The "Does my voice pass?" thread

[Aina]

Carrie that is one amazing voice you have! Mind sharing some tips while your at it? 

[Carrie Liz]

Sing along to female singers, and try to speak like female characters in shows and movies. Try to imitate their tone and inflection as best as you can. Record yourself doing it. Try different things... change different muscles each time, try to make the tone come from different places, use different throat shapes, tighten different muscles, and listen for which ones make you sound more feminine. Once you get a good idea of which muscles and which tonal area is the right one, try to incorporate that into your own speaking tone, inflection, and resonance. Practice EVERY day. 15 minutes is fine, as long as it's every single day. Because it will take months and months and months of repetition and muscle memory to become natural.

That's what I've been (attempting) to do at least. Singing along to Karen Carpenter, Joan Baez, Kate Wolf, and Joni Mitchell. Plus some occasional help from Andrea James' course, Kathe Perez's videos, and a lot of Youtube videos on the topic just to point me in the right direction. Really, it's just about practice though.

Also, try holding books on the sides of your head, just in front of your ears. This will block the internal noise feedback that makes your voice sound different to you than it does to everyone else, and you'll hear what everyone else hears. Then you can speak in real-time and see how you really sound to others, so it's easier to practice.

[anjaq]

I have the impression that all of th recent recordings here sound rather ok especially in terms of resonance.
Ok, here goes nothing and I just upload some recordings as to where I am now, some years after that little voice training I did. What do you think the main issues are that get me misgendered. My thought is that it is mostly pitch and if I try to get that right, I loose volume, people as "what did you say?" and when I reply louder, pitch drops.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0WIzaR9SRQo (low, about 140-150 Hz if I get that right)
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0DXwISk6uLB (medium, about 170-190 Hz says praat)
http://vocaroo.com/i/s175OmlEVj2j (high, a bit above 200 Hz)
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0yi1d0TJHnK (very high, about 210 Hz - this is about as high as I can get without serious cracking)
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0YqTO3RnLDg (extreme for me. 240 Hz - I could probably not even talk to a person sitting across the table and it is a huge effort to control this.)

I am talking nonsense in the audiobits of course. Should I rather try and read a passage or script maybe?

Now I know the supposed average for women is at the 200-220 mark. I feel like I can barely get there and it takes a lot of effort tomaintain that pitch. I guess I will have to do a lot of training to manage to hold that pitch AND keep resonance under control at the same time AND then to dare use that in public. Meh, I really hate to do that now, but listening to recordings of me tells me I need that. I did a recording of a test for a presentation I am giving this week and even when I tried to do it in a better voice, I still only had 160 Hz but good resonance at the beginning and it dropped to 140 Hz and mediocre resonance at the end of the 10 minutes.

None of the recordings is a "totally relaxed" state by the way, aka "male voice", that one is at 110 Hz. yikes.

[Aina]

Anjaq the Medium and High sound pretty good, to my ears as far as pitch goes.

However your recordings sound "muffled" which from the sound of it is either the way your mic is set up, our maybe your speaking to close too the mic. You may want to fiddle with were your mic is placed and the settings.

[anjaq]

Anjaq the Medium and High sound pretty good, to my ears as far as pitch goes.

However your recordings sound "muffled" which from the sound of it is either the way your mic is set up, our maybe your speaking to close too the mic. You may want to fiddle with were your mic is placed and the settings.

Ok, I will try to not be too close to the mic. Maybe it will be lower in volume then. Mic settings - the  laptop has only one it seems and that is volume of recording, or am I missing something? It may be my voice though - people often ask me to repeat something, so maybe I am just mumbling too much.

So the medium I can do rather ok, as long as I am watching it. Good to hear that pitch is allright on them. But something is still off I think, its not all in the pitch and as you specifically mention pitch, I assume you are also feeling that while pitch is ok there is something else that needs work?

[Aina]

Ok, I will try to not be too close to the mic. Maybe it will be lower in volume then. Mic settings - the  laptop has only one it seems and that is volume of recording, or am I missing something? It may be my voice though - people often ask me to repeat something, so maybe I am just mumbling too much.

So the medium I can do rather ok, as long as I am watching it. Good to hear that pitch is allright on them. But something is still off I think, its not all in the pitch and as you specifically mention pitch, I assume you are also feeling that while pitch is ok there is something else that needs work?

Well if you right click the speaker icon on the lower right hand corner of your screen, and click on Recording Options, that'll give you access to advance options for mic. Also don't feel bad I am the same way with my female voice, if you look back in this topic at some of my recordings they are super low.

This mainly because I don't anyone in my house to hear me do my voice because I am pre-everything.

[anjaq]

ok and what options do I have to set there?
About the low volume voice - it is in part because I have trouble getting it louder and in part because I did this in a hotel room where I am for the week Dont want to say weirdo things out loud. I could read a passage maybe.

[Darkie]

Carrie, I think you sound adorable! The only time I could hear any deviation is with your e's sometimes, but that's just because a friend of mine that is MTF does that too so it made me think of her. 

[Darkie]

Can us boys post in here or is it only for the ladies?

[Aina]

Can us boys post in here or is it only for the ladies?

Anyone can! Lets hear it Darkie! 


Anjaq:  Well you could try adding a small boost, so you don't need to sit so close to your mic. Under the Recording Devices, Click your Microphone, Properties, Then levels if you have no Microphone boost, try just adding +10.

Again I am not sure how close your talking to your mic so this might not be the issue. I am no expert but maybe this will help!

[Darkie]

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0hxrXbmGeJO

Don't laugh.  It's bad.

[Aina]

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0hxrXbmGeJO

Don't laugh.  It's bad.

Well the bad news is, you sound female to me - or at best like a young teenage boy. Honestly working in reverse is hard for me to think about since I never really thought about how a guy should sound like I just sound like a guy.

I do have an idea for you, this may sound silly but your could practice by using stereo-typical male phrases.

I started by doing the whole "OH my god that is soooo cute" and worked on sounding less valley girl and more natural as progressed and I am no expert!

So I'd suggest like saying something along the lines off. "Sup guys, how ya' doin'" "Dude that just aint right" ect ect.

[Darkie]

Yea, I know I sound female. XD  And I actually look young enough to be a teenage boy, which is why it's not as bad for me.  When I'm sick it gets lower, which is awesome.

[Darkie]

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0ndpYb2mLCU

I tried to sing along to Steam Powered Giraffe.  You guys don't want to hear that.  It was bad.

[Jamie D]

I like penguins too.

[Aina]

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0ndpYb2mLCU

I tried to sing along to Steam Powered Giraffe.  You guys don't want to hear that.  It was bad.

Hey I hear an Improvement over your first recording. I think your on the right track with this one. Again wish I could give you some better tips Darkie!

[KC]

Hi all, I thought I'd start a thread where people can upload audio clips of their voices and get feedback, in the hope we can all help each other out
Anyway, I'll go first... I should point out this is from my first day training my voice.. It's not great but, my "male" voice was pretty andro to begin with.. Anyway take a listen and Id love to hear what people think

http://soundcloud.com/natjs/voice-day-1

Please feel free to comment, and upload your own clips !
(I use soundcloud.com for a free account, and there is an app for smartphones that's easy to use and simple to share sounds on )

sounds like a warm richly toned woman's voice to me

[PrincessPatience]

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0EezqbdUgaM

My first voice audio. I tried my best to sound girly without straining or sounding too forced. I feel like i sound like a gay guy with lisp. 

[anjaq]

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0EezqbdUgaM

My first voice audio. I tried my best to sound girly without straining or sounding too forced. I feel like i sound like a gay guy with lisp. 

For sure you should work on the resonance - this would improve the voice a lot already. And I know you probably feel like you raised pitch quite a bit - but PRAAT says you are just at 120 Hz. That may in part be because of the resonance. So I think you would need to control resonance to get a "clearer" voice and then raise pitch quite a bit more to get there.

And here is my update with hopefully less bad microphone settings:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0H6cjGLdNkU
It still is at that stupid 170 average that seems to be sort of the upper limit of my comfort zone but it strays up to the 200s and down to the 140s, I think (is there a setting to find that out on praat - the min/max pitch just give me stupid number that come from noise). Its just hard - I cannot manage to go up in pitch from that without feeling weird and compared to the nonmodified voice it is already up by 60 Hz. I think I did loose resonance control in some sylables though. Its a bit delicate to keep the balance as taking out too much resonance is sounding too soft.

[Aina]

For sure you should work on the resonance - this would improve the voice a lot already. And I know you probably feel like you raised pitch quite a bit - but PRAAT says you are just at 120 Hz. That may in part be because of the resonance. So I think you would need to control resonance to get a "clearer" voice and then raise pitch quite a bit more to get there.

And here is my update with hopefully less bad microphone settings:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0H6cjGLdNkU
It still is at that stupid 170 average that seems to be sort of the upper limit of my comfort zone but it strays up to the 200s and down to the 140s, I think (is there a setting to find that out on praat - the min/max pitch just give me stupid number that come from noise). Its just hard - I cannot manage to go up in pitch from that without feeling weird and compared to the nonmodified voice it is already up by 60 Hz. I think I did loose resonance control in some sylables though. Its a bit delicate to keep the balance as taking out too much resonance is sounding too soft.

Much better anjaq your coming in a lot more clear, your voice sounds pretty good!  I am certainly no expert on this, because I am still working on my voice. But I think you need to work on your resonance a little more. Your pitch too me sounds good so I wouldn't push yourself to hard on feeling like you need to up your pitch, you just need to get that sound down. Most will say resonance is more important then pitch anyway!