I don't like the recorded sound of my voice

Vince159

Hey Folks,
I recorded my voice for the first time recently, and I became very discouraged after hearing the "sound" of my voice. It wasn't being of key, or poor pitch, it was just the way my voice sounded. I've been fearful in the past about this, and it's become hard to get past it. Any advice or words of wisdom?? Thanks very much, and sorry if this is a duplicate discussion; I did a search for the topic and nothing came up.
Cheers.
Vince

HuduVudu

Hi Vince.

I have a question how long have you seriously been singing?

[Deleted User]

@Vince159 I had that reaction very strongly at first to hearing my recorded voice, and thought it would be very difficult to get past. But it actually wasn't. What really helped was taking part in the weekly assignments here in the forums. We start analysing other people's voices and that makes it easier to apply that same way of thinking to our own recordings. Instead of judging the sound as we were, we start becoming more interested in whether we are doing the technique correctly. It becomes much less of an uncontrolled emotional response, and more to do with curiosity and wanting to learn. That strong sense of cringing disappears, I promise. And as you learn more, you notice the improvements and can appreciate your voice for being able to do that. Be kind to yourself. It will get easier.

doc_ramadani

Hi mate, @Vince159

first of all: a very warm Welcome. I think we have never met before here in the forums. My name is Marco but everyone calls me "Doc". I have no clue why they do that?

Our mate @Sophia mentioned a lot of things and I want to add something. In the human body we have something we call in medicine "bone conduction". You are used to hear your voice with "bone conduction". Your body vibrates when you are speaking or singing. When you record yourself this bone conduction is missing. You voice sounds higher an thiner. That is normal. You will get used to it.

If you are recording your singing look for a feature of your audio interface that is called "direct monitoring" or something like that. This helps a lot. It will route the signal of your microphone to your headphones directly. This can help you a lot if you are recording voice via a DAW (digital audio workstation).

Feel free to ask us anything - but it would be better to ask questions in in the internal students' areas, i.e. Volume 1 -> Better tone and Pitch.

Doc

HuduVudu

Vince I don't really take part in the weekly singing and I rarely if ever listen to them, so for me they haven't come into play in how I view my voice. I will say this though, at a little over a year of doing almost exclusively just scales I am more and more liking the way that my voice sounds. It as though through repetition my voice has matured and now when I do scales they sound for lack of a word ... better. Even when I am singing it sounds better. I think that I have started to train my ear to hear my real voice. It is crazy for me now when I listen to songs that I have listened to for years, I hear flaws in their voices. I couldn't stop chuckling the other day, I was listening to welcome to the jungle and I heard Axyl Rose's lisp. I never knew he had a lisp and I had to listen the section over and over to make sure that I heard it correctly and then listen to the entire song to hear if it was in other parts and sure enough, he has a lisp. You can even see it in the video.

In time you will come to know and hear the reality of your voice and you will come to terms with what it really means.

Vince159

about 6-8 months. I've had course for about a year, but due to health issues, I haven't been consistent the entire year.

Wigs

Most of us have the same reaction at first. @Sophia is right, even if it’s just recording your self doing your scales, the quicker and more often you start to do so, the sooner you will be able to get over how you sound to yourself and begin to be more objective about it. Then you’ll find you can concentrate on technique.

Vince159

Thanks very much Sophia. I needed to hear this. I've been trying to tell myself that with practice I can develop something that will be acceptable to myself, but knowing I can gain support from the forum really helps. I will be kind to myself!

Vince159

Thanks Wigs, great suggestion! I'll record more and get past the initial reaction. I did this (recording) a few weeks ago, and I nearly shut down my singing for a while. All my insecurities over whelmed me. I'll look at it from a more studious point of view and make multiple recording to get used to it. Thanks very much.

Wigs

In the beginning I would even record my entire scale practice with a camera just to help get over it, you’ll find half way through you forget the camera is there. Over time I wouldn’t even listen to the whole thing, just the parts I wanted to but I now have a good base line to look back upon to track my improvement. And trust me you will see improvement 😁

ONIC

Where can I find these weekly assignments you guys are all talking about?

Wigs

@ONIC Hey bud, they are in the student area of the forum, if you purchased the course you can update your profile status to get access.

Vince159

Hey There Doc (aka Marco) Nice to meet you here on the forum, I did not know about "bone conduction", that's very interesting, and clearly I have much to learn. I have been dreaming of being a singer all my life, and when I was younger, a boy, I had a home environment that taught me to stay quiet, and diminished my self image. My mother sang as a teenager and was a soloist. Now, later in life, I find that I can do what I always dreamed of, but it's going to take plenty of work. Thanks for all the info; I was going to ask about the weekly assignments too. Thanks for the advice HuduVudu, and the insight about Axyl Rose, I've go to go check it out lol.

doc_ramadani

You are welcome, @Vince159. It is never too late. Like me you will need some time. Doc

DonniDeVille

@Doc I was very interested to hear the reason we sound different the first time we hear a recording of our voice and it applies to talking, as well as singing. It may not be that we don't like the sound, but more that the new sound is not familiar to us?