Listening To Your Own Voice

[cassa333]

I cring when I hear my own voice. Not only does it not sound like the voice I hear when I actually talk it has a totally different way about it.

I have for various reasons recorded myself talking (mainly for learning lines lol) but I alway think it sounds horrid. My friend also said the same about their own voice.

So two questions.

Does everyone who hears a recording of their own voice not like it ?

Why does it sound so different to what I hear when I actually talk?

[Togo]

I sound just like my brothers(5 of them)so am used to it. But my own voice does sound different in my head.

[1ozzy]

A: Yes

B: Don't know.

I hate hearing a recording of myself, and it's not because I talk a lot of garbage ;-/

[douglas9401]

I can't remember the details about recording voice, something about cutting off the top and bottom frequencies I think.

I'm quite happy with what I hear as opposed to what's in my head, it sounds like Ken McDonald on BBC Radio Scotland. :)

[Cloverjo]

I think it's pretty much universal. I suppose you hear it in a different way from a recording than when just speaking. You hear your voice from inside your own head as well as from the outside normally, and when you hear a recording it's from one way only.

When I speak normally I don't think I have much of an accent, but hearing a recording - or even worse, a delay on a phone line - I sound like a country bumpkin. :)

[Togo]

//When you hear your voice on a recording, you're only hearing sounds transmitted via air conduction. Since you're missing the part of the sound that comes from bone conduction within the head, your voice sounds different to you on a recording.//

http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-does-my-voice-sound-different-on-a-recording/

[Peter Pedant]

similar togo
two brothers and we sounded identical to my father
( so his wife couldnt tell between us er vocally )

so the big shock of hearing myself - is - I didnt say that
have I had a black out ? oh it is a message ....

and you get used to hearing a voice that isnt saying what you said....

b. bone conduction - you hear a decent amount ( 20-40 db I think) through bone conduction at a different speed of conduction ( slower) so your own voice will sound different

[Peter Pedant]

o sorry s/o has already done bone ....

[Peter Pedant]

SO - high frequency cut off is significant for telephones

and accounts for the difficulty in understanding foreign languages on the phone - we rely on sibilants and lip queues

[cassa333]

I wonder if you would recognise and dislike the sound of your voice if it were mixed with other people?

Say someone recorded a conversation with you and a couple of other people and played it back to you some time later. So that you don't immediately remember it.

[Cloverjo]

I think my response would be the same, cassa. In fact I think I'd cringe even more, as the other people would sound as they always do to me, but I'd sound like a country bumpkin.

[cassa333]

But how cshe me other people sound the same to us when we hear their voice recorded but not our own?

Oh hang on is it because of the vibrations we hear in the ear bones are different to sound just hitting out ears?

[horselady]

Like Cloverjo, I sound as if I should be out haymaking somewhere, I am West Country but it comes across as really thick.