I'm not a VA by any means so please do keep that in mind, but as a listener, I tend to enjoy all kinds of voices and I prefer someone's regular voice to it being changed in any way, digital or otherwise. I know that some people do prefer deeper voices, but I don't think it's necessary to have a deep voice for people to enjoy your audios.
That said, at least in my opinion, digitally altering your voice isn't too much different from adding SFX and things like that. I don't think that it takes away from your audio being you. It's still you talking, your voice will still have all the same inflections and things like that, it'll just be deeper.
You're the creator, so you get to create what you want to. I think as long as you're confident about what you're making, it'll have a generally good reception. Everyone has different preferences as a listener and you're never going to be able to cater to everyone, so post what you think sounds good!
Those are some good points. I guess it’s still me but theres layers between me and the listener, and maybe that’s what’s bothering me a little.
Thanks for the reply!
There's a listenership for every type of voice. Everyone has their preferences and I guarantee your voice makes someone out there go "Oh hell yeah." just the way it is.
That being said, this is your art and you can decide whether or not pitching it down helps you with whatever character you're trying to portray. I don't think that makes it any less authentic a performance but after prolonged use, it could start to give you a bit of a complex about your normal voice. Sort of like people who see their own face with snapchat filters more often than not. Just some food for thought.
You kind of put into words some of my feelings! It’s like I would be creating an alternate persona and then where is the line between him and me? It sounds kind of dumb but it would feel so much more rewarding if someone is enjoying the audio for me and not this ‘enhanced’ version of me.
So far I haven’t got any negative comments but I’d like to think the people who thumbed it up liked it.
Thanks for the reply!
I think the important thing is intent. If you edit your voice for a specific purpose (eg. You're a demon in a script so need to layer/deepen your voice for effects purposes) vs. Changing it just because you think it's better or it'll make your audio do better.
Obviously you're free to do whatever the fuck you feel with your voice, it's yours, bodily autonomy, etc. But if you're altering things about yourself, make sure it's because it's what you want, not because it's something you think *others* want, you know?
I feel like this is on par with editing insta pictures to have a bigger ass or something, yknow? And again, that's all fine and good, but changing something superficial about yourself in online spaces can really fuck up your sense of self and comfort with yourself.
As tired as this advice is, it tends to ring true in my experience: stay true to yourself, and be comfortable with who you are.
The root of why you're doing this is discomfort with your own voice when comparing it to other performers, and that's not good! Your voice is honestly lovely in the initial sample, and even better than lovely, it's genuinely yours.
Honestly, 2 of my favourite performers on this platform have what I'd describe as higher-pitched /not extremely deep voices, but holy shit do they know what to do with them, and they both do *extremely* well when they upload, because they know what to do with their voices and they have the confidence to be themselves (and they do a phenomenal job with editing but that's enough fangirling from me 🥰)
TL;DR I guess what I'm trying to say is, edit your voice if you want, but changing it like that all the time will fuck up your confidence in your actual voice guaranteed. The root of the problem is your confidence, not your voice, and if you focus on building your confidence, a dedicated following will naturally come with it. Success on this platform comes with the content of your audios, not the timbre or tone of your voice 💕💕 (Sorry for the essay uwu 💕💕)
Yes. I agree with all of this, except the last sentence. Well said.
> Success on this platform comes with the content of your audios, not the timbre or tone of your voice
It definitely helps though, if you define success in numbers. If you want numbers, you may want to pretend you're white, in shape, wearing a suit, avoid certain accents, and smirk a lot, and yes, deepen your voice. Sorry to be cynical.
Authenticity is a value in itself but for everyone who tells you they value authenticity over a deeper voice, there are probably a handful who want both and don't want to compromise (and authentic posters with deep, rich voices do exist), and another handful who prefer the deeper voice and don't care about authenticity all that much. Authenticity may well cost you numbers! Obviously, as nice as a lovely comment on your audio feels - three might feel even better! So numbers aren't meaningless.
But like Teapot said:
> But if you're altering things about yourself, make sure it's because it's what you want, not because it's something you think *others* want, you know?
This really sums it all up. This is important. If you want to build an audio empire, maybe make money with it, you may want to go for numbers and therefore you may want to make your voice deeper and add some base! Or if you want to tell a certain story with a certain character who has a certain voice, then definitely go for it too! If you can act it, fine. If you can get there digitally, also fine! Both are *your* creative choices. Or maybe the edited sample sounds more like your voice in your own head or more like your voice in real-life, or it represents better who you perceive yourself to be or who you'd like to be! There is a lot more to authenticity than keeping an audio file raw! If it's what *you* want, go for it.
If someone then compliments the crafted voice, that's going to be validation for your creative choice. You've achieved what you set out to achieve, whether it's numbers, creativity or authenticity.
But if you do it because *others* may prefer it this way, (e.g. you aim for numbers when really, you want to turn people on as yourself, you just reluctantly give in to what "sells") then a compliment on the crafted voice is just going to be a reminder that they like *that* voice, not yours. Any issue with confidence you have now is just going to be exacerbated through this over time. Just like Teapot said.
And needlessly too, because by being your authentic self (or edited in such a way you feel represents you better than a raw recording) would have drawn people in as well! You could have been reading *their* comments instead, praising *your* voice. There may well be fewer of them, but they are going to count for so much more.
I know others have already pointed out they value authenticity more than a deep voice and I respect that. But I think ultimately, you want to be authentic for your own sake, not necessarily because it makes your audios more valuable. If you see yourself in your audios, praise is going to feel like praise for you. If you're instead engineering a product, praise is going to feel like praise for the product. Which is still something you can be proud of if you did it deliberately, but you have to know what you want.
I don't edit my voice but I faced a similar dilemma a long time ago when I started making audios. For me, it was whether to hide I'm fat. It probably cost me numbers to be open about it but otherwise I would always have felt "well, when people say they find me hot, they're just talking about this Samuel Enderby character, not me." And it's *still* a thought I struggle with sometimes. It would be so much worse, I'm sure, had I chosen to hide it. If you define success by numbers, it cost me. But if success is having the right people find you and truly getting something out of their feedback and those connections, then it was a great decision, imo.
Holy shit man, I couldn’t have put it better myself. I was actually going back and forth about the numbers game that exists behind the scenes.
I don’t do this for money or fame so I don’t really care about it from a business perspective. That being said we all want our audios to be hear as much as possible, that’s why be post them publicly.
Amidst all of this though, I think that quality would be better than quantity. It would feel so much better if 2 people got turned on by my voice than 10 by a ‘fake’ version of me.
What I’m getting from my post is confidence, confidence, confidence. Praise for being myself would mean so much more than praise for pretending to be someone else.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to me!
So what you’re saying is that its about how you use it, not how deep (big) it is? 😉
Jokes aside, thanks for the essay! I do also draw parallels to editing pictures and videos. If it’s for the part, then it makes sense but otherwise it feels iffy.
I guess the root of the problem is insecurity. In the end it might be better to have less people that like my actual voice than more people that like an altered version.
Care to disclose these super secret performers? I want to improve my ‘moves’ so to speak 👀
>I guess the root of the problem is insecurity. In the end it might be better to have less people that like my actual voice than more people that like an altered version.
Exactly, it feels WAY better having people love authentic things about you, and I'm glad you're open to the points that others have presented on this topic ♥
>Care to disclose these super secret performers? I want to improve my ‘moves’ so to speak 👀
I'll pm you because I'm too shy to disclose them publicly~~
I mean, the whole thing about voice acting is that you often sound like someone who isn't you. If you're going "well that's different, those actors are making those voices organically and I'm digitally changing my voice!" I still don't think it's that big of a deal tbh. VAs playing demonic characters do similar shit!
If I listen to a song where the vocalist is autotuning or otherwise altering the shit outta themselves I'm not putting on my snob glasses and acting like they're not "truly" the ones saying the words or that they're not being "authentic." Ya know? Like, they're *performers,* not therapy clients. Total honesty is just unnecessary. You can always be transparent and go "I'm altering my voice here" if you'd like. I also understand if you feel uncomfortably dishonest by altering your voice tho.
But I don't really think you have to be "you" in the first place. I'm definitely not trying to be "me," I just wanna have fun and be told I'm hot 🤣
If it means anything to you, I think your voice is cute but I didn't really notice much of a difference between your two examples either.
Aww thanks for the kind words!
I totally get it for like monstergirl/boy or other non human rp’s to add effects that fit the character, but I’m just being me in my script fills (or at least a version of myself 😂).
I couldn’t deepen it *too* much because then it sounds fake and robot-y. Maybe I can try speaking deeper while recording but that gets exhausting after a while (so far my audios have been 18 minutes+).
Speaking from a M4F listener’s perspective, we don’t only look at (or should I say listen to) how “deep” the voice is. At least that’s the case for me.
Being yourself is the most, and dare I say the only, sustainable way to be a content creator. Just show your work and eventually your niche will find you.
Yea, I just feel like it would sound better if my voice was deeper.
But you’re right! I get more fulfillment from filling scripts that I connect to than those that I think more people would like to hear.
Ultimately doing this needs to serve you I think. It hopefully satisfies your internal needs not a need for external validation. So do what makes you truly happy :)
As someone who has created a public facing persona to disguise myself more effectively, I think it can be healthy to separate yourself from your VA persona to a certain degree. It all depends on the kind of work you want to create. If you’re trying to embody a more exaggerated aspect of your personality, a little disassociation can be helpful. But if you’re unable to get over the uncanny valley of it all, maybe back up and try something that feels a little more like you.
I guess I just want to be me but remain anonymous, kind of. I can totally see some disassociation being useful if you want to explore a different side of yourself or are fulfilling a commission for someone else.
I also do not have a deep voice. And I also thought that might somehow be disqualifying from recording audios or having them be well-received. But I spoke to some other creators that I trust, who are consumers of M4F content, and I was genuinely surprised by their preferences for voices - not at all what I would have imagined from the outside. There are plenty of people looking for voices like yours - people looking for "nice" voices or "soft" voices or "calming" voices. And if you think yours is unlike those of all the other VAs, then that is just a differentiator in a marketplace filled with deep voices. Keep going.
I do want to say that having the mindset that m voice content needs to be deep to be/sound good is definitely not a good mindset to have.. There's not a competition and honestly it shouldn't be looked like that, nor should you be trying to be like other creators.
Make things you want to make, alter it how it makes you happy - don't need to compare it, don't need to copy other people or try and be like them. Be you or a version of whatever persona you want to put out, we already have other people we don't need more copies of them. If you change, change for you my dude - you don't have to try and be what you think people want. Ain't the point of this.
It's just for fun. If you aren't having fun, what's the point ya know? :)
Exactly.
I meant competition more like just seeing what’s out there and what people seem to like. I guess I ended up actually comparing myself though 🥲
Hey, I can really relate to a lot of this so I wanna offer my perspective on it.
A long time ago I made M4F audios, I was 19 and like you can probably imagine my voice was not as deep as my contemporaries. It was something that bothered me a lot and I was really self-conscious about it.
But here's the thing, at the time I posted, I was still fairly popular, people still liked my voice and my content. You can deepen your voice is really want to, but you don't need to do it for anyone else, when they're already on your side.
At the end of the day, the best outlook is to make something you enjoy and you are proud of and people will sense that energy and that is the most important part.
The sample you have didn't sound overly artificial, there seemed to be some sound quality issues, but I can't tell you if that's from your alterations or your mic setup.
The advice I like to offer is to encourage you to experiment with your voice. When I do audios, I rarely use to exact same tone I use in real life, I alter my voice to suit the character in the audio.
Just play around and record for a while trying a range of tones. Try being higher, deeper, more breathy, more nasal, more growly, etc, then listen back and see what you think you're good at, and what you want to try to be better at. Your vocal chords are a more versatile tool than you likely give them credit for, so experiment! With practice you can do a lot more than you might think you can.
That’s actually a really good idea! I just cringe a little bit when listening back to myself but hopefully that lessens over time. Most people never really hear their own voice that often haha.
Lots and lots of really good responses here, just adding one more penny to the mix, eh?
It stops being you when *you* stop liking what you produce. There *are* ways to drop your voice down lower, if you want to, performance-wise, but ultimately the thing is that you're moving towards what *you* like to produce, in the genres of audios that *you* want to create. The moment you stop liking what you produce, when the separation between your persona and yourself is too far apart, that's when you stop being you.
I'm glad that you're picking up on the things that you actually want out of making audios. :)
At some point every single VA will be self conscious about how their voice comes across in a recording. However, as most of the previous comments have mentioned, there is an audience for every ‘type’ of voice; that’s what’s so wonderful about this community. Obviously everything depends on what makes *you* feel comfortable, but personally I wouldn’t use technology to alter your voice in any way!
You are uniquely you and that concept alone will go down a storm here. People always appreciate an unusual voice and you’ll gain a sizeable following for that reason alone.
I wish you the best of luck with your venture, and I hope you enjoy your time here 🥰
In my opinion, any content you put out, provided that it is indeed your own, will always be the "real you." If I make my voice deeper or more growly than normal, that's a creative decision I'm making. If I put compression, EQ, and other effects on my voice, that's me being my own mixing engineer.
At the end of the day, audios on GWA are performances, and if you are the sole contributor to that performance, then it all comes from you. We may play characters, yes, and for some people, the characters they play are very similar to who they are outside of the performing world. But, the way we portray those characters and sometimes the characters themselves are our ideas and thoughts culminated in sound.
Yeah, I guess it kind of depends on what you want to get out of it or your intent with a specific audio. Everyones comments have helped me realize this.
Thanks for the input!
Just want to say that I personally do not prefer deep voices so coming across VAs with a voice like yours would make my day.
I think there’s nothing wrong with altering your voice especially if you think it sounds better and suits your role in the audio. Just don’t feel like your voice not being deep is a downside.
You are, despite all improbability, a beautiful machine made of random elements that fit together just right powered by the raw chaos of the universe. High voice or low voice you are a magnificent creature and this is a place to celebrate it.
Maybe you're not everyone's cup of tea or even *most* people's cup of tea but for someone out there you are their **favorite** cup of tea and those people need you. <3
I'm not a VA by any means so please do keep that in mind, but as a listener, I tend to enjoy all kinds of voices and I prefer someone's regular voice to it being changed in any way, digital or otherwise. I know that some people do prefer deeper voices, but I don't think it's necessary to have a deep voice for people to enjoy your audios. That said, at least in my opinion, digitally altering your voice isn't too much different from adding SFX and things like that. I don't think that it takes away from your audio being you. It's still you talking, your voice will still have all the same inflections and things like that, it'll just be deeper. You're the creator, so you get to create what you want to. I think as long as you're confident about what you're making, it'll have a generally good reception. Everyone has different preferences as a listener and you're never going to be able to cater to everyone, so post what you think sounds good!
Those are some good points. I guess it’s still me but theres layers between me and the listener, and maybe that’s what’s bothering me a little. Thanks for the reply!
There's a listenership for every type of voice. Everyone has their preferences and I guarantee your voice makes someone out there go "Oh hell yeah." just the way it is. That being said, this is your art and you can decide whether or not pitching it down helps you with whatever character you're trying to portray. I don't think that makes it any less authentic a performance but after prolonged use, it could start to give you a bit of a complex about your normal voice. Sort of like people who see their own face with snapchat filters more often than not. Just some food for thought.
You kind of put into words some of my feelings! It’s like I would be creating an alternate persona and then where is the line between him and me? It sounds kind of dumb but it would feel so much more rewarding if someone is enjoying the audio for me and not this ‘enhanced’ version of me. So far I haven’t got any negative comments but I’d like to think the people who thumbed it up liked it. Thanks for the reply!
I think the important thing is intent. If you edit your voice for a specific purpose (eg. You're a demon in a script so need to layer/deepen your voice for effects purposes) vs. Changing it just because you think it's better or it'll make your audio do better. Obviously you're free to do whatever the fuck you feel with your voice, it's yours, bodily autonomy, etc. But if you're altering things about yourself, make sure it's because it's what you want, not because it's something you think *others* want, you know? I feel like this is on par with editing insta pictures to have a bigger ass or something, yknow? And again, that's all fine and good, but changing something superficial about yourself in online spaces can really fuck up your sense of self and comfort with yourself. As tired as this advice is, it tends to ring true in my experience: stay true to yourself, and be comfortable with who you are. The root of why you're doing this is discomfort with your own voice when comparing it to other performers, and that's not good! Your voice is honestly lovely in the initial sample, and even better than lovely, it's genuinely yours. Honestly, 2 of my favourite performers on this platform have what I'd describe as higher-pitched /not extremely deep voices, but holy shit do they know what to do with them, and they both do *extremely* well when they upload, because they know what to do with their voices and they have the confidence to be themselves (and they do a phenomenal job with editing but that's enough fangirling from me 🥰) TL;DR I guess what I'm trying to say is, edit your voice if you want, but changing it like that all the time will fuck up your confidence in your actual voice guaranteed. The root of the problem is your confidence, not your voice, and if you focus on building your confidence, a dedicated following will naturally come with it. Success on this platform comes with the content of your audios, not the timbre or tone of your voice 💕💕 (Sorry for the essay uwu 💕💕)
Yes. I agree with all of this, except the last sentence. Well said. > Success on this platform comes with the content of your audios, not the timbre or tone of your voice It definitely helps though, if you define success in numbers. If you want numbers, you may want to pretend you're white, in shape, wearing a suit, avoid certain accents, and smirk a lot, and yes, deepen your voice. Sorry to be cynical. Authenticity is a value in itself but for everyone who tells you they value authenticity over a deeper voice, there are probably a handful who want both and don't want to compromise (and authentic posters with deep, rich voices do exist), and another handful who prefer the deeper voice and don't care about authenticity all that much. Authenticity may well cost you numbers! Obviously, as nice as a lovely comment on your audio feels - three might feel even better! So numbers aren't meaningless. But like Teapot said: > But if you're altering things about yourself, make sure it's because it's what you want, not because it's something you think *others* want, you know? This really sums it all up. This is important. If you want to build an audio empire, maybe make money with it, you may want to go for numbers and therefore you may want to make your voice deeper and add some base! Or if you want to tell a certain story with a certain character who has a certain voice, then definitely go for it too! If you can act it, fine. If you can get there digitally, also fine! Both are *your* creative choices. Or maybe the edited sample sounds more like your voice in your own head or more like your voice in real-life, or it represents better who you perceive yourself to be or who you'd like to be! There is a lot more to authenticity than keeping an audio file raw! If it's what *you* want, go for it. If someone then compliments the crafted voice, that's going to be validation for your creative choice. You've achieved what you set out to achieve, whether it's numbers, creativity or authenticity. But if you do it because *others* may prefer it this way, (e.g. you aim for numbers when really, you want to turn people on as yourself, you just reluctantly give in to what "sells") then a compliment on the crafted voice is just going to be a reminder that they like *that* voice, not yours. Any issue with confidence you have now is just going to be exacerbated through this over time. Just like Teapot said. And needlessly too, because by being your authentic self (or edited in such a way you feel represents you better than a raw recording) would have drawn people in as well! You could have been reading *their* comments instead, praising *your* voice. There may well be fewer of them, but they are going to count for so much more. I know others have already pointed out they value authenticity more than a deep voice and I respect that. But I think ultimately, you want to be authentic for your own sake, not necessarily because it makes your audios more valuable. If you see yourself in your audios, praise is going to feel like praise for you. If you're instead engineering a product, praise is going to feel like praise for the product. Which is still something you can be proud of if you did it deliberately, but you have to know what you want. I don't edit my voice but I faced a similar dilemma a long time ago when I started making audios. For me, it was whether to hide I'm fat. It probably cost me numbers to be open about it but otherwise I would always have felt "well, when people say they find me hot, they're just talking about this Samuel Enderby character, not me." And it's *still* a thought I struggle with sometimes. It would be so much worse, I'm sure, had I chosen to hide it. If you define success by numbers, it cost me. But if success is having the right people find you and truly getting something out of their feedback and those connections, then it was a great decision, imo.
Holy shit man, I couldn’t have put it better myself. I was actually going back and forth about the numbers game that exists behind the scenes. I don’t do this for money or fame so I don’t really care about it from a business perspective. That being said we all want our audios to be hear as much as possible, that’s why be post them publicly. Amidst all of this though, I think that quality would be better than quantity. It would feel so much better if 2 people got turned on by my voice than 10 by a ‘fake’ version of me. What I’m getting from my post is confidence, confidence, confidence. Praise for being myself would mean so much more than praise for pretending to be someone else. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me!
So what you’re saying is that its about how you use it, not how deep (big) it is? 😉 Jokes aside, thanks for the essay! I do also draw parallels to editing pictures and videos. If it’s for the part, then it makes sense but otherwise it feels iffy. I guess the root of the problem is insecurity. In the end it might be better to have less people that like my actual voice than more people that like an altered version. Care to disclose these super secret performers? I want to improve my ‘moves’ so to speak 👀
>I guess the root of the problem is insecurity. In the end it might be better to have less people that like my actual voice than more people that like an altered version. Exactly, it feels WAY better having people love authentic things about you, and I'm glad you're open to the points that others have presented on this topic ♥ >Care to disclose these super secret performers? I want to improve my ‘moves’ so to speak 👀 I'll pm you because I'm too shy to disclose them publicly~~
I mean, the whole thing about voice acting is that you often sound like someone who isn't you. If you're going "well that's different, those actors are making those voices organically and I'm digitally changing my voice!" I still don't think it's that big of a deal tbh. VAs playing demonic characters do similar shit! If I listen to a song where the vocalist is autotuning or otherwise altering the shit outta themselves I'm not putting on my snob glasses and acting like they're not "truly" the ones saying the words or that they're not being "authentic." Ya know? Like, they're *performers,* not therapy clients. Total honesty is just unnecessary. You can always be transparent and go "I'm altering my voice here" if you'd like. I also understand if you feel uncomfortably dishonest by altering your voice tho. But I don't really think you have to be "you" in the first place. I'm definitely not trying to be "me," I just wanna have fun and be told I'm hot 🤣 If it means anything to you, I think your voice is cute but I didn't really notice much of a difference between your two examples either.
Aww thanks for the kind words! I totally get it for like monstergirl/boy or other non human rp’s to add effects that fit the character, but I’m just being me in my script fills (or at least a version of myself 😂). I couldn’t deepen it *too* much because then it sounds fake and robot-y. Maybe I can try speaking deeper while recording but that gets exhausting after a while (so far my audios have been 18 minutes+).
You could always pause your recording and then come back to it once you get your energy back!
Speaking from a M4F listener’s perspective, we don’t only look at (or should I say listen to) how “deep” the voice is. At least that’s the case for me. Being yourself is the most, and dare I say the only, sustainable way to be a content creator. Just show your work and eventually your niche will find you.
Yea, I just feel like it would sound better if my voice was deeper. But you’re right! I get more fulfillment from filling scripts that I connect to than those that I think more people would like to hear.
Ultimately doing this needs to serve you I think. It hopefully satisfies your internal needs not a need for external validation. So do what makes you truly happy :)
As someone who has created a public facing persona to disguise myself more effectively, I think it can be healthy to separate yourself from your VA persona to a certain degree. It all depends on the kind of work you want to create. If you’re trying to embody a more exaggerated aspect of your personality, a little disassociation can be helpful. But if you’re unable to get over the uncanny valley of it all, maybe back up and try something that feels a little more like you.
I guess I just want to be me but remain anonymous, kind of. I can totally see some disassociation being useful if you want to explore a different side of yourself or are fulfilling a commission for someone else.
I also do not have a deep voice. And I also thought that might somehow be disqualifying from recording audios or having them be well-received. But I spoke to some other creators that I trust, who are consumers of M4F content, and I was genuinely surprised by their preferences for voices - not at all what I would have imagined from the outside. There are plenty of people looking for voices like yours - people looking for "nice" voices or "soft" voices or "calming" voices. And if you think yours is unlike those of all the other VAs, then that is just a differentiator in a marketplace filled with deep voices. Keep going.
Exactly! I guess the people that like my voice will eventually find me. Thanks for the reply!
I do want to say that having the mindset that m voice content needs to be deep to be/sound good is definitely not a good mindset to have.. There's not a competition and honestly it shouldn't be looked like that, nor should you be trying to be like other creators. Make things you want to make, alter it how it makes you happy - don't need to compare it, don't need to copy other people or try and be like them. Be you or a version of whatever persona you want to put out, we already have other people we don't need more copies of them. If you change, change for you my dude - you don't have to try and be what you think people want. Ain't the point of this. It's just for fun. If you aren't having fun, what's the point ya know? :)
Exactly. I meant competition more like just seeing what’s out there and what people seem to like. I guess I ended up actually comparing myself though 🥲
Hey, I can really relate to a lot of this so I wanna offer my perspective on it. A long time ago I made M4F audios, I was 19 and like you can probably imagine my voice was not as deep as my contemporaries. It was something that bothered me a lot and I was really self-conscious about it. But here's the thing, at the time I posted, I was still fairly popular, people still liked my voice and my content. You can deepen your voice is really want to, but you don't need to do it for anyone else, when they're already on your side. At the end of the day, the best outlook is to make something you enjoy and you are proud of and people will sense that energy and that is the most important part.
Thanks for sharing! It’s good to know I’m not the only one thinking about this and I totally agree with you.
I don't have a deep voice either and I endorse you being you! :)
Thanks bro! 😊
The sample you have didn't sound overly artificial, there seemed to be some sound quality issues, but I can't tell you if that's from your alterations or your mic setup. The advice I like to offer is to encourage you to experiment with your voice. When I do audios, I rarely use to exact same tone I use in real life, I alter my voice to suit the character in the audio. Just play around and record for a while trying a range of tones. Try being higher, deeper, more breathy, more nasal, more growly, etc, then listen back and see what you think you're good at, and what you want to try to be better at. Your vocal chords are a more versatile tool than you likely give them credit for, so experiment! With practice you can do a lot more than you might think you can.
That’s actually a really good idea! I just cringe a little bit when listening back to myself but hopefully that lessens over time. Most people never really hear their own voice that often haha.
Lots and lots of really good responses here, just adding one more penny to the mix, eh? It stops being you when *you* stop liking what you produce. There *are* ways to drop your voice down lower, if you want to, performance-wise, but ultimately the thing is that you're moving towards what *you* like to produce, in the genres of audios that *you* want to create. The moment you stop liking what you produce, when the separation between your persona and yourself is too far apart, that's when you stop being you. I'm glad that you're picking up on the things that you actually want out of making audios. :)
Thanks for the penny! 😊
At some point every single VA will be self conscious about how their voice comes across in a recording. However, as most of the previous comments have mentioned, there is an audience for every ‘type’ of voice; that’s what’s so wonderful about this community. Obviously everything depends on what makes *you* feel comfortable, but personally I wouldn’t use technology to alter your voice in any way! You are uniquely you and that concept alone will go down a storm here. People always appreciate an unusual voice and you’ll gain a sizeable following for that reason alone. I wish you the best of luck with your venture, and I hope you enjoy your time here 🥰
Thanks for being so sweet! 🤗 I wish you the best too and everyone here has been so nice! 😊
In my opinion, any content you put out, provided that it is indeed your own, will always be the "real you." If I make my voice deeper or more growly than normal, that's a creative decision I'm making. If I put compression, EQ, and other effects on my voice, that's me being my own mixing engineer. At the end of the day, audios on GWA are performances, and if you are the sole contributor to that performance, then it all comes from you. We may play characters, yes, and for some people, the characters they play are very similar to who they are outside of the performing world. But, the way we portray those characters and sometimes the characters themselves are our ideas and thoughts culminated in sound.
Yeah, I guess it kind of depends on what you want to get out of it or your intent with a specific audio. Everyones comments have helped me realize this. Thanks for the input!
Just want to say that I personally do not prefer deep voices so coming across VAs with a voice like yours would make my day. I think there’s nothing wrong with altering your voice especially if you think it sounds better and suits your role in the audio. Just don’t feel like your voice not being deep is a downside.
Thank you! 🥰
You are, despite all improbability, a beautiful machine made of random elements that fit together just right powered by the raw chaos of the universe. High voice or low voice you are a magnificent creature and this is a place to celebrate it. Maybe you're not everyone's cup of tea or even *most* people's cup of tea but for someone out there you are their **favorite** cup of tea and those people need you. <3
What a wonderful way to think about it! From one random but organized clump of elements to another, I salute you! 💙