Shadowing Practice: why you hate your recorded voice (and how to fix it) - Learn English Speaking with Video

Have you ever recorded your vocals and thought you nailed

that performance and then you go and listen to it again and it sounds like absolute poo poo?

I used to hate my voice for a really long time

and over the years I learned how to not just hate it

but actually love it and I'm going to show you how I've done that.

Now also at the end of this video I'm going to show you some recording techniques

that are going to help you a ton as well.

So first things first, we need to understand why we actually hate the way our voice sounds.

It's a very common phenomenon amongst vocalists, musicians, producers, and just about anybody in general.

And it's because of the familiar versus the unfamiliar.

And I'll get to that.

So what happens is you're hearing something different than what everybody else is hearing.

You're hearing your voice being reverberated through your neck and chest and into your head and going into your ears that way.

Then you're also hearing it being bounced around the room and back into yours that way.

And so you're hearing something that's completely different than what everybody else is hearing.

When you press record, you're hearing what everybody else is hearing now.

But not only that, you're hearing what they would hear if you were three or six inches away from their ear holes.

And so immediately you're like, whoa, I don't like that at all.

And that's normal.

That's the unfamiliar.

It sounds very unfamiliar.

And the weird thing is it's like that uncanny valley where it's similar to your voice, but it's not how you're used to hearing your voice.

And you've been used, you have been used to hearing your voice for years.

However old you are now, that's how long you've been used to hearing your voice being reverberated through your chest and neck and into your head.

And if, and, and if you're not quite sure exactly how this works, just take a stick and bite on a stick and place it on a piano or a speaker.

And you can plug your ears and literally hear how your, how your ears and how your ear canals will pick up sound just being vibrated through your, through your face and through your head.

It's wild.

And so there is a completely different sound with that, though.

And so you're used to hearing yourself that way and not the way everybody else hears it.

And so because of that, it subverts expectations.

And like I have mentioned here, subverted expectations doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, right?

It just means it's unfamiliar, which is why I'm not saying good versus bad.

I'm saying familiar versus unfamiliar.

Humans and just people in general, we have this really awful tendency to be very fond of things that are familiar, even if it's bad for us.

If we are used to a certain thing, even if it's bad for us, we genuinely like that familiarity.

Like if you had a rough childhood growing up, sometimes getting back into those situations, sometimes that even though they're toxic, can feel familiar and feel comfortable to you.

And the opposite reaction is true as well, where something can be very, very good for you, but because it's familiar, it's not necessarily because it's good for you.

It's just familiar.

You're used to it and it brings you some sort of comfort.

It's the same thing here.

Now, when you have subverted expectations, you expected your voice to hear one way and now you're hearing it a different way.

That creates this cognitive dissonance and you're like, I hate that.

I hate the way that sounds.

I do not like that.

So now that we've understand why we feel this way and how we feel this way, now I want to explain how you can actually learn to love

that part of you

and also how you can use some recording techniques to actually emulate how you're hearing your voice as well.

But I'll get to that in just a minute.

So the main way that I really learned to love my voice was straight up exposure therapy.

I just did it again and again and again

and I kept recording and I kept mixing

and I just kept listening to my voice over and over and over and over and over again.

Then I was making YouTube videos on my main channel.

Like I've made almost 300 videos on my main channel producing in the box

and I've listened to my voice again and again and again

while editing and over and over and over

and eventually I got to a point where I actually thoroughly enjoyed the way my voice sounds because it was becoming familiar. That volume, that exposure,

that constant listening to my own voice was giving me enough exposure to make me familiar with it

and I learned to love it and I learned to love that side of it.

So I would recommend, me personally, I would record something every single day, whether that's you getting in front of your microphone,

whether that's you just pulling out your phone and recording some voice notes or something like that, just some song ideas.

I would record something every single day.

And this is also twofold.

This is cool.

Because you're recording something every single day, it also gives you an excuse to make music every day.

And just with about anything else, if you feel uncomfortable producing music, making music, mixing music, recording stuff, just the more you do it, the more exposure you're gonna get,

the more familiar and the more comfortable you're going to get with this whole experience.

Especially as a beginner, it is so daunting opening up a DAW

and pressuring record is a very simple task to do

but it is so daunting when there are so many buttons

so many features what's track and what does all this stuff do what's a compressor

and an EQ you kind of like start to lose it a little bit

and it starts to hold you back where you're like I don't even know

if I want to open the DAW it just scares me

and I understand where you're coming from I was there very very many years ago

but I distinctly remember that feeling I started out in GarageBand and that was daunting.

And then I eventually got to the point where I needed some features that GarageBand at the time didn't have, which was like some buses and things like that.

So I upgraded to Logic, and I almost didn't open up Logic again for like two weeks.

As soon as I opened it, I looked, and I'm like, oh, my word, this is insane.

And then there's even another section of the advanced features because when you first install Logic, it's at basic features by default.

You have to click advanced features to see all the other advanced features that are there, and it's like, oh, my word, what am I doing?

I don't even know why I'm doing this.

Why am I here?

And I closed the DAW for a while

and I had to like take a couple of weeks to kind of like calm down a little bit

and get back into it.

It's very daunting.

And so just being able to get that exposure, constantly recording yourself, constantly doing that stuff, it's just going to make you feel a lot more comfortable in the studio.

I have, I have done a lot of songs.

I actually got a video that'll probably be coming up on this video where I've done

so many songs over just the last year.

I actually got to figure out how many I've done over the last couple of years because even just the last year, I've had to do like three different backups on hard drives.

I have produced, mixed, mastered, and just wrote a lot of songs this year.

And the more I do this, even now, the more comfortable I feel.

So get some exposure therapy and really start to figure out what works for you

and continue to just go down that path.

Continue to record yourself every day.

And whether it's a song idea or whether it's just a cover or anything else, it's just going to help you a ton.

So exposure therapy is actually one of the main ways that I actually started to love my voice.

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Now for some recording techniques, this is really cool.

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Okay.

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And I don't really see a lot of people talking about this.

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So I can't wait to share this with you.

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So it's going to be pretty helpful if you have a condenser microphone.

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This is a dynamic microphone.

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They're a lot less sensitive.

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Condenser microphones, whether large diaphragm condenser microphones or anything like that, if it's just a condenser microphone, they're a bit more sensitive.

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In fact, this microphone here, there's a street just on the back side of here, on the back side of this wall.

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There's a sidewalk and then a street.

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And when people drive by, I really can't hear road traffic from this microphone.

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And I have a lot of acoustic treatment up, but I can't hear a lot of road traffic from this microphone.

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But I can with the condenser.

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I can hear everything.

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It's insane.

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And mostly it's because of that window.

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It's just insane how much more sensitive they are.

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But because they're more sensitive, they pick up a very wide frequency band and you're able to kind of use that microphone to your advantage.

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So first, make sure that you have a condenser microphone of just a very sensitive mic and then start facing it upwards, but down towards your chest itself.

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This is something I don't see a lot of people doing, but it's such a hack.

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It does two things.

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One, it starts to pick the lower resonance of your chest as you're singing, like your throat and your chest, and it really starts to add that to the recording,

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which is what you're actually normally used to hearing.

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So because you're used to hearing how it's vibrating in your chest and your throat and in your face and head, it's actually picking that up.

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It's not picking your voice directly from your mouth.

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It's actually starting to pick up some of that stuff.

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So you kind of want it like above you almost facing down towards your chest and towards your neck.

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And it's going to get a different sound entirely.

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It also does one other thing, which is just nuts.

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It eliminates a lot of the sibilances and plosives.

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So plosive, when I into the microphone like that, all that air is like kind of shaking that around.

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And this is actually somewhat of a decent microphone with the pop filter to keep that from happening, but it still happens a lot.

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So those S's is that sibilance and the plosives are the

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that kind of like low end rumble you're hearing when I do that.

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it eliminates that because it's up here.

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So really you don't even need a pop filter.

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I still recommend one, but you still don't even really need a pop filter.

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So you set the microphone up here where you kind of have to look up at it.

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It's about eight inches away from your neck, from your face there, like eight to 12 inches.

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And then use that, record with that.

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It is such a hack.

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And I've recorded my vocals like that quite a bit and I thoroughly enjoyed the way it sounds.

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I'm used to hearing my voice that way, so it works for me.

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But I don't know how other people feel about it, but I genuinely like the way that that sounds.

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And I've used that recording technique on some other artists in the studio, and they've liked the way their voice sounds with it because that's what they're used to as well.

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So give that a shot and see if it works for you.

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Put the microphone up here so you kind of have to look up at it, but have the capsule of the microphone facing towards your neck and towards your chest and give that a shot.

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See what it sounds like.

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And then one other thing is just a mixing trick, which is actually using some saturation to kind of boost that low end.

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So if you just kind of run it through a saturator, just kind of saturates some things up, warms up the vocal a little bit, makes it sound a bit better.

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Now, mixing is an entirely different thing.

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I actually got a video on my main channel that I will put somewhere over here.

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And I'll make sure I leave it in the link in the description as well.

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There's like five things that just always seem to be true every time I go to mix vocals.

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and that's what that video is going to be all about there.

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That's on my main channel.

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So go check that out if you're interested in how I mix vocals and mix songs in general.

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So I hope this video served you.

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I hope you got some enjoyment out of it

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and hopefully you don't hate your vocals as much as I did when I started.

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So thank you so much for being here.

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This is kind of an experiment channel.

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I'm just testing it out, just pressing record, talking to you guys, just being raw and genuine.

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So if you like this kind of content, Let me know down in the comments below.

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I'll see you in the next one.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “why you hate your recorded voice”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: hearing, voice, microphone, sound, recording. This video has 164 sentences and 2310 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:03. The speaker talks fast, about 209 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
microphone noun	/ˈmaɪ.kɹəˌfəʊn/	A device (transducer) used to convert sound waves into a varying electric current; normally fed into an amplifier and either recorded or transmitted over radio.
condenser noun	/ˈkʰəndɛnsɚ/	A device designed to condense a gas into a liquid, either as part of a still, steam engine, refrigerator or similar machine.
vocal adjective	/ˈvoʊ̯.kəl/	Of, pertaining to, or resembling the human voice or speech.
unfamiliar adjective	/ˌʌnfəˈmɪli.ə(ɹ)/	Strange, not familiar.
daunting adjective	/ˈdɔntɪŋ/	Discouraging; inspiring fear.
plosive noun	/ˈpləʊsɪv/	A speech sound produced by opening a closed vocal tract.
subvert verb	/səbˈvɝt/	To overturn from the foundation; to overthrow; to ruin utterly.
expectation noun	/ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/	The act or state of expecting or looking forward to an event as about to happen.
reverberate verb	/ɹəˈvɜɹbəˌɹeɪt/	To cause (a sound) to be (repeatedly) bounced against one or more surfaces; to re-echo.
sibilance noun		The quality of being sibilant: a hissing quality.
vibrate verb	/ˈvaɪ.bɹeɪt/	To shake with small, rapid movements to and fro.
thoroughly adverb	/ˈθʌɹ.ə.li/	In a thorough or complete manner.
genuinely adverb	/ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/	In a genuine manner; truthfully, truly.
eliminate verb	/ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/	To completely remove, get rid of, put an end to.
compressor noun	/kəmˈpɹɛ.sə(ɹ)/	A device that produces pressure, such as a gas compressor that produces pressurized gas.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
pick up verb		To lift; to grasp and raise.
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
open up verb		To open.
bounce around verb		To discuss or brainstorm (ideas) on a topic.
calm down verb		To become less excited, intense, or angry.
do over verb	/ˈduˌoʊvɚ/	To cover with; to smear or spread on to.
face down verb		To confront; to abash by stern looks.
go down verb		To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

I'm saying familiar versus unfamiliar.
I don't even know why I'm doing this.
Why am I here?
It's not picking your voice directly from your mouth.
That's on my main channel.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true	used to hate · used to hearing
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've done · you've been · have mentioned
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being reverberated · being bounced · being vibrated
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	unfamiliar, which is · have, which was · thing, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 71 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, musician /mjuˈzɪʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: unfamiliar /ˌʌnfəˈmɪli.ə(ɹ)/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, reverberate /ɹəˈvɜɹbəˌɹeɪt/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/, eliminate /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like microphone, condenser, vocal.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?