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Your voice on a recording - who else is traumatized?


VaKim
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Only sort of tongue-in-cheek here, but how do you ever get over realizing what you actually sound like when you hear your voice recorded? It is just horrifying to think I sound like I do! I need to go out and buy a cowboy hat and put my hair in pigtails or something. 

 

Anybody else ever been shocked by what you actually sound like?

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When you hear yourself, you hear not only the sound waves in the air (which is what everyone and recorders hear); you hear also through the vibrations in your bones and muscles, which are slower and therefore lower vibrations.  That's why your voice sounds lower to you.

 

And knowing this, I still wince everytime I hear my voice on recording!  It sounds so nasally to me.  

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I have always hated my voice on recordings. But I try to just ignore it when I hear it. My 6 year old dd recently realized what her voice sounds like to everyone else and she was mortified. She got very upset and confused until I explained why she hears it differently.

 

It always makes me wonder what other people think they sound like

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Oh, yes, totally!    

 

The funny thing is, my voice is precisely like my mother's.   So much so, that I could pretend to be her and would screen telemarketers.  If it wasn't one, I would say, "Hold on a sec", then I'd catch my mom up on what was said and mom would come on the phone never mentioning the switch.  

 

Mom's voice is fine.  Mine is ghastly on a recording device.  

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Just a side question here: does anybody actually like how they sound recorded?

I sound a little more California valley girl than I sound in my head, but my tone quality and enunciation is quite nice. I used to hate the sound of myself recorded but then I realized it wasn't bad, just different than the resonance inside my skull when I'm speaking :)

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I sound like a little girl.  I find it amusing.

 

What's really funny is how I laugh.  When I was in high school, I took a short electronics course and they let us see how our voices looked in sound waves or whatever.  I started laughing at mine and that was when things got crazy.  :P  I hadn't realized that my laugh was more of a gasp than anything else.  :P

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That gorgeous accent couldn't sound bad no matter what, lol.

 

Thank you.  You're sweet to say so.  

 

Our cleaning lady said something interesting the other day: everyone in my family has a different accent.  Mine is southern English softened by many years living overseas and 29 years living with a Texan; Husband's is not very Texan, but is American softened by living overseas and with me; Calvin is a combination of his parents' accents plus a lilt left over from having had a Filipina nanny when he was small; Hobbes is more straight-ahead middle class English; my Mum speaks as if she were in Brief Encounter (born in 1924 and RADA trained).

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There was a video recording project in 8th grade, circa 1981/82.  It was horrifying.  I can still see and hear it in my mind.

 

Around the same year, each student in my class was assigned to write, act, and record a TV commercial.  I couldn't do it.  I finally asked for a different assignment.

 

A few years later, in college to be a teacher, I had a brief lecture recorded.  That one went fine.  I guess I had learned not to care if I was recorded for posterity looking like an idiot.  :p

 

Edited by SKL
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I sound much deeper in my head. My voice on recordings is awful. AWFUL. I sound fluffy.

 

This is common. If you cup your hands behind your ears and bend them slightly forward, you should hear your voice more accurately.

These are fun:

 

https://www.presentationmagazine.com/basic-voice-improvement-techniques-14877.htm

Edited by Liz CA
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Just a side question here: does anybody actually like how they sound recorded?

I had the same initial reaction that I did not like my recorded voice because I felt I sounded nothing like that.

However, I have gotten used to my recorded voice:

1. I m a singer and have recordings of vocal music from my performances. I know this is what I sound like, and on some performances, I am quite content with the way I sang.

2. I have created a complete semester's worth of video lectures for one my classes, which I recorded and edited myself.

So I have gotten used to the way I sound, and I like them because they are pretty darn good, even if I say so myself.

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I sound a little more California valley girl than I sound in my head, but my tone quality and enunciation is quite nice. I used to hate the sound of myself recorded but then I realized it wasn't bad, just different than the resonance inside my skull when I'm speaking :)

Another Valley Girl here. I cringe when I hear my voice. I've told dh more than once that I wish he could hear my voice the way I hear it. I'd sound much more intelligent. :)

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I just had an idea.  I've heard that in Heaven our bodies are a beautified version of ourselves.  I wonder if that basically means people will see us the way we think of ourselves.  

 

You know that show with the woman detective who can't forget anything?  Unforgotten or Unforgettable ... something like that.   In my head I look a lot like her.  I wouldn't tell anyone in IRL life that because, well, I don't.  

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I'm used to my singing voice, but I HATE my speaking voice!  I sound like a whiny 10 year old.  I have to use a special "phone voice" to be taken seriously on the phone.  I have another special voice for placing my order at a restaurant (otherwise, the waiter can't hear me, and I must repeat myself).  In order to be heard by a voice sensitive microphone, I must lower the pitch of my voice.  Drives me crazy.

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I don't mind my voice too much. I'm a low alto, so my voice is naturally deep, even when heard through the air

 

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0dzfQEEhTE3

 

I went so far as to go to the website but could not bring myself to listen to that. It's like, after all these years I just got scared of I have no idea what. It was weird. I'm weird. I just totally weirded out this thread...

 

So to awkwardly keep on track, I sound exactly like a 12-year old girl. Except sometimes when I play with voices and can sound like a 6-year old ;) And I clearly remember the first time I heard my voice: I was 8 and I was in total disbelief because I did not sound like that in my head :p

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