Singing- I can't hear my own voice! Anyone else?

[cmac]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

Something interesting happened to me some time ago when I was getting fitted for musicians' ear plugs. The audiologist filled my ears with a waxy substance to create a mold. I could hear almost nothing except the sound in my head. In this odd situation I just started to sing for the fun of it. My GF, in the room with me, remarked that my voice was 100% better than it usually is and that it actually sounded good! With my ears totally clogged with the wax I could hear the resonance in my head and automatically adjust the pitch to sing more in tune. But without my ears plugged up, I my voice is lost to me.

As I understand it, the vibration from singing it transmitted through the bone of your skull and make it to your ears. (It'll go everywhere else as well, but your ears are the only thing that can detect it.) Once it arrives at your ears it dissipates into the air in the ear and if the air is free to move then you don't really hear much from it. But if your ear is sealed off by the wax then the air has nowhere to go and the only thing that can accommodate the expansion & contraction is the eardrum. So you hear your voice much more strongly.

I regularly play and sing with in-ear monitors (Shure SE-215) and the medium silicone tips that came with them are a perfect fit and provide a really good seal. So much so that I had to turn up everything else in the mix so that I could hear everything else over my voice, which was booming away in my sealed ear cavities. (I have since switched to 'christmas tree' tips that don't fit quite as well, so I don't get the same resonance and I can turn the mix down a bit. The cost of this is less bass, but I can cope with that in a live situation.)

So maybe get some ear plugs that give a good seal, stick one in and then try singing. In theory you should be able to hear yourself much more.

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by cmac

...
I regularly play and sing with in-ear monitors (Shure SE-215) and the medium silicone tips that came with them are a perfect fit and provide a really good seal. So much so that I had to turn up everything else in the mix so that I could hear everything else over my voice, which was booming away in my sealed ear cavities. (I have since switched to 'christmas tree' tips that don't fit quite as well, so I don't get the same resonance and I can turn the mix down a bit. The cost of this is less bass, but I can cope with that in a live situation.)

So maybe get some ear plugs that give a good seal, stick one in and then try singing. In theory you should be able to hear yourself much more.

I've got some custom molded professional musicians plugs. Unlike foam they filter out sound differently. I'll have to play with them. I still am a little confused about the proper way to utilize the air to create voice. I listen to "The Voice" every week and have no idea how these singers have so much power and sustain, especially some of these little girls who are just power houses. Total vocal freaks of nature. I'm so jealous. I just want to sing well enough to play guitar, sing and still have people in the room when I'm done.

[Al Acuff]

Like you I suffer from bad sinuses and I have a hard time hearing my voice inside my head. A few years ago I made the mistake of agreeing to sinus surgery and it only made things worse.

It's possible to sing when you can't hear yourself but you are relying on muscle memory not on your hearing. It's no fun.

Recently I read an interview with a sound mixer who talked about working for a big name star who absolutely "needed" to hear himself in a monitor in order to sing. I felt better somehow reading that because the artist is a singer I admire.

I recently picked up an FM8 small powered floor wedge monitor by DB Technologies. It's suitable for vocals and acoustic guitar and solves the problem for me.