Why does my voice sound different on a recording?

Sound propagates by creating pressure waves in the air. The sound waves reaching our ear travel along the ear canal and are perceived by hair cells in the snail-shaped structure called the cochlea in the inner ear. Feather cells convert sound waves into nerve conduction. These signals are transmitted to the brain by nerve cells, so that the sound is heard.

When we listen to our own voice recording, we often feel uncomfortable with the sound we hear and think that the recording is not like our own voice. Because normally we perceive our own voice in two ways. As we speak, the sound waves that occur are spread out in the air like other external sounds, reaching our ear and are perceived by the hair cells in the cochlea. However, when the vocal cords that make up the sound waves vibrate, these vibrations are transmitted by the bones in our neck and head. The frequency of these vibrations reaching the cochlea is lower than the frequency of the sound emitted in the air. We perceive our own voice as a combination of sound waves reaching these two different ways.

Since sound recorders only perceive sound waves emitted in the air, we cannot hear the component of our sound transmitted inside our body. When we wear headphones that block external sounds, we only perceive “our own inner voice”.