's Cross St. Pancras, but it sounds like a text to speech system. It's a bit grating though, as the pronunciation is off (e.g. the Pick-ah-dilly Line instead of Pickerdilly).
 

Bletchleyite

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I'm not sure what system London Underground use at King's Cross St. Pancras, but it sounds like a text to speech system. It's a bit grating though, as the pronunciation is off (e.g. the Pick-ah-dilly Line instead of Pickerdilly).

Yes, I would agree with that, it sounds like one, and it does sound a bit odd.
 

HMS Ark Royal

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The cheapest option would be to get someone who could do a sound alike impression of Phil to record the odd new station or new TOC name.

If you think that sounds crass, I believe the famous X Factor voiceover man style that Peter Dickson uses on said show was based on a style used on digital channel E4 by a previous announcer who died. Peter then took over from him imitating the same style and then became more popular than the original when it used on The X Factor.

Didn't he get his voice by impersonating the guy that used to do the voice overs on TUGS?
 

swt_passenger

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I would imagine they will look for an another male announcer and re-record, as an advantage of having a male and female voice is that you can run two announcements in parallel on nearby platforms without understandability issues - the brain is very good at picking out a male voice from a female voice to listen to the one that is relevant.

That's the first issue I thought of about having only one voice. Indeed two different female voices wouldn't allow for that. Many SWT stations have separate announcements, even at fairly straightforward 2 platform stations like Winchester they operate independently.
 

CaptainHaddock

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You can have hours minutes of fun creating your own announcements by visiting http://www.acapela-group.com/ and typing the phrase of your choice (eg "We are sorry to announce that all trains to London are currently cancelled due to an escaped wildebeest on the line at Peterborough.") into the text box on the left!
 

greaterwest

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That's the first issue I thought of about having only one voice. Indeed two different female voices wouldn't allow for that. Many SWT stations have separate announcements, even at fairly straightforward 2 platform stations like Winchester they operate independently.

GWR seem to manage with Anne at Reading, and Guildford seems to be Phil land, so I don't see why it can't be done on SWT's network, even if only temporarily.

I seem to remember Bristol Temple Meads was 13 platforms of Celia many years ago, too.
 
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I don't think a fully synthesised voice would ever replace the value of an actual person's voice (especially if recordings made by the person work well) although the disadvantage of that is that, sadly, nobody lives forever.

Clapham Junction alternates between islands I believe, and most other SWT stations do too (look at Southampton Central, Basingstoke, Woking)

Yes at Feltham in SWT land, the down platform is female and the up platform is male.
 

59CosG95

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Birmingham Moor Street is a welcome island of Phil (in the Warks direction) and Celia (in the Worcs direction) in a sea of Anne. However, I've heard Phil say "Attention Please. Staff Call 100" at New Street in the past 2 years on several occasions.
 

nlogax

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Didn't he get his voice by impersonating the guy that used to do the voice overs on TUGS?

Patrick Allen (of TUGS and 1970s 'Protect and Survive' fame as well as E4 trailers) died in 2006. Peter Dickson impersonated Allen in subsequent E4 trailers and then on X Factor and beyond.

I'm not sure a Phil impersonator would work, certainly not spliced together in the same calling points list or general announcement anyway. In that specific context the voice would have to be a very good match indeed.
 

NorthernSpirit

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The cheapest option would be to get someone who could do a sound alike impression of Phil to record the odd new station or new TOC name.

I'd be happy to voice the prerec announcements if I was ever offered to do them, I can make my voice sound authoritive and friendly at the same time. I just require the gear to do it.

The only difference would be a slight Yorkshire sound to my voice and not a Lancastrian which Phil's voice were, the Lancy accent sounds more springy the Yorkshire one sounds more... solid.
 
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None of the males voices since Phil seem to sound right. The female voices are generally cut together well
 

thisisdash

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I see SWR have used a Phil Sayer soundalike instead of switching all to Celia. It isn't a bad fit, but it ain't Phil! :lol:
 

swt_passenger

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I see SWR have used a Phil Sayer soundalike instead of switching all to Celia. It isn't a bad fit, but it ain't Phil! :lol:

Or they've re-edited his existing phrases, as we are discussing in one of the many other SWT/SWR threads, so lets not do it again here...

Apologies, didn't notice you were new to the forums. Thanks to Darandio for pointing this out.
 
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Darandio

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Or they've re-edited his existing phrases, as we are discussing in one of the many other SWT/SWR threads, so lets not do it again here...

And you would be hard pressed to find any mention of it in any of those threads, given the speed at which they are moving.

Welcome to the forum thisisdash but don't worry, not everyone has a go at people for posting in a perfectly relevant thread.
 

J-2739

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And you would be hard pressed to find any mention of it in any of those threads, given the speed at which they are moving.

Welcome to the forum thisisdash but don't worry, not everyone has a go at people for posting in a perfectly relevant thread.

Tbf, they've been on for like five months already though.

Don't worry about it! We're all nice really.

I rather like Anne, actually, for nostalgic reasons, because York and Leeds were firmly Anne-territory when I was growing up.

Same.

Anne and Celia are just as good as each other, but Phil...
 

GW43125

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Tbf, they've been on for like five months already though.



Same.

Anne and Celia are just as good as each other, but Phil...

I don't know why, but I don't mind Anne but can't stand Celia'a voice!
 

J-2739

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I don't know why, but I don't mind Anne but can't stand Celia'a voice!

Celia, to me, is one of the best ones out there, but I find her voice is more suited to smaller stations, while Anne sounds good at a terminal.

It's so weird hearing Celias voice up here in Barnsley though, a bit grand! :lol:
 
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