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How to Make Your Voice Deeper?

To develop a deep voice you will have to learn breathing through the diaphragm, relax your upper body and speak from a throat area. Performing daily vocal exercises such as humming and yawning are also essential to develop a permanent deep voice.

You can create a deeper voice when recording by taking advantage of the proximity effect and enhancing bass frequencies with an equalizer.

Vocal exercises add warmth and depth to the voice

Doing vocal exercises is one of the best ways to achieve a deeper voice. It is not a quick remedy, but if you put enough time and effort it may result in a permanently deeper and more pleasant voice.

Humming

The first exercise you ought to try is humming. Try creating “Ohmmmmmm” sound while breathing relaxed and deep. When doing the exercise try to involve muscles a bit further into your throat and see if it sounds any deeper. The exercise should remove some of the nasal qualities in your voice and make it more pleasant to the ear.

Tongue exercises

Try pushing your tongue against the roof of your mouth as hard as you can. Soon it will start to feel tiresome and you will feel many small muscles in the mouth getting tired. That is good.

Do the same against the teeth from both sides. It will give similar results. This exercise will strengthen small muscles in your mouth and will help your mouth muscles to stay relaxed for a longer time. Relaxed muscles will create a deeper voice you wanted.

Drinking water helps to keep your vocal cords thick

Hydration is vital to keep your voice deep. The pitch of your voice depends on how thick or narrow your vocal cords are. When you lack water and dehydrate vocal cords start to shrink due to a lack of fluids.

To keep vocal cords thick, drink water regularly. Drinking right before starting recording won’t work either. Make it a habit to drink throughout the whole day.

Start drinking water at least six hours before recording to notice a difference. Also, during the days when you record, try to stay away from salty food, caffeinated drinks and alcohol, these will dehydrate your body.

You can also try eating more fruits and veggies as they have lots of water in them.

Breathe through the diaphragm for more resonance

Breathing from the diaphragm is the key to making your voice sound deep and powerful. It allows more air to come in and out, making the voice to sound stronger. Also, it gives more room for vocals to resonate in your body, filling more cavities, which results in a deeper, lower register voice.

You can read more on how to train your diaphragm and learn belly breathing here.

A relaxed upper body will help to achieve a deeper voice

Staying relaxed is very important when trying to create a deep voice. When tense, your voice naturally becomes higher pitched. To make your voice sound deeper try to relax.

It could be something as simple as stretching shoulders and neck, especially right before recording. A massage does wonders as well. Relaxed upper body muscles will help to create a deeper voice.

You can even get a head massager; they work on a neck as well. And if you have a chance, ask your significant other to give a quick shoulder massage. If you happen to find a decent massage chair, those could help to relieve the stress and achieve a deeper voice.

Slow down to appear to have a deeper voice

One of the reasons why your voice sounds so tiny and breathless is because you need to slow down. Slowing down will give you more time to breathe deeply which is associated with a deep resonant voice.

In addition, slowing down will make you sound manlier and more confident. Which, could make an illusion that you own a deeper voice.

High air humidity thickens vocal cords

Similarly, how drinking water can make your vocal cords a little bigger, air humidity does that as well. When we breathe, air goes through your vocal cords.

Dry air will make your vocal cords to shrink up and your voice to sound tiny. On contrary, humid air will expand your vocal cords and provide you with a slightly deeper voice.

You can try using an air humidifier to add humidity to your apartment.

Crouching hampers your lungs’ performance and creates tension

Crouching may be one of the underlying issues why your voice does not sound as deep as you want. When we crouch our lungs are physically obstructed from reaching full volume potential and we tend to inhale and exhale less air which isn’t what you want when seeking a deep voice.

In addition, crouching makes your neck and shoulder muscle tense up, which is another reason why you can’t achieve the deep voice you like.

To prevent yourself from crouching when recording you can try a few methods:

  1. Adjust the table higher (if the table is adjustable)
  2. Lower your chair
  3. Raise your monitor (if it is adjustable)
  4. Add some books under your monitor
  5. Get a higher table
  6. Adjust the chair backrest to a higher angle
  7. Consider standing when recording
  8. Place microphone higher

Yawning relaxes mouth muscles

Yawning is another great way for relaxing your throat and mouth muscles. Make it a habit to yawn daily and right before pressing the record button.

Yawning will loosen up tightened muscles and give you a deeper, more resonant and relaxed voice which we love so much.

Regular stretching will help to stay relaxed

You have probably realized up to this point that to get a deep voice you need to relax. Well, regular stretching will loosen your muscles, besides all the other benefits it has.

If you can deal with any tightness you have in your body it will help with your voice. So, go ahead and make a few stretch exercises, it might become a good new daily habit.

Stay warm when recording

If you are cold your vocal cords shrink similarly to how they would if they are dehydrated.

Therefore, stay warm when you are recording and you will maintain a natural deepness in your voice.

Confidence makes your voice sound deeper

When we are confident we naturally tend to speak in a slower, more calm manner, our muscles relax and we breathe deep and calmly.

It is a lot different when we are nervous. Nervousness introduces tenseness in our body and suddenly we try to talk as fast as possible and our voice becomes squeaky.

Believe in what you are saying and say it confidently, it will naturally bring a deep voice out of you.

Record in the morning

If you need a really deep voice for that one project or one character and that is it, recording in the morning is a good solution. It is just a temporarily solution, but very effective.

You probably noticed your voice sounds much deeper when you wake up in the morning. That is because of all the mucus accumulating on your vocal cords and making them all nice and puffed. This means, they vibrate less frequently and create a deeper voice.

After some time, your deep morning voice will go away, but if you need to record a few minutes of that rich deep voice it might be just enough.

Use software to add bass to your audio recording

You can edit your audio to sound deeper with an equalizer. Here’s how to add bass to your voice with EQ:

  • Boost frequencies up to 500Hz by up to 4dB
  • Cut 2-6kHz frequencies by 2dB
  • Significantly reduce 14kHz+ frequencies

The proximity effect will add bass to your voice

Proximity effect gives a bassy, radio-like voice quality. To make use of proximity effect you should own a dynamic microphone and speak close to it. That is often called “eating a mic”.

Proximity effect is not a natural solution and it will only have an effect on your recordings. Also, overusing the proximity effect may make your recording sound a bit muddy and too bassy.

Nevertheless, it will make your voice sound a bit deeper than usual.

Conclusion

Here is a brief reminder on how to make your voice deeper.

To achieve deeper voice you will have to:

  • Perform vocal exercises
  • Stay hydrated
  • Breathe from the diaphragm
  • Stay relaxed
  • Yawn
  • Stay warm
  • Stretch regularly
  • Humidify air around you
  • Don’t crouch
  • Speak slowly
  • Use software for fine-tuning

Most of these tips are about how to stay relaxed, hydrated and breathing from your diaphragm. That should be your focus. There is still, however, a limit to how deep your voice can be. Don’t push yourself too hard because you may harm your vocal cords. There is a natural limit to how deep your voice can go.

After all, each voice is unique, and in the voice-over industry, not all characters need to own a deep bassy voice. If you have a distinct voice, it might be an advantage. Even naturally squeaky or nasal voices could be required for some projects, and you could be favored to hire because of your voice qualities. In the end, be confident about how you sound.

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How to Avoid Breathing Noise When Recording?

Breathing into a microphone causes loud distorted pops, that’s the air coming from your mouth and hitting a sensitive diaphragm within the microphone.

To avoid breathing noise when recording you should learn to control your breathing and the distance between you and the microphone. Furthermore, correctly placing the microphone will help to avoid most of the breathing noise by not allowing air to reach the sensitive diaphragm within the microphone. Finally, using a pop-filter will help to mitigate the little breathing noise that’s left after applying the previous techniques.

Correct microphone placement

Placing the microphone correctly alone can prevent breathing noise and is the most important step in avoiding breaths reaching the microphone.

The microphone is placed correctly when your mouth is not facing it directly. Your mouth should be facing slightly off-axis to the microphone, meaning that the breaths should never hit the microphone, but rather go slightly to the side, below or above the microphone. The microphone, however, should be facing your mouth to capture the best sound quality.

When placing the microphone, make sure you know which is the sensitive part of the microphone that’s meant for recording. Otherwise, you might end up recording with the wrong part of the mic. Often microphones will have marks to tell you the correct side of the microphone. For example, Rode NT1 has a golden dot that indicates the correct side of the microphone.

Control your breathing

Besides placing the microphone correctly, you can also mitigate breathing noise by controlling your breaths and avoiding sharp exhales and inhales. The following methods will help to master your breathing technique and avoid breathing noise:

  • Relax your upper body – A tense body requires more oxygen since the muscles are constantly contracted and working which requires oxygen. Try to relax and stretch your upper body before beginning recording to reduce the need for oxygen. As a result, you’ll take fewer breaths.
  • Practice tongue twisters – Tongue twisters are very beneficial for voice over artists as they help with breathing techniques and articulation. Practice repeating various tongue twisters non-stop as fast as possible. This exercise will leave you out of breath and will help you to learn to control your breathing.
  • Speak slowly – When recording, don’t rush your words. Speak slower so you have more time to inhale and exhale which will make you take softer breaths and will allow you to control them better.
  • Breathe through the diaphragm – Normally we tend to breathe using the chest only which is shallower compared to belly breathing. Use the diaphragm to have access to more air. In return, you will take fewer sharp breaths.
  • Maintain good posture – Bad posture causes tension in your upper body and restricts your lung capacity. Keep your back and shoulders straight to allow better airflow into your lungs and reduce tension.
  • Exercise – Intense cardio exercises can increase your lung capacity as you’ll be forced to breathe heavily during the activity.

Use pop-filter

Pop-filter is a mesh usually made of nylon or metal. It allows the sound to pass through but diffuses the air puffs coming out of the mouth thus reducing the breathing noise and pops.

Pop filters alone aren’t capable to prevent all of the breaths from reaching the microphone, so relying solely on a pop-filter isn’t recommended. However, it can significantly reduce breathing noise.

Some of the microphones have built-in pop filters, it’s very often the case with broadcast microphones. However, often you’ll have to buy a separate pop-filter. The best ones are transparent with light edges that don’t obstruct the vision. If you don’t own a pop-filter you can also place two fingers or a pencil in front of your mouth to diffuse the air and prevent breathing noise.

You can read more about pop filters here.

Maintain the distance

Maintaining the distance will help to mitigate breathing noise by diminishing the velocity and amount of air hitting the microphone. The recommended distance from mouth to the microphone is about two fists.

The closer you’ll get to the microphone the more careful you’ll have to be about your breaths. To make sure you maintain the same distance from the microphone you can use the aforementioned pop-filters. They are great for maintaining the distance since they already put a gap between you and the microphone. This will also help you to maintain a consistent sound and avoid the proximity effect.

You can read how to remove breathing noise in this article.

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