Adele’s voice, measured

The read

The singing voice is all held notes and heartbreak; the talking voice, caught by NPR the week 25 arrived, is nothing of the kind. It moves at one hundred and sixty-three words a minute — articulation rate inside the fluent band — pitched low against the typical female band, with presence-band energy optimal: the sound sits exactly where it cuts through a room. Melodic range and variability read optimal on top. And the authority score comes back 9.4, the strongest quality on her page — command at chat speed, with barely a stop taken: nine pauses in just over a minute of talk. The held note is the performance. The velocity is her.

Pitch contour · every voiced frame

Pitch & melody

Average pitch165Hz

below the zoneoptimal 180–230 Hz

Pitch variability4.39st

in the zoneoptimal 3–6.5 st

Pitch range10.5st

in the zoneoptimal 7–12 st

Pitch dynamism (PDQ)0.32

in the zoneoptimal 0.15–0.38

Pacing & pauses

Pause ratio5.92%

below the zoneoptimal 18–35 %

Average pause length0.45s

in the zoneoptimal 0.4–1 s

Syllable rate4.08syl/s

in the zoneoptimal 4–5.5 syl/s

Dynamics

Volume dynamics24.8dB

above the zoneoptimal 8–18 dB

Loudness variability7.45dB

in the zoneoptimal 3.5–8 dB

Voice quality

Voice clarity (HNR)10.1dB

below the zoneoptimal 12–30 dB

Pitch steadiness (jitter)2.14%

in the zoneoptimal 0–2.5 %

Volume steadiness (shimmer)10.5%

above the zoneoptimal 0–9 %

Vocal fry (creak)7.9%

in the zoneoptimal 0–8 %

Spectral balance

Presence band (2-4 kHz)6.17%

in the zoneoptimal 6–20 %

Chest band (0-500 Hz)22.4%

below the zoneoptimal 35–75 %

Spectral tilt (alpha ratio)-2.14dB

above the zoneoptimal -22–-8 dB

Energy by band

Low (0–500 Hz)22.4%Mid (0.5–2 kHz)70.4%Presence (2–4 kHz)6.2%Brilliance (4 kHz+)1.0%

The presence band (2–4 kHz, red) is what carries a voice to the back of a room.

Comparisons are based on Resonate's acoustic analysis of publicly available speeches. No endorsement or affiliation is implied.

Source

All Things Considered, NPR, 24 Nov 2015 — official NPR direct download. 68s interview segment analysed.

Listen on NPR

Recording caveat

This is a 2015 NPR interview, and the aired audio is a trimmed edit of a longer conversation — interview audio like this can flatten dynamics compared with a clean solo take, though the readings here hold up well regardless.

Method

analysis-service pipeline (app/analysis.py, app/benchmarks.py, app/qualities.py) run locally over the segments documented in docs/hero-sources.md. Acoustic metrics only — no transcription, so transcript-dependent metrics (wpm, fillers) are absent and the overall score weighs the acoustic set.

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vowel brakes

What the measurements endorse is precision at speed — a fluent rate where every word still lands whole, projected forward rather than swallowed. Read a paragraph aloud at full conversational pace, landing every final consonant completely before starting the next word. The pace can stay quick; what changes is that nothing smears. Fast and clear reads as sharp. Fast and blurred just reads as nervous.

From the training library: Vowel brakes

Same instrument · same scale

You’ve just read Adele’s voice. Now read your own.

Measure my voice

Free · about twenty seconds · no signup. The same six scores on the same scale — and the recording is deleted the moment it’s analysed.