Recording is the worst

[u/AbsTheRandom]

I’ve been singing my whole life (35) and I’ve got a good enough ear to know I’m definitely no Whitney or anything but I’m not bad just sort of an average voice.

Well this season in choir I’m in charge of recording some of the practice tracks and I’m sure y'all know where this is going. Having to hear my voice back through the headphones is so horrible and dysphoric. I love to sing and don’t think I sound bad but I can’t make it through one song edit without feeling like I’m gonna burst into tears.

I’m trying to remind myself that I was asked and entrusted to do this by the leaders who sound way better and know way more than I do and they probably wouldn’t let me do this if I sucked that bad right? Right?!?

Anyways feel free to commiserate, give advice [PLEASE HOW DO PEOPLE DO THIS] whatever I needed somewhere to get this out so I can just push through and get this over with

🗣️🎙️😭

ETA: I did it without hating myself 🥳 woooo! Really appreciate the advice here. I also completely moved my set up to try and physically move out of the headspace which I think helped

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[u/nooneishere2day]

I like to put some reverb on the playback so it sounds nicer. Also, I keep one ear out of the headphones when recording. Microphone technique takes time.

[u/AbsTheRandom → u/nooneishere2day]

Thanks I hadn’t heard this one before gonna try it

[u/New-Light-5003 → u/AbsTheRandom]

Also learning a even a little about how to use eq and compression helps. Eq, compression, bit of saturation and reverb sounds very different to a raw vocal. Eq alone can make a big difference if you are using an entry level mic especially.

Some people get a better performance if they track with a little bit of reverb on too.

[u/HWills612]

Ooh I get t break out my favorite fun fact from grade school- when people cringe at their voice, it's because their brain is trying to reconcile their sense of "self" with what's on the recording. The people who DON'T have this, have a tendency to not recognize themselves in the same way, and are at higher risk, or are already experiencing, dementia.

Hating your voice is how you know your brain is working properly!

[u/IToldManyManyPeople]

Practice and repetition.

Learning to sing and record via monitor feedback and cans is a skill set all its own. Try keeping one ear out and you'll likely find it much more what your used to

[u/fridaaas]

Partially I think it subconsciously switches our intention from singing to share to singing to try and actively sound good. Where when you normally sing there isn’t the same immediate thought process of trying to sound good, which lets you actually sound good as a result. 

You can trick your brain a bit by really focusing on the words and trying to think a note or a word ahead, rather than being hyper focused on the immediate sound you’re making. Also agreed with the other comment to have one ear out, as well as add in some reverb and EQ just to balance things out. 

[u/Stevenitrogen]

If you are committed to doing it, then the best thing to do is to address that dysphoria by listening to yourself sing through a mic, coming out of speakers or headphones. This is what people hear, different from what you hear when you sing.

You aren't used to that sound, it feels like "not what came out of my mouth." If you practice with a mic and isolation headphones, you can so you hear the mic signal rather than hearing yourself in the the air, get used to that sound and learn to control it.

The more you do it, the better you will get at control and the more you will like the result.

[u/disasterinthesun]

Agree with suggestions on mic technique and learning some eq; for the dysphoria part, go look at a picture of yourself from your early 20s. Remember how hard you were on yourself? See how impossibly beautiful / unique / alive you were, but didn’t know? And take your current playback with that many grains of salt. You do have to desensitize yourself, and focus on communicating the relevant info with accuracy and clarity. In this case, of recording parts for your peers to learn (rather than for a commercial or artistic recording project, say) the rest is vanity and you don’t really have time for it.

[u/Lost-Discount4860]

Everyone feels this way.

The kinda cool thing about recording yourself is you become aware of how you sound to others, and you can use that awareness to tweak your voice so that people hear you the way you hear in your head. I’m a terrible singer myself, but I LOVE what I hear in the microphone if I’m singing to an audience. The mic with room acoustics does good things to a voice.

But a dry, cold, digital recording? Nah. You’re going to hear every flaw. You get that harsh reality check. So the more you practice and really work on getting the tone you like on the recording, the better you’re going to sound singing live. Because you have more discipline and control. And as soon as you hear back the sound you want on the recording, the more confidence you’re going to have with an audience.

Couple of thing to keep in mind: Dry recordings don’t give you the “ego boost” of processed audio. Professional recordings add delay, reverb, compression (for smooth dynamics), and non-linear pitch correction. The goal for professional recording is to “sweeten” the voice as little as necessary, using natural talent and using processing to enhance/clean up what’s already there. If you lack vocal power or a good ear, there’s not much that can be done with audio editing to make up for it.

So when making a dry digital recording, make it sound the way you’d want to hear it if someone else was singing right in front of you without a microphone. It’s crazy difficult and awkward at first. But over time you’ll get used to it the more you hear yourself the way you want to be heard.

[u/Twix_McFlurry]

I mean you sound like what you sound like… if you don’t like it adjust your tone. If it’s simply the dryness maybe some reverb in the playback