We’ve heard it many times before.
A lot of our Podversations guests ask us “Why does my voice sound weird when it is recorded?“. Worse still, we have had people choose not to be a guest on one of our podcasts just because they don’t like the sound of their voice when they hear it played back.
Well, there is a scientific explanation to this phenomenon.
When you speak, sound waves travel to your ears in two ways: air conduction and bone conduction. Air conduction involves sound waves traveling through the air to your outer ear, while bone conduction allows vibrations from your vocal cords to travel directly through the bones of your skull to your inner ear. This dual pathway means that when you speak, you hear a fuller, deeper version of your voice due to the lower frequencies transmitted via bone conduction.
In contrast, when you listen to a recording of your voice, you’re only hearing the air-conducted sound. This absence of bone-conducted vibrations results in a higher-pitched and thinner sound than what you are accustomed to hearing.
The bad news, therefore, is that the voice you hear when you listen to a recording of yourself, is the voice that everyone hears whenever you speak to them.
So, don’t put it off any longer – if you get the chance to be a part of a Grand Memories project or any other podcast, do it!