Three months on and I’ve definitely improved since last time. This was the best of several takes, and although I was trying a bit harder than usual it’s not too far from my usual zero-effort voice. I just need to remember to keep the resonance tight and stay bright.
I’d give this a C- “almost satisfactory”, so let it rip!
It sounds too high pitched to be reasonable, I think. That you’re auditioning for a voice role, rather than just being a people with a job and friends and hobbies. I think the word is “inauthentic.”
^(Or, self, maybe you and all your friends are all depressed and you all sound like Daria Morgendorffer and could do with some goddamn joy like what OP has.)
Also if I’m gonna criticize OP this harshly, I really should put myself in the same spotlight. I like my voice though, and won’t really fix it.
yes, the voice is imbalanced in terms of weight and size, as well as “unnatural” due to the theatrical / performative quality - this is one reason why I ask people to upload clips that are “candid” - just speaking as if you were talking to someone, without reading anything.
EDIT: lol, I love that everyone is uploading their voices too 💕
Great idea! I was definitely in performance mode. I’ll record a conversational clip next time I’m at my PC. I’d love to hear more people’s voices, too :3
I agree, and I think the conflating of pitch vs resonance (or size vs weight, depending on how we’re looking at it here) is erring too far on the size/pitch side and not enough on the weight/resonance side. It’s good progress, though! I’ve been at this for two months and am nowhere near as good.
Yay, thanks for the clip. I don’t think you were being mean at all!
I also use Japanese all day in and out of work. I should try that next time!
I don’t know anything about voice training but I like your accent! It sounds like you’re working hard to have the voice you want – great job!
for real, her voice demonstrates a lot of effort and work has been put in - it’s really hard to voice train!!
Thanks! I’m originally from the UK of course, but I don’t live there now. I’ve spent a lot of time with various people from around the world, so it’s become pretty eclectic.
It doesn’t strike me as that different from your last clip, and I think my comments from last time are still relevant: it has a dopey underfull sound for how light the voice is. I think working on a smaller size would be a good idea, maybe play around with both R1 (throat) and R2 (oral) resonance and through ear training, careful listening, mimicry and experimentation, learn to produce a natural sounding full-fem voice?
The voice doesn’t sound overtly masculine or boyish, which is good - just sounds a bit imbalanced and unnatural because of the underfullness, so it’s a matter of small adjustments at this point. Well done, keep going!
EDIT: here’s a clip of my voice if you’d like to roast it:
https://vocaroo.com/1kSpmaG1Khj2
anyone is welcome to leave impressions or critiques 💗
EDIT2: I see you gave yourself a C-, I don’t know how the grading scale works there but I would say it won’t help much to see it in such stark terms, esp. without any objective rubric - much better to focus on training your ear to constant qualitative analysis, so you learn what sounds good and is working, what isn’t, what would help, and that ultimately will help your voice in daily use as you constantly hear and adjust it.
For some of us, voice is a life-long project and takes significant time and effort. I had to see a speech language pathologist (SLP) once a week for over six months and spent every day focusing on my voice and working on it before my voice started passing in some social situations like on the phone. What surprised me was how much of it was really more about my understanding and cognition and less about my actual anatomy or capacity - I realized I always had the capacity to make a natural sounding woman’s voice the whole time, and in fact had made sounds that fit that in the past already, i.e. this was essentially nothing new even though it felt that way.
Not everyone is voice dysphoric, but it’s one of my biggest sources of dysphoria, and I pretty much hate my voice - I would give my voice a failing grade always 😅 But I think that kind of thinking usually is just counterproductive, it makes me feel like I’m failing or not doing well, and is a way to self-punish rather than improve. Instead I find the brain responds better to rewards - seeing what you’re doing right and rewarding yourself for it (while grounded in non-judgemental but acute awareness), that is a path of improvement.
Holy shit, voice goals right here! You sound 100% female to me–maybe someone in her 30s or so?
I try to listen to myself as I speak at work, so it’s definitely a gradual process of tweaking things here and there. Thanks for the feedback!
that’s surreal to me that you hear a female voice - and hey, that’s not a roast!
One problem I’ve run into is that I can analyze someone else’s voice pretty well, but my dysphoria brain worms distort my perception of my own voice - it’s hard for me to hear it accurately or know how it sounds to other people, the same as it is hard for me to see a woman in the mirror or know what others are seeing.
It makes it hard to get a sense of when I’m overshooting or overcompensating, or when I’m not compensating enough - that finesse is difficult when your perception is constantly distorted.
BTW, the text is from this Reddit post.
You have made significant improvements since last time. Your voice sounds much more resonant and free to move in pitch. However I think most of my criticisms still apply. It sounds overly high, and forced rather than authentic.
You seem to begin phrases at about 250hz, which is quite high. The voice book that was posted to the transvoice community recommends starting work at a pitch of 160-200hz. I just now decided to listen to my ideal female voice (Jennifer Hale’s commander shepherd from mass effect)(don’t judge), with a spectrogram, and she seems to start around 215hz, with most statements having a descending intonation that settles around 200hz. And I know plenty of cis women who have voices much deeper than that.
You have quite a bit of room to relax and lower the pitch, which will probably help the tone. You have made good progress keep working!
Thanks! I promise I’m not trying to push the pitch up :3 But yeah, it’s higher than it needs to be, maybe because I’m reading rather than talking normally.
I should really record myself interacting with real people.
Ask and ye shall receive! This is me talking normally.
This one sounds kind of hollow and “trans voice” to me. (Yeah, yeah, drop the pitch, tighter resonance, I know…)
OK, one final sample with a lower pitch. I promise I’m done now :3
I remember your voice from last time and you definitely sound more feminine! Although I still hear a bit of dopeyness. Your voice is like a feminine Winnie the Pooh. (Actually, I think I might have said that last time, but you do sound notably more feminine this time!)
Feel free to roast my voice if you’d like: https://youtu.be/p2hA1QkZRJM
Also, make sure you keep practicing. I stopped because I’m pretty much happy with my voice but I slowly slipped part way back to my old voice. Once I realized that, it was pretty easy to get back where I was fortunately.
Hello again! Thanks for sharing <3 The difference between the first two samples is huge!
Your voice is cute. There’s a bit more weight and chest resonance than I’d expect in an average female voice (almost the opposite of my problem, I think), and I’m not a big fan of creak, but at worst it’s androgynous. Keep up the good work!
