I've been curious about it for a long time. Of course this question is mostly related to sound recording in general, but the main thing I'm interested in is vocal weight (and, obviously, the perception of gender bc of it).

I've noticed that when I try to practice my "fem" (I mean, with a smaller weight and size, not necessarily much higher or cis in general) voice I mostly feel disappointed hearing the recording. Although I'm much more successful now in modifying vocal weight (I still don't really get some things though) and somewhat changing the timbre of my not really good voice, it still sounds a bit off on the recording (if the quality is high and the sound is more "bassy" and studio-like). While speaking, I'm trying to hear my resonance more clearly (speak in front of a wall; with palms on my ears) and to be more sensitive, but it looks like I have to make my already quite small and light voice as tiny as possible to get the "right" weight/size "mode"!

But when I try to practice my "normal" (according to my AMAB gender) I get the complete opposite - my voice always sounds too small and light, even when I speak deeper and with chest resonance. Like I don't change my weight in both "genders" at all! Although, in different acoustics or on more "telephone-like" recording (I mean with lower quality, with more high frequencies) my voice sounds small enough (to my ears). I noticed, that cis women even if in life their voice is not really "thin" or high-pitched sound much smaller and younger on the recording or on the phone. And male voices again (not really deep of course) are also tend to sound a bit lighter if the recording lacks low frequencies.

Is it really a thing or I'm just bad at changing my voice?..

It makes me feel disphoric bc both gendered voices sound off and fake and I can't find something in-between (not for everyday life, but at least for my fan voice acting practice). The "androgynous" sound is not really androgynous in terms of weight

I just lost my male voice after training, it doesn’t sound male when i try just like a girl making a guy impression

Hello! I need to know since I have VFS in 3th of February and I just got a notification that I could do SRS at the 7th of April or 14th of August. Are 2 months enough to heal or shoukd I wait? The problem is that the 7th of April would be perfectly timed so I am very tempted to take it.

Hello, how are you? My name is Thifany, I'm from Brazil and I'm preparing to start HRT next year, because first I need to lose weight. Is it possible to start voice training before starting HRT? Thank you very much for your attention.

I usually just start counting ior saying says of the week or the months which works at first but it's getting so repetitive got any ideas for what else I can use for practicing

Hi. So I'm sure lots of you had this experience:

• Watch a bunch of voice training videos
• Everyone in the videos does this kind of breathy "disney princess" voice
• Try to do the super breathy "princess" voice for a while
• Inevitably fall back into your pre-voice-training voice because you don't feel like yourself and can't take what you're saying seriously, it's not the affect and emotion you usually have while talking
• Try to have that affect while raising the pitch, but fail because of a lack of breath support

I want to voice pass in such a way I don't lose the "me" in my voice. I only ever see people talking with a really meek, passive cadence but my natural speaking voice is very sharp and fast-paced. I don't want to change that aspect of my speaking, and I believe it's possible not to while still voice passing since "nerdy" women tend to have the sort of voice I'm going for. Is there a guide for achieving this type of voice?

Lindsay Ellis has the exact voice I'm talking about if you want an example. She talks in that kind of sharp, blunt affect while still sounding very femme.

hi everyone

i’ve been practicing voice training on my own for like 2 years now (ever since i started HRT) and like, when im alone my voice sounds okay. it’s not perfect because i don’t use it 24/7, but i think it’s passing enough

the problem im running into (and want to know if anyone else has dealt with this before) is that whenever i go to use my trained voice around other people i freeze up and choke, then get embarrassed and just default to my old voice.

it totally stupid, but it feels like i haven’t been able to get over this hump on my own, and i’ve been trying for a solid 6 months now 🙃

it feels like i’m getting stage fright, and i just forget how to use all my training the moment i need it

has anyone else dealt with this specifically? is there anything you’d recommend to help me overcome this anxiety? thanks so much for reading!

tldr: i get stage fright (i think) when using my practiced voice, and am looking for advice to overcome it

Hii so i’ve been having this problem for a while that when i lift my head higher it becomes difficult to speak in a feminine voice and when i lift my head all the way up and back I can’t speak at all, Is there any way to fix this??

I hate my voice, it can't stay the way it is, but voice training seems to me like one of the most difficult and daunting things I have ever wanted to do. I've made a token effort to start countless times, but every time I end up giving up because it feels so out of reach, and it just makes me miserable. The problem is, I have no idea if anything I'm doing is actually helping me (apart from taking people's word for it), I have no idea what the right way of doing it is (literally every person I ask tells me something different) and there's no guarantee it'll even work on me anyway. I know a lot of people who just seemed to decide to start, and then just got on with it, but like... how?? How do you people start, and keep going, when it's so fucking herculean with no guarantee that it's even doing anything, and does it not make you feel awful starting out?

Any advice is appreciated, because my voice is horrible and I need to change it :(

I feel like this is my biggest issue at the moment. I get a pretty alright sound but the longer I talk the more I can kind of feel it falling off. I start to get a bunch of fry everywhere and on the spectrogram you can clearly see that, while on average my pitch does hold up, there are many "dips" and it doesn't sound great.

So I've thought about it a bunch and did some research and I'm pretty sure it's because I'm not getting enough air out. If I make an effort to exhale more air while I talk it does help, but it's uncomfortable, and I very quickly run out of breath.

And as I start to more consciously observe my day-to-day "normal" speaking voice, I notice that I have the same exact problem there as well. I think I tend to be a bit quiet so I picked up this bad habit which makes me sound pretty bad. I'm starting to wonder if it could be a cause of my constant dry throat as well.

Anyway, my question is twofold: one, whether what I said makes sense; and two, whether there are certain breathing exercises or anything I could do to help improve. I've tried a few random things but they don't seem to help, and I'd also rather hear from you than some maybe-AI-generated SEO spam.

So, I've been getting pretty good at manipulating singular aspects of my voice like size and weight. The only problem is when I start to mix those two things together to get fullness. I can do underful and overful easily, but trying to go manly man it definitely sounds "put on" and trying to go feminine (the main issue since I don't care too much about going more masc) I struggle to keep myself from slipping back to an overful voice. At most I can get a few seconds of something workable before I hear the weight begin to slip—sometimes the size too.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm MTF

https://voca.ro/16fkSUKNKzO8
https://voca.ro/1aiOprcjEHuZ

(Sorry for the Ammount of Cringe in the quote , but i do like the Og meme)

Hi everyone, I had VFSRAC with Yeson in late September 2024 and I've recently been cleared to talk. I thought I would share my results, as seeing other people's honest results helped me greatly in making a decision. I'm including my own voice recordings down below. I would also appreciate any feedback on them.

I'll try to describe my experience with Yeson and my trip in general. I went there with a close friend and we stayed at a small airbnb. Seoul left an amazing impression on me. Felt like it had so much soul and character. I can't wait to go back there

Before Surgery

Way before surgery, I had done a year of voice training with Rachel Beales from transvoice.com and got to a point where I was happy with my voice but there was a lot of inconsistency. My throat felt tired from using my voice after like 20-30 minutes of conversation tops and I would just find myself speaking very close to my old voice. There was also a big mental block, as I was scared to talk with my trained voice in public, and with people I had already come out to. I believed that instead of me even trying to use my trained voice with them, and just accidentally sounding like my old self and being "humiliated" I should just speak the way they're all used to.

After another year passed since my final voice lesson with Rachel, and I was still nowhere near using my trained voice full time for a multitude of reasons, I looked into VFSRAC and decided to have it, hoping it would help me or make me use my trained voice full time, considering the surgery aims to practically remove your ability to talk the way I used to.

The surgery

I visited the clinic 3 times in the total of 5 days I stayed in Seoul. First day is they take you to a hospital where they do some tests and then take you to the clinic for other tests including your voice examination of your pre-op voice. Second day is the operation. I have a high tolerance for pain but generally what I heard from others holds up. The whole thing was absolutely painless. They prepare you for the surgery in your room and then they roll you out of the room on your bed and they knock you out.

After I woke up from the surgery I tried talk to the nurses around me, since I was still only half conscious, I forgot I'm not supposed to speak. But no sound really came out and after I tried to speak 2 words I realized what I'm doing and stopped. There's only a very slight and mild discomfort in your throat the same day of the surgery and they give you ice cream right after surgery and some soup. They do some more check ups after surgery and then send you home before 5 pm. After the surgery I was able to walk all the way back to the Airbnb no problem. (The weather was fantastic)

2 days after surgery I went in one more time where I got the botox injection to my vocal folds. It seemed scary because nobody wants a needle stuck in their throat but that was also entirely painless, didn't feel a thing. Dr. Kim did the botox, I gave him a hug and nodded goodbye and that was it.

After surgery

I caught a cold just 10 days after surgery which worried me greatly, as I have been instructed to cough or sneeze as little as possible. And having it so soon after the surgery wasn't helping me feel better. However they never said sneezing or coughing will absolutely ruin the entire surgery and it'll be a waste of time and money. Rather they suggest in a post op document that if you need to cough or sneeze, you do so with your mouth open, to allow air to escape freely and make as little sound as possible. I'm not sure how much this affected my results. It was just a mild cold, I'm hoping it hasn't permanently ruined everything.

Here are some voice recordings, I'll add more details under them

Untrained voice prior to surgery: http://sndup.net/vt9xv / https://voca.ro/1kr9cAEnjn7i

Trained voice prior to surgery: http://sndup.net/wvdnv / https://voca.ro/1om3ZHVbdlmv

After 2 months of almost pure silence (I accidentally tried to speak a few words here and there during the 2 months but never could actually make out a clear sound that can be understood as a word. This happened maybe 5 times during the whole months.

Here are the initial results, where I still have to put in little to moderate amount of effort and thought into my voice.

9 Weeks after surgery: http://sndup.net/xqvtq / https://voca.ro/15duePJUXWZA

10 Weeks after surgery: http://sndup.net/92fzh / https://voca.ro/18MO6xvtBlap

And here is a voice recording that shows what I sound like when I put no thought or effort into my voice at all as of 10 weeks after surgery: http://sndup.net/44dk9 / https://voca.ro/1bRc0uAppbdL

As of now, the last voice recording is pretty much how I sound in real life. I usually put no effort into my voice while talking to people or interacting with them. I used to misgendered almost solely on my voice before surgery. I can't say confidently right now how others perceive my voice. While everyone around me says there's "enough" difference, it's hard to not think "they're just being nice" to myself, especially I'm not very happy with my voice as of now. I haven't been explicitly misgendered since I was cleared to talk again about 10 days ago, but I also can't say I have explicitly been gendered correctly a lot of times.

Final Thoughts

It's important to manage expectations. I knew this surgery wouldn't be magic. Especially considering the main focus of the operation is pitch and there's very little mention of resonance. As we all know is more important than the pitch. It's not marketed that way either, Dr. Kim is very explicit and clear prior to surgery about how this surgery won't work if you don't put in the effort and learn to properly control your "new instrument" (his words,) as he can alter my vocal folds but he can't change the way my brain uses them. They gave me a list of vocal exercises which I do 3-4 times a day. They don't seem to be very different to the exercises I did during my voice training years ago. But I try not to get arrogant and follow them all as strictly as I can.

Another important thing to note is the healing process can take quite some time. As Dr. Kim explained to me verbally and as one of the charts they gave me suggests, there is barely any difference in pitch by the 2nd month after surgery. Only after 3 or 4 months do you start to actually collect the fruits of the procedure. So it is a little early to judge regardless.

To put things into perspective, the pitch of my untrained voice before surgery measured at 130 Hz on average. While today, despite still being in the very early stages of recovery, I now average at 170 Hz when I put no effort or thought into my voice, and around 220 Hz when I put some mild effort into it. They suggest that on average the pitch is to be increased about 70 Hz with this surgery, given that you follow all instructions. Right now there's a 50 Hz increase on average. Which has me falling into the "androgynous" category in terms of pitch.

Thank you all for reading, best of luck and love to you all. I'll update this post over time. If anyone would like to ask something I didn't mention in the post, please feel free to message me directly.

3 Month Update

Today marks exactly 12 weeks after my surgery. In the chart I was handed by Yeson, it implies the real change will gradually start from now and end at 6 months. From the 6th to the 12th month the change is supposed to be very slight and gradual, so I'll assume my voice at the 6 month mark to pretty much be the final result of the surgery.

I found that people who know my voice pre-op tend to suggest while there is some difference, there's not a surgery's worth of difference in my voice and ask me if it's supposed to get better slightly. I feel the same way and often feel depressed. Probably because of this I talk in my "depression voice" which is me speaking extra low but it's not always.

But on the flip side, ever since I had the surgery I have yet to be misgendered -either in person or over the phone with people I just recently met- in a country where trans people are still a mystery to the general public. Whereas before surgery I would 100% be misgendered as soon as I spoke.

Anyways, here are the 3 month updates, the croakiness has gone a bit but I often have breakings in my voice and accidentally go falsetto and that's pretty annoying.

Untrained voice prior to surgery (Median Pitch is 120 Hz): http://sndup.net/vt9xv / https://voca.ro/1kr9cAEnjn7i

Zero Effort 3 months post-op (Median Pitch is 170 Hz): http://sndup.net/96sk8 / https://voca.ro/1kUM99fFU4XZ

Slight Effort 3 months post-op (Median Pitch is 200 Hz): http://sndup.net/mgnvf / https://voca.ro/1nnpy5TRTNmo

Mild Effort 3 months post-op (Median Pitch is 220 Hz): http://sndup.net/3zym3 / https://voca.ro/1iSfiu8dU29i

I want to note that during a regular conversation I fluctuate a lot between the "zero effort" and "slight effort" and only go up to the "mild effort" rarely. I'm still hoping for more increase in pitch over time, especially at the end of the 6 month mark, but I'll take the fact that I don't get misgendered regularly right now as a win anyway.

I'll update this post once a month until 6 months.