Why does your voice sound different on a recording?
The short answer
When you speak, you hear yourself through both air and bone conduction, which makes your voice sound deeper. A recording captures only air conduction, losing the lower tones—so your voice sounds higher and unfamiliar.
The long answer
One of the reasons I decided to start a newsletter and not a podcast or YouTube channel is because — like many others — I cringe at the sound of my recorded voice. 😬
But why does our voice sound so different to us compared to how others hear it? Let's jump in with a refresher on how our ears work (if you prefer a video, I recommend this one which includes some lovely, memoji-level animation):
"Ear-anatomy-text-small-en" by Iain is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Sound waves traveling through the air enter the ear canal and make the ear drum vibrate. This sets off subsequent vibrations in three tiny bones, known as the ossicles, in the middle ear. These bones amplify the vibrations and send them to the cochlea, a pea-sized, snail-shaped organ in the inner ear.
Inside the cochlea, fluid movement stimulates tiny hair-like structures, triggering neurotransmitters that send electrical signals to the brain via the auditory nerve. These signals are interpreted as sound in the brain.
Air conduction vs. bone conduction
But technically speaking, we hear in two ways: air conduction (described above) and bone conduction.
"Ear-anatomy-text-small-en" (modified) by Iain is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Bone conduction is when sound waves reach the cochlea directly by transmitting through our head. Because bones resonate with lower frequencies more efficiently, bone conduction enhances the deeper tones of our voice.
Why your recorded voice sounds different
When we speak, we're hearing a combination of air conduction and bone conduction. This mix of air and bone conduction makes our voice sound deeper to ourselves.
On a recording, only air conduction is at play — without bone conduction, the lower tones are lost. This is why our voice on recordings tends to sound higher to ourselves.
The reason why we dislike the true sound of our voice is because it's different from the way we've heard ourselves all our lives. The disconnect between how we think we sound and how we actually sound creates cognitive dissonance — or as the kids say, cringe.
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Sources
Brandt, J., & Winters, R. (2023, January 30). Bone Conduction Evaluation. U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK578177/
Hullar, T. (2009, January 13). Why does my voice sound so different when it is recorded and played back?. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-does-my-voice-sound-different/
Mirage News. (2023, May 18). Science Behind Why Your Recorded Voice Sounds Strange. Mirage News. https://www.miragenews.com/science-behind-why-your-recorded-voice-sounds-1009054/
National Institutes of Health (NIH). (2018, November 21). Journey of Sound to the Brain. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQEaiZ2j9oc&ab_channel=NationalInstitutesofHealth%28NIH%29
The Nature of Things. (2024, July 2). Why do we hate the sound of our own voice?. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZXj4XSHd94&ab_channel=TheNatureofThings
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