Why You Hate the Sound of your own Voice from a recording

Before I begin, I would like us to all know that hating your own Voice is totally normal. Yes, you heard me right, it is.






One of the first things we might say when we first listen to ourselves from a recording, is "Are you sure that's me talking", "No, that's not my voice".












But guess what, yes it's you speaking. Did your voice change? The simple answer is No. Then what changed in the way you sounded over the recording.

The only change that happened is in the way your ear perceives the sound waves from your voice.

Now, there are two methods by which your ear perceives sounds waves;





First, Sound wave conduction through the air (Air conduction).

Normally, when you head sound, it is transmitted from the source to the external auditory meatus (ear drum), through your ear canal to the ear drum to the cochlea which is the organ that sends signals to the brain. Then the brain processes and interprets the sound impulses and we now understand what we hear.



Second, sound wave conduction through the bone tissues (Tissue conduction).

Another way your ear perceives sound waves is through transmission through the conduction of sound waves through the bone and tissues directly to your cochlea. The cochlea now sends it to the brain for processing and interpretation.






Now, when you speak, the sound waves is transmitted to your ear through this two methods. The sounds are carried into the ear through the air to reach your inner ear. The tissues and bones in your skull and ear also send these sound waves directly to your cochlea. So this is to say that when you speak or talk, the sound you hear is as a result of this two method.






Here, the bones and tissues in your skull tend to amplify the sounds to make it sounds more deep and full in your ears. The sound vibrations travel through the ear bones, lowering the pitch, this will give you false sense of deep bass and lower frequency vibrations.






On the other hand, when you're listening to your recorded voice, the sound waves in only transmitted through the normal air conduction of sound waves. The part of sound transmission through bone and tissue is omitted. And this causes the sounds you hear appear higher, weaker and thinner from the normal voice you normally hear in your head when you talk or speak.






Here's the funny thing, the way you hear your voice over the recording is the way every other person is and have been hearing your voice. So the way it sounds awful to you is the way people hear it apart from you.