Hearing someone's voice can be the difference between getting the ick or developing a brand new crush. I choose optimism and therefore bid you well in your quest for the latter. But in order to do so, you probably need to know how the new Hinge voice notes and voice prompts work. 

If you're not sure, here's a brief explainer on how to get the ball rolling so you can show off the dulcet tones of your voice to snag yourself a hot date.

Before you get started, you'll need to have the most recent update of Hinge downloaded, otherwise you won't be able to access this new feature.

How do you use voice prompts?

1. Go to Settings and select Edit Profile. You'll find a new 'Voice Prompt' section. Hit 'Select a prompt' to get started.

2. Once you've chosen a voice prompt, tap the microphone icon to start recording for up to 30 seconds.

3. Hit the stop button once you're done. Don't worry, you can listen back before it goes live. Just press the play button.

4. If you're happy with it, hit 'done' and your voice prompt will be added to your profile. It'll . It'll show up under the first photo on your profile.

How do you use voice notes?

Loving the sound of your own voice? You can now send voice notes in your chats with matches.

• In a message with a match, users can hit the Voice Note icon located next to the 'Send a message' box to start recording.

• To stop, hit the ‘Stop’ button to stop. Once you've hit stop, you can play back your voice note before sending.

• You can delete and redo your voice note before sending if you're not satisfied with it.

• To send your voice note, you can tap the 'up arrow' icon.

Bear in mind, you can only send voice notes to people you've matched with. But they can be up to five minutes long — so plenty of time to recount a funny story. And we've said it once, we'll say it again, do not be a creep.

Happy voice noting!