{"id":1617,"date":"2021-05-20T08:32:11","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T08:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bunnystudio.com\/blog\/?p=1617"},"modified":"2022-02-21T05:24:08","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T05:24:08","slug":"male-vs-female-voice-actors-the-differences-and-what-to-choose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bunnystudio.com\/blog\/male-vs-female-voice-actors-the-differences-and-what-to-choose\/","title":{"rendered":"Male vs Female Voice Actors \u2014 The Differences and What to Choose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Choosing a brand voice isn’t the most straightforward task in the world<\/a>. Although you might know you want your message to communicate certain key points, deciding how best to get them across is a whole different ballgame. One of the most confusing aspects of this process is understanding the distinctions between the male vs female voice<\/a> and how to make the most of each one’s strengths.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does the Male vs Female Voice Really Differ That Much?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Although we all know that each person has their own unique sound, we also know that there are only so many sounds to choose from. After all, human ears can only hear so many different auditory frequencies. We’re limited to the relatively small 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz range, with 1 Hz meaning one vibration per second. This pales in comparison to animals like whales, bats, dogs, and birds, which can detect significantly higher noises. How do we get so much variety out of so little range?<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer lies in the fact that human voices are defined by their complexity. Without getting too much into physics, it’s enough to say that voices are composed of multiple sounds. Each one contains distinct frequencies that act in harmony to produce a recognizable overall tone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s take a look at a graph \u2014 everybody’s favorite pastime. In the following image, the colored areas indicate the presence of different audio frequencies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
A recording of a female voice saying “It’s all Greek to Me” by Dvortygirl, Mysid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do you notice anything special? Instead of just producing a single band around one frequency (top to bottom), the voice includes multiple ripples at each point in time (side to side). These distinct pitch elements also contribute to gendered voices, but we’ll need to dive a bit deeper to get the true meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n

This post was updated in May 2021<\/em><\/p>\n

Fundamentals, Formants, and Frequencies, Oh My!<\/span><\/h3>\n

There are many components to voice sounds. Although we won’t cover them all here, going over three in brief can help clarify why female and male speakers sound distinct.<\/span><\/p>\n

Frequency, or pitch,<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0is the rate at which the human voice oscillates. Fortunately, you don’t actually need to measure it \u2014 We intuitively recognize it when we talk about whether someone’s voice is high or low.<\/span><\/p>\n

Formants<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0are typically taken to denote the harmonics, or prominent high frequencies, present in a speaking or singing voice. If you consider the many different tones in a single human voice, then these are the peaks of the highest intensity. Formants are important in linguistics because they determine how vowels sound. These two graphs from the University of Manitoba show the difference between the formants (look for the pointy, numbered peaks) in two Canadian English vowels \u2014\u00a0<\/span>i<\/span><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>u<\/span><\/em>\u00a0\u2014 spoken by the same person:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Someone
A male speaker saying the letter “i”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Someone
The same male speaker saying the letter “u”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A\u00a0<\/span>fundamental<\/span><\/strong> is the lowest frequency of a voice or other sound source. If you’ve ever plucked an open guitar string without pressing it down on the fretboard, the fundamental is what you heard. Although people (hopefully) don’t go around plucking at each other’s vocal cords, the idea is the same. A fundamental can also be referred to as the first harmonic, which makes sense considering that the other prominent frequencies, such as the formants, are all higher.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you feeling a bit confused? The simplest way to keep it straight is to remember that formants and fundamentals are just different types of frequency clusters, or groupings, found in a single voice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you get when you put the various frequencies together? The combination is commonly called the\u00a0<\/span>timbre of a voice<\/span><\/a>. This is the overall sound, and our brains blend everything up to extract a recognizable tone when we hear people speak.<\/span><\/p>\n

Male vs Female Voice Characteristics<\/span><\/h2>\n

A speaker’s physical characteristics determine the normal timbre of their voice. Think back to the guitar string example. Even without doing the math, most people intuitively recognize that a longer string produces a lower note than a shorter one held at the same tension. The throat is similar because different individuals have vocal cords, also known as vocal folds, of varying lengths.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"male-vs-female-voice-over-male-voice-characteristics\"<\/h3>\n

The Frequency Distinctions<\/span><\/h3>\n

Most females produce higher speaking and singing tones than males because they have shorter vocal folds. Looking at the\u00a0<\/span>fundamental frequencies and upper harmonics of average voices<\/span><\/a>\u00a0shows the differences pretty clearly:<\/span><\/p>\n