Measured voice · The transformer

Nancy Cartwright

120s segment · female register · 16 benchmarked readings · measured 2026-07-26

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

The read

By 2007, Cartwright had spent twenty years supplying the shriek, the cackle and the permanent adolescence of Bart Simpson — the kind of workload that grinds ordinary voices down. Fresh Air caught her speaking as herself, and the instrument found a machine in showroom condition: harmonic clarity optimal, pitch steadiness and volume steadiness optimal, register and chest resonance optimal, every pause the textbook length. She doesn’t idle much — the pause ratio runs below the band, brisk and forward-moving — but nothing in the signal shows wear. That’s not luck. A voice that survives two decades of professional yelling is a voice being looked after.

Pitch contour · every voiced frame

2253504760s60s120sHz

Pitch & melody

Average pitch217Hz
in the zoneoptimal 180230 Hz
Pitch variability4.12st
in the zoneoptimal 36.5 st
Pitch range10.1st
in the zoneoptimal 712 st
Pitch dynamism (PDQ)0.27
in the zoneoptimal 0.150.38

Pacing & pauses

Pause ratio4.1%
below the zoneoptimal 1835 %
Average pause length0.55s
in the zoneoptimal 0.41 s
Syllable rate3.67syl/s
below the zoneoptimal 45.5 syl/s

Dynamics

Volume dynamics27.2dB
above the zoneoptimal 818 dB
Loudness variability8.57dB
above the zoneoptimal 3.58 dB

Voice quality

Voice clarity (HNR)14.3dB
in the zoneoptimal 1230 dB
Pitch steadiness (jitter)1.95%
in the zoneoptimal 02.5 %
Volume steadiness (shimmer)7.95%
in the zoneoptimal 09 %
Vocal fry (creak)4.8%
in the zoneoptimal 08 %

Spectral balance

Presence band (2-4 kHz)2.1%
below the zoneoptimal 620 %
Chest band (0-500 Hz)59.8%
in the zoneoptimal 3575 %
Spectral tilt (alpha ratio)-10.1dB
in the zoneoptimal -22-8 dB

Energy by band

Low (0–500 Hz)59.8%Mid (0.5–2 kHz)37.3%Presence (2–4 kHz)2.1%Brilliance (4 kHz+)0.8%

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

Steal this

straw phonation

What the measurements endorse is a clean, unstrained signal — and the drill for it is the same one working voice professionals use to protect the instrument. Hum through a drinking straw for two minutes at a steady pitch and easy volume, feeling the sound spin freely, then speak a sentence immediately after in that same unforced placement. Clarity isn’t a gift; it’s maintenance.

From the training library: Straw phonation

Same instrument · same scale

You’ve just read Cartwright’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.