My Voice!

[PinotNoir]

https://soundcloud.com/pinotnoiratgc

Because of the increased number of voice threads, I decided to record my voice and see how it sounds! For each of these, I did multiple recordings, so you're getting the final cut (the best of the best I could produce). For the accents, I watched YouTube videos.

Sharing my voice like this is very personal to me (like I'm exposing myself). I hope no one abuses it, and I hope you guys appreciate it!

I don't know if I sound that great or not, but recording and playing back is a pretty cool learning tool. Let me know what you think: good or bad. The quality of my mic is not great too. I think good quality mics make a difference.

Lastly, if you are a regular member in good standing, PM me, and I will tell you the username/password! Then you can upload your own voice without having to make an account. I don't want the password changed and/or all of the voice clips deleted, so it's at my discretion to decide who can get the username/password.

-PN

Recent voice threads:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4828
viewtopic.php?f=45&t=4864
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4096 (I tried to imitate Daniel Craig from the YouTube video in my post here)

EDIT: Soundcloud kind of sucks, so I had to use the website in Chrome only. My other web browsers don't work.

 

[PrettyDecent]

hahaha, dude. These are hilarious haha.

Yeah man, nice voice. You sound a bit like Chase.

~Nick

 

[PinotNoir]

Thanks! Dude, that is an extremely nice comment. But, I have to disagree after listening to that podcast of Chase; he sounds much better than me in my opinion. He also has that perfect "What accent is that? Where is he from?" sound in his voice, where you're just not sure.

Also, these are recordings of me actively trying. I can't always get my voice perfect 100% of the time. I can tell it needs to be a little lower and a little more purring. If your voice isn't low yet, I find that slowing down your words adds an impact, and it's easier to do than getting your voice lower.

Just this morning, I feel like my voice has improved from these recordings, and I'm noticing everyone's vocal tones more. I definitely advise everyone to try making recordings of your voice and playing it back (don't have to share it publicly, just do it on your local computer). After just one day, I feel like it's helping me.

In the middle of the year, maybe I'll post some new recordings and see how I improved.

 

[Mr.Rob]

Haha that was awesome Pinot! You had me laughing on a couple of those particularly the Irish man and the Cheesy Bar Pick Up.

Isn't it funny how sensitive we are to our voices. I just got a voice recorder not too long ago so I can replay my approaches (been a very good learning tool btw) and it was really hard to listen to without my ego telling me I sound like a pathetic loser lol.

As far as your voice goes, I'm no expert and I'm sure you could improve but I like it better than my voice. Sexier than my voice.

Did you just upload it from a voice recorder? I can't seem to figure out how to upload mine. I'll have to play around a bit more.

-Rob

 

[Mr.Rob]

btw while I'm here could one of yall tell me how do I find Chases Podcast. I can't seem to find it for the life of me?

 

[PinotNoir]

Rob, thanks man!

Podcast thread:
https://boards.girlschase.com/viewto ... f=8&t=3622

As far as recording, Soundcloud has an actual recorder. If you want, I can PM you my username/password. Once logged in, you just click Upload, and then it has a Record option (using Flash, I assume?), and I just used that.

If you want really good, free recording software, check out Audacity. It's available on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It has a slight learning curve, but it's what I use to record my music (just for fun, not in an band). You can actually increase/decrease pitch with it. It saves as an Audacity file, but you can Export as a Wav, Mp3, Ogg, etc. file.

 

[Ross]

Ding Dong King Kong Bing Bongggggg. I think it's great that you've put your voice up - allows for good feedback.

I noticed a couple of areas for you to use to fine tune your voice.

- Strength. Right now, your voice is at a typical resonance level. I notice that throughout speaking, your strength will decrease. Notice that this is not the same thing as speaking louder or softer. Changing those throughout the conversation are okay. It's more about the frequency. You notice this most prominently in the Cheesy bar approach. Your first line, "Hi there." Is solid. But the next sentence is full of words tumbling into the next without much resonance or strength. Then, when you start with, "I know that's a deep question" your voice is solid again. Another point where it looses that strength is when you say, "My name is Pinot, wha's yours?"

- Lack of space in between words. This is a lot like fast talking. You often connect the ends of words so that it sounds like one big sentence. For example, in the Daniel Craig impression, you say, '"not-too" and "Toward 'sme". This takes away from the enforcement of the beginning of the words too and me. Try to focus on starting out each word with strength to create a voice which incorporates breaks in words, like this:

Not Too
`-.||`-.

Rather than as such:

Not Too
`-.....-`

Right now, I'd say your voice sounds above average in the clips. It's all about smoothing out a few humps right now.

 

[PinotNoir]

Thanks Ross!

I see your point; I need strength & confidence in my voice. However, when I try and put strength in it like you illustrated, it begins to sound "fake" and "put on." Do you have any suggestions for that? Also, do you have any examples of people with great strength in their voice? Then, I can search YouTube with their names.

At the end, when I said "My name is Pinot, wha's yours?" I accidentally switched back to my "friendly" voice, but tried to keep it sexy. I guess it didn't work.

With the spaces, I didn't even realize that, but you're right. I need to say words crisply and fully, instead of run-on. I think that's due to my southerness (born and raised in the south).

I appreciate the tips and will try to focus on them in the next months.


In relation to loudness, these recordings turned out softer than I realized (headphones at home vs headphones at work), sorry about that guys. In coffee joints, I do speak louder & more confidently. The reason I do this is because I see a lot of guys order something with a timid voice, and then the cashier has to ask them to repeat it. To me, that seems like more effort, so instead, I say what I want loudly so that I don't have to repeat myself. But the louder I am, the more "fake" my voice sounds when I'm trying to make it deep. When I'm in close proximity with a girl (i.e., holding her), I find it easier to make a sexier, deeper voice the softer I make my voice. Just some thoughts on loudness/softness. Thoughts?

 

[Marty]

Pinot:

I think your voice sounds masculine and assertive. I agree with Ross's suggestions though.

On "fakeness": here's my 2¢... Just be fake and live with it for a bit. "Fake it till you make it", just like with all the other good habits you're forming. I'll bet opening a girl in cold approach felt a bit "fake" the first time too, no? Probably the first few times, actually.

Soon enough, what you've been "faking" will become totally natural. It never fails

-Marty

 

[Ross]

Most actors have a strong voice. They must have the ability to project their voices outward, otherwise they risk the threat of not being heard.

Indeed, you should be loud but not too loud. It's hard for me to explain because I don't necessarily have an education in vocals, but I'll try to. As you said, it's better to be loud and say your piece one time rather than be quiet and constantly have someone ask you to repeat what you said. I had a problem with this, as frequent years of kids laughing at my high pitched voice in middle school made me extremely soft-spoken. By the time I was in 9th grade I hardly ever spoke, and when I did people constantly asked me to repeat what I was saying. I went through puberty, voice cracks were abundant, but by the time I hit 11th grade I had an extremely deep voice.

Even though I had this deep voice, it just wasn't strong. People still asked me to repeat what I was saying, and I began forcing my voice to be powerful, rather than loud. I knew that being loud would just annoy people. A fantastic example of having a powerful voice while not being loud is demonstrated by Daniel Craig as James Bond. Note that the voice does not have to be low pitched to be strong. A great example of this is Ryan Reynolds. Not loud, relatively high pitched, but clearly heard and respected. He almost never raises his voice, simply because he doesn't need to - it's strength supports him.

To me, that seems like more effort, so instead, I say what I want loudly so that I don't have to repeat myself. But the louder I am, the more "fake" my voice sounds when I'm trying to make it deep

Forcing a deeper voice isn't suggested. There are ways to naturally make your speech tone deeper, but if you're constantly trying to have a deep & loud voice, it can come off like a cheesy salesman or announcer - i.e. fake. Aim to improve one thing at a time (resonance, deepened voice, clarity, loudness) while speaking, and you'll run into this dilemma far less.

 

[PinotNoir]

Marty, that is a very good point! The first times I ever cold approached felt weird, and a bit fake (memorizing lines sometimes). Of course, I probably felt nervous the most haha. But as I did it more and after getting a few successes, my confidence rose and the more it became natural. In fact, talking to a person face-to-face should be natural! Especially a lovely woman that you want and desire to talk with. But when you have not done it (or rarely), it doesn't feel that way. It's all about changing yourself to be what you want and to get out of your comfort zone, and the first times are expected to be below average in quality. And if you never practice out of fear for appearing "fake," then you'll never improve. Thanks.

Ross, thanks for the examples. I'll focus in on that "strength" more when actors and people around me talk. Now that I know my weaknesses, I can at least work on it. Even though Ryan Reynolds has a higher-pitched voice, he still has a purr every other sentence or so in that video; it's pretty unique. "Excuse me; the hooker and I" sounded very strong to me, but maybe I'm confusing it with emphasis. Ah, just something I'll eventually learn!

As far as "faking it," I think I'll just accept that fact when practicing of course, and in my interactions with women, I'll just try tweaking it and seeing what results occur. I like Marty's idea the best, but I also don't want that to ruin my approaches, so I think a middle ground of both of your suggestions is probably best for me. And if I use a fake-sounding deep voice to a stranger that I'm not interested in romantically, it's not going to really matter if I come off sounding fake or not, and if they tell me I sound fake, that'll be good feedback. And if a woman tells me that, then I'll know to pull it back for the next girl.

Notes to self (using Ross's suggestion) on individual components to master:

• resonance (strength, confidence)
• deepened voice (manly, testosterone)
• clarity (crisp; finish each word, no run-ons)
• loudness (loud = least effort for a request; soft = sexy, bedroom)

 

[PinotNoir]

FYI, I did all of those joke recordings (Irishman, etc.) for 2 reasons:

1.) For you guys, so that it's not so dry and feels like "work," but entertainment. (I guess that's partly for me as well.)

2.) For myself, to practice trying to imitate others. If I can begin to imitate an accent, I know that I can begin to imitate a sexy, deep voice. I think we all can. It also added some insight (e.g., when I was watching French people being interviewed on YouTube, I noticed a distinct emphasis on certain words and certain English words that sounded more "French" when pronounced with the French accent). I would definitely not say that I succeeded in mastering an accent, but it did show me that I could eventually given time and practice.