Hearing your own voice recorded

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 04:38 PM

Bee

When you're listening to a recording of yourself you tend to hear the bits that weren't quite right. There's a big difference between singing to a live audience, unrecorded, where mistakes won't really be noticed, and having it recorded for posterity, when errors stick out like sore thumbs!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Bee
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 03:43 PM

Keep it coming, 'catters, and I shall soon think I sound like a veritable opera star. Scoville, be happy - I sound much older than that: but of course, I am. Fat b., I expect that's a smallish audience.

Seriously, good advice; Elettra I'll try that.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: fat B****rd
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 03:31 PM

Bee, there are people here who would love to sound like old 78 rpm records.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Scoville
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 02:57 PM

I sound like a four-year-old (probably what Iris DeMent would sound like if she couldn't sing), which is weird because I think of myself as having a fairly low voice. I can't sing very well, anyway--I really have no business on a recording. But I've had people record me so they could learn a song and I'm always shocked at how childlike I sound.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: guitar
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 02:46 PM

I just don't like hearing my own voice because I think I not a very good singer, Some people I know say I'm good at singing, and I can also play guitar well. However I don't think I'm that good.

tom

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 02:46 PM

Bee, that is a very common experience for singers. If people like your voice, then go with the flow.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Elettra
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 02:43 PM

Well said, Sal. Most of us are our own toughest critic.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 02:36 PM

applause and comments when you go to the bar does it for me.
Sal

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 02:04 PM

Coupla comments: 1) Almost any time you listen to a recording of yourself - whether singing or playing an instrument - immediately after making the recording, it will not sound as good as it did to you as you were singing or playing - give it a day or two, then listen to it; 2) I forget what the second comment was. Oh yeah - the quality of the equipment can make a tremendous difference, for the voice and certain instruments in particular, e.g. violin.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Elettra
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 01:55 PM

I had too much vibrato going on, and my voice teacher told me to try to feel it rather than trying to hear it, which helped some. Maybe it would work the same way in your case.
E.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Bee
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 01:44 PM

I'm finding a vibratory dis-connection, in that apparently I have a slight natural vibrato going on that I cannot hear while singing. I very much would like to get that under control, but wonder how if I can't hear it while I'm singing.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: mack/misophist
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 01:40 PM

My doctor once told me you can't hear yourself as others do. Since the ear drums are inside the same device producing the sound but at a distance from it, there's a vibratory connection that slurs the tone.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: kendall
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 01:34 PM

I used to dislike my voice, but since I lost it I listen to old recordings and wish I had it back. It really wasn't that bad.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: yrlancslad
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 01:30 PM

I still wince every time I hear myself singing and try not to listen to my published CD's. Every so often I do go back to them thinking they can't be as bad as I remember them but they are.All this in contradiction to the feedback I get live and not preventing me from going into the studios again this month-so keep plugging away- danger probably lies in being satisfied with what you hear.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Elettra
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 01:18 PM

The first time I remember being recorded and hearing my own voice was when I was 16. A friend knew a guy who worked for RCA records and he recorded a demo of me, in a construction-office trailer with a window-unit air conditioner blowing full blast in the background. It was dreadful and I cried every time I thought about it for the next week - I sounded as if I were singing on the deck of a ship in a full-blown gale. Later recordings (30 years later, YIKES) have eased the teenage angst of that experience but I never sound like I think I do, no matter how often I hear myself. I'm always surprised at the way I pronounce certain words. And no, RCA did not sign me...:~( .
E.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Bee
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 01:06 PM

Thanks, all, especially Shantieman, regarding recording quality - the quality I most noted was that it reminded me of some old, old 78 rpm records I've heard!

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 01:05 PM

I hate my voice either way!

But it's the only one I've got so I just have to make the best of it.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Schantieman
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 12:54 PM

In my (somewhat limited) experience, the equipment does make a difference.

I used, years ago, to record my singing on a cheap cassette tape recorder - and it was, as you say, awful. More recently - well, 10 or more years ago now, I shudder to realise - I made a demo CD with just 4 tracks on it, using all the proper super duper digital systems (DAT to CD) and felt that the product was much more like my real voice. A month ot two ago I recorded one song on a CD using the most up to date computer-based system, as was astonished to hear coming back at me something that sounded exactly like what I hear when I sing.

So - don't despair: maybe your friends are telling the truth!   The way to tell, I reckon, is to listen to the intensity and duration of the applause when you've finished.

Steve

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: fat B****rd
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 12:54 PM

The last time I recorded anything was for a kids Xmas party "Santa Rap". My friend with bedroom studio kindly made me sound like the Chipmunks with a sore throat. Prior to that very so-so.
I must go along with your second paragraph, Bee. But don't give up.

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Shaneo
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 12:51 PM

Very surprised was how I felt , the recording sounded completely different that what I here when I sing

Subject: RE: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: MMario
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 12:36 PM

Now, my friends have always said they like my singing, and even ask me to sing, but they are my friends. Having heard my own voice recorded as above, I'm astounded by how different it sounds than how I hear it while singing, and how much I presently don't like it

that about sums it up.

Subject: Hearing your own voice recorded
From: Bee
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 12:32 PM

I'm sure most of you are old hands who have heard yourselves singing on recordings and are used to it/satisfied with it, but I have not, until very recently, and I've only heard it in sixty second bits on my cheap computer speakers recorded through a dollar store mike.

Now, my friends have always said they like my singing, and even ask me to sing, but they are my friends. Having heard my own voice recorded as above, I'm astounded by how different it sounds than how I hear it while singing, and how much I presently don't like it (although I'm relieved to note I am in tune!).

So, how did you feel about your own voice the first time you heard it played back to you?