Patrick Stewart’s voice, measured

The read

Years of Royal Shakespeare Company training come down to one physical problem: reaching the back wall of a large room without shouting. Put that voice at a BBC radio desk, one presenter across the table, and the training refuses to switch off: presence-band energy — the 2–4 kHz range that carries through noise — reads optimal into a single microphone. Around it, everything is in motion: range and variability above the band, and almost no stopping — eight pauses in two minutes. The register and the volume control stay in-band throughout. The projection isn’t a setting he chooses. It’s where the voice now lives.

Pitch contour · every voiced frame

Pitch & melody

Average pitch129Hz

in the zoneoptimal 100–150 Hz

Pitch variability7.31st

above the zoneoptimal 3–6.5 st

Pitch range18.7st

above the zoneoptimal 7–12 st

Pitch dynamism (PDQ)0.47

above the zoneoptimal 0.15–0.38

Pacing & pauses

Pause ratio2.31%

below the zoneoptimal 18–35 %

Average pause length0.35s

below the zoneoptimal 0.4–1 s

Syllable rate3.22syl/s

below the zoneoptimal 4–5.5 syl/s

Dynamics

Volume dynamics24.6dB

above the zoneoptimal 8–18 dB

Loudness variability7.48dB

in the zoneoptimal 3.5–8 dB

Voice quality

Voice clarity (HNR)7.68dB

below the zoneoptimal 12–30 dB

Pitch steadiness (jitter)3.1%

above the zoneoptimal 0–2.5 %

Volume steadiness (shimmer)9.47%

above the zoneoptimal 0–9 %

Vocal fry (creak)3.1%

in the zoneoptimal 0–8 %

Spectral balance

Presence band (2-4 kHz)7.12%

in the zoneoptimal 6–20 %

Chest band (0-500 Hz)77.5%

above the zoneoptimal 35–75 %

Spectral tilt (alpha ratio)-8.06dB

in the zoneoptimal -22–-8 dB

Energy by band

Low (0–500 Hz)77.5%Mid (0.5–2 kHz)10.7%Presence (2–4 kHz)7.1%Brilliance (4 kHz+)4.7%

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

Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 17 Apr 2005 — official BBC podcast feed. 120s interview segment analysed.

Listen to the episode's opening · BBC Desert Island Discs

Recording caveat

This is a 2005 archival BBC recording with presenter questions and music-disc excerpts either side of the segment — older archival audio like this can widen measured pitch spread beyond what a clean recording would show.

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

forward placement

What the measurements endorse is placement — energy sitting forward, in the band that cuts through rooms, crowds and laptop speakers, at no extra volume. Hum “mm-hmm” until you feel a distinct buzz at the lips rather than in the throat, then slide straight from the hum into a sentence, keeping the sound exactly where the buzz was. Projection is placement plus intention. Shouting is neither.

From the training library: Find the buzz

Same instrument · same scale

You’ve just read Stewart’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.