Cher’s voice, measured

The read

Sixty-one years after “I Got You Babe,” Cher sat down to explain how Robert Altman talked her into acting — and the instrument, which does not grade on nostalgia, found the machinery in genuinely good order: harmonic clarity optimal, pitch and volume steadiness both optimal, register, chest resonance, melodic range and variability all in-band — at seventy-nine, after six decades of touring. Warmth reads 9.5, the strongest quality on her page. The flags are the pace of a fast talker — she rarely stops, and the silence share sits under its band — and the creak: vocal fry at double the band’s ceiling, riding her phrase-endings, less a flaw than a signature the instrument is obliged to report.

Pitch contour · every voiced frame

Pitch & melody

Average pitch210Hz

in the zoneoptimal 180–230 Hz

Pitch variability3.95st

in the zoneoptimal 3–6.5 st

Pitch range9.23st

in the zoneoptimal 7–12 st

Pitch dynamism (PDQ)0.26

in the zoneoptimal 0.15–0.38

Pacing & pauses

Pause ratio5.56%

below the zoneoptimal 18–35 %

Average pause length0.42s

in the zoneoptimal 0.4–1 s

Syllable rate3.48syl/s

below the zoneoptimal 4–5.5 syl/s

Dynamics

Volume dynamics22.2dB

above the zoneoptimal 8–18 dB

Loudness variability6.75dB

in the zoneoptimal 3.5–8 dB

Voice quality

Voice clarity (HNR)12.5dB

in the zoneoptimal 12–30 dB

Pitch steadiness (jitter)2.03%

in the zoneoptimal 0–2.5 %

Volume steadiness (shimmer)7.83%

in the zoneoptimal 0–9 %

Vocal fry (creak)16.9%

above the zoneoptimal 0–8 %

Spectral balance

Presence band (2-4 kHz)3.5%

below the zoneoptimal 6–20 %

Chest band (0-500 Hz)59.3%

in the zoneoptimal 35–75 %

Spectral tilt (alpha ratio)-8.61dB

in the zoneoptimal -22–-8 dB

Energy by band

Low (0–500 Hz)59.3%Mid (0.5–2 kHz)34.8%Presence (2–4 kHz)3.5%Brilliance (4 kHz+)2.5%

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

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, 5 Jan 2026 — official podcast RSS feed. 90s interview segment analysed.

Listen on Armchair Expert

Recording caveat

This is a modern podcast interview, not a studio recording — conversational audio like this can flatten dynamics compared with a clean solo take, though it clearly hasn't here.

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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Steal this

straw phonation

What the measurements endorse is a clean, easy signal — harmonics clear, pitch and volume holding steady, nothing forced. Hum through a drinking straw for two minutes at an even pitch and gentle volume, then move straight into a spoken sentence, keeping that same unforced placement. Signals like this aren’t luck; two minutes of maintenance a day is how a voice earns them.

From the training library: Straw phonation

Same instrument · same scale

You’ve just read Cher’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.