Every time I record my voice, I get sad. I love singing so much, but it sounds so flat, boring and like I always hold back. Also when I record gaming sessions with friends, I feel like I sound like I'm bored out of my mind.. I don't know it it's my depression & anxiety that makes me sound like that or if it's just the difference between what I hear in my head, which sounds somewhat brighter, vs recordings. Others tell me that I'm very nice to listen to (talking, since I never sing in front of others), but I hate my voice so much. I'll try to expose myself more to my own voice and maybe I'll manage to get some more confidence at some point. I wish I had a room that is completely soundproof, so I can just talk and sing and scream (I don't even know if I *can* scream..) without a care in the world. Anxiety sucks.
When I first heard my voice with acoustic guitar back on a cassette tape recorder in my bedroom 25 years I felt depressed and insecure by my tone. Wasn’t until I made myself sing karaoke in busy bars and open mics that eventually I got to like the ok voice I have.
I understand this. It's like when you leave a message on an answering machine and then playback that message it sounds different than you hear it when you originally made it. I was wondering though, like say you sing for an audition and you hear yourself sounding good , does that mean the people listening hear it differently? Would it still sound good to them?
Real Time Monitoring hasn't been mentioned I think. Maybe because it is basic knowledge for singers. But I didn't know it for years. For those who don't know this means you can hear yourself in real time with no delays. And more importantly you hear yourself how you actually sound for others and not yourself. And when you dial up the headphones enough you won't hear your inner voice anymore. Hearing myself in realtime was a revelation. 1) I can act immediatly when there is any distortion. 2) it helps me quickly to figure out the perfect distance to the mic and allows me to make adjustments on the fly. 3) It makes it easier as a non-nativ to pronounce English words better. As there is a disconnect how you think you are pronouncing and how it actually comes out. 4) usually I speak 140 - 150 wpm. When I monitored I reached 200 wpm without even noticing 5) You hear the energy that is actually being carried in your words. And not what you think it is. So you naturally will adjust immediatly when you notice a drop. I noticed the change during recording as zi suddenly ran out of air time after time. And needed more breaks. I was happy that i don't have to remind myself anymore to put energy in my delivery. Also regarding speed. 200 WPM i figured would be the ideal speed for my guides. But I was never able to reach that without tanking my pronunciation. But when I monitored myself my talking had such a better flow. I was able to talk 200 wpm now effortlessly. I believe that's because my brain needed spend less processing power to listen to my own words?
I am at point where i have heard my voice so often that I am completely used to it. Now it is difficult to spot when something is off. But doing live monitoring helps.
Kitchen analogy was spot on. When we witness the process we know all the flaws, and that messes up our minds/judgement. We no longer hear objectively in that case.👍
this is gold for me and i believe for many others. 15 years of struggle demolished in a vid… i will find a way to give something back somehow someday. blessed be thy path🙏
I'm starting a RU-vid channel (on a different account) and when I showed a friend the first video I did, he said I had a good voice. I didn't think my voice sounded as bad as I usually had in the past, just kind of monotonous. So it was surprising that that was the first thing he said
For me the biggest issue is that every time I breathe in, it is quite audible through the mic, it's extremely difficult to even filter out but it taught me why so many youtubers use jump cuts and rarely ever speak for a longer time in one go. Or maybe I'm just unlucky and it's just my breathing that's bad, but I use a Fifine condenser mic and OBS and it's really hard to make my speech sound clean.
YOURE TELLING ME THAT EVERYTIME I SCREAM THE LYRICS TO THE BEETLEJUICE MUSICAL SOUNDTRACK AND I THINK I AM ABSOLUTELY NAILING IT MY FRIENDS HEAR… THAT? NOOOOOOOOOO EVERYONE MUST HATE ME BRO
I don’t even think my voice is the problem, I haven’t recorded it much apart from iPhone demos. I think I just fear my voice harassing the mic and sounding awful. I think it’s a mixing problem.
Looks like this video showed up on my home feed at the right time. I've been wanting to start adding voice overs on my videos instead of using texts. But after recording my voice several times, I felt extremely embarrassed with the way I sound. In addition to that, being a non-native English speaker is making me even more embarrassed every time I listen to my recorded voice. I hope I will have the courage one day to just deal with the embarrassment and embrace my own voice.
Thank you. Solid wisdom. Really insightful about the definition of cringing being me imagining someone else hearing it and them not liking it. A game changer.
I always thought my voice was meh or "fine" at least until I got recorded. My voice is objectively bad. Not terrible, but it is bad. And the recordings prove it.
I've assigned picking scenes from my videos to edit to shorts up to my brother, Mike. I can't stand hearing my own voice where nothing in the video seems worth a short.
This is the best therapy ever! For me I got over the hated of my voice with I became objective about what I was recording and rerecording improving pitch , vowel placement , dictation breath , phrasing and intension as it relates to Transferring my ideas. Once I started listening to my play backs with the objective ear the subjective aspects fell to the side. I still find live performances difficult to listen to . It's a process.
But what if I want to record a song with the voice that I hear? I don't care if the voice that I produce is decent, even good, I specifically want the one I hear myself, what then? To be honest, I know the answer, only vocal sound mixing can do that and I'm in no way going through that, so that's just bad life RNG...
My voice is REALLY DEEP and for the stereotypes, more than a black ma- but really my voice is extremely deep and on recording it sounds like a 5yo with a even deeper voice.
