[Shade]

Does anyone know of a free program that will allow you to play back the stuff you're recording through headphones as you are recording it? I only just realised, upon finally getting myself a microphone worth a damn, how horrible my accent is while speaking English. And the thing is, it naturally doesn't sound anywhere near that bad to me while I'm speaking it.

So, if I'm going to improve, and perhaps one day be useful for voice acting, I need to hear myself speak as someone else hears it while I'm doing it, else I won't be able to experiment and find the correct intonations to get rid of the worst of it. Any suggestions?

[Tinman]

Never heard of audio software with such feature. And i think this won't work.

There will be a time difference due to A/D conversion and then D/A conversion.
And, you hear yourself while speaking - you expect to hear a difference by playback during recording?

[Herra Tohtori]

You can't, because your voice will carry to your ears "as is" through your skull bones. There's not much you can do.

Probably the best you can do is to either get sound-blocking headphones or simply use earbuds and some hearing protection cups on top of them.


As for the way to hook things up in the computer (assuming you use a Windows computer to record), plug the microphone and headphones in, open volume management (Run sndvol32 or open it from the Windows task bar) and enable (unmute) microphone in both playback and recording sides of the utility. Adjust the volume to appropriate levels. Now you should be hearing what the microphone inputs to the PC, but the problem with "hearing your own voice" can never be solved entirely. It will always sound different in the recording than when you say it, and you'll likely have to revert to listening to the recording in the end anyway.

[Shade]

There will be a time difference due to A/D conversion and then D/A conversion.

A small time difference won't bother me. And I'd be practicing individual words or short phrases so it should be negligible anyhow.

And, you hear yourself while speaking - you expect to hear a difference by playback during recording?

I don't know about you, but to me there's a massive difference between how I hear my voice as I speak it, and how it sounds when it is played back to me. I actually couldn't even recognize my voice as being my own the first time I heard it recorded. So, that'd have to be a yes, I do expect to hear a difference, as long as I turn up the earphones high enough to carry over the 'real' voice.

[Edit]

Probably the best you can do is to either get sound-blocking headphones or simply use earbuds and some hearing protection cups on top of them.

That's exactly what I want to do, just need to know how to get the actual sound to them as I'm speaking it. And it seems you've just solved that for me, so thanks Also, I don't need it to be exact, I just need to be getting some sort of reference to work with as I'm practising, and I think this will be good enough for that.

[Tinman]

And, you hear yourself while speaking - you expect to hear a difference by playback during recording?

I don't know about you, but to me there's a massive difference between how I hear my voice as I speak it, and how it sounds when it is played back to me. I actually couldn't even recognize my voice as being my own the first time I heard it recorded. So, that'd have to be a yes, I do expect to hear a difference, as long as I turn up the earphones high enough to carry over the 'real' voice.

Yes there is a difference. I do not recognize my voice in a recording. either. Not instantly, truly.

But as HT wrote, the sound of your voice is transported as you speak through your skull/bones and the air to your ears.
Playback during recording will not change that in my opinion.

But try HTs proposal. And tell us your experience, please.

[TopAce]

I planned to do the same: improve my English pronunciation this way. I would just run the Windows Sound Recorder, record a short sentence, stop, play back, record again, and so on. I can't see why this wouldn't work.

[Shade]

Certainly is possible, and I've been doing that prior to making this topic. I just want to try doing it in realtime if possible, since I think it'll be easier (and definitely faster) to correct mistakes that way.

I've found that I sometimes just can't nail the correct sound for something, and keep going through the same record->play loop on a sentence maybe 20 times before getting it right. I find this a waste of time, as I'd rather pick up on any serious problems in my recording right as I speak them so I can stop there and fix it immediately.

Of course, I might be wrong and it might turn out to be no help at all. But it can't hurt to try