Twenty Thousand Hertz

Harry Potter and the Sound Designer’s Stone

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Harry Potter has been brought to life on page and screen. But what would it take to make the wizarding world come alive using sound alone? In this epi...

When Everything Stopped, He Started Listening

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

David Jeffers has always understood the world through sound. As a kid, he bounced beats between tape decks and built speaker boxes from spare parts. A...

The State of the 20K Multiverse™

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when a podcast about sound gets into video? In this special behind-the-scenes episode, producer Grace East flips the script and interview...

Doctor Who & The BBC Radiophonic Workshop

26 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What does a time machine sound like? Or a magic carpet? For the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, that was just another day at the office. For 40 years, this ...

Butterfly in the Synth: Reading Rainbow’s Magical Theme Song

12 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The theme song to Reading Rainbow has been delighting kids (and nostalgic grown-ups) for over 40 years. But how did this instantly iconic track come t...

Auld Lang What? The surprising origins of the New Year’s song

31 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every New Year’s at midnight, we raise our voices to sing a song that few of us understand: “Auld Lang Syne.” So when and why did this become th...

Guess That Sound 2025: Youtube Channel Champs

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For our sixth annual Mystery Sound game show, we’ve invited three guests from our video series to test their sonic knowledge on 18 sounds, including...

The Sound of Fallout: From Iconic Games to Prestige TV

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Behind Fallout’s apocalyptic sci-fi and retro nostalgia is a masterclass in sound design. In this episode, we explore how the audio teams behind bot...

Defying Gravity: The Audio Wizardry of Wicked's Live Vocals

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In movie musicals, the vocals are almost never recorded live on-set. Instead, the actors pre-record their songs, then lip sync to those recordings whi...

The Secret Soundtracks of Movies & TV

05 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, world-class musicians gathered in smoky studios to record tracks that you couldn’t buy in a store… but ended up everywhe...

Inside Imagineering: How Sound Powers Disney Magic

22 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sound is a crucial part of what makes Disney parks feel magical… and it all starts inside the closely-guarded rooms of Walt Disney Imagineering. In ...

Live from New York, I’m Retired! SNL’s Sound Legend Signs Off

08 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Behind Saturday Night Live, there’s a small army of audio professionals making the whole thing sound effortless. In this episode, Dallas goes behind...

The Nursery Rhyme That Ruined a Rock Band

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When a quiz show host asked a simple question about nursery rhymes, it seemed like harmless fun. But that moment triggered a lawsuit that would threat...

Sound Off (Gold): Transit Tunes & Childhood Chimes

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’re proud to present the winning entries from our Sound Off competition: five listener-made short stories that rose to the very top. From clever t...

Yahoo! The Yodel Heard Around the World

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s one of the quirkiest, most iconic sonic logos ever: a four-note vocal flourish that defined the early internet. In this episode, we follow the ...

Super Mario Bros: Koji Kondo’s 8-Bit Masterpiece

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the springy jump sound to the iconic Overworld Theme, the sound of Super Mario Bros. is instantly recognizable. With just five lo-fi audio channe...

Sound Off (Silver): Pinball Pings & Airport Acoustics

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Presenting the second short story collection from our Sound Off competition, featuring five pieces written and produced entirely by our listeners. Fro...

Mixing Madison Square Garden for Vulfpeck’s Biggest Show

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Vulfpeck played a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden, the performance looked effortless. But behind the scenes, their Front of House Engineer...

The Music of Jeopardy! From a Lullaby to $100,000,000

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s the most recognizable TV theme in America. But Jeopardy’s “Think Music” wasn’t originally written for a game show… It was written for...

Sound Off (Bronze): Siren Calls & Medical Melodies

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Twenty Thousand Hertz is proud to present the first short story collection from our Sound Off competition, featuring six bite-sized pieces written and...

I interviewed 5 other Dallas Taylors and things got weird

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Your name isn’t just a label. It’s a signal to everyone who meets you, filled with meaning that you may not fully understand. In this story, Dalla...

Mix Notes: Dumb Farts, Alien Crickets & Junkyard Instruments

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Behind every incredible sound in a movie or TV show is a creative person with a unique story. In this episode, Dallas heads to the legendary Sony Pict...

The Deaf Composer: How Beethoven wrote music he couldn’t hear

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when one of history’s greatest composers begins to lose the very sense he relies on most? In this episode, we explore how Ludwig van Be...

The Sonic Brand Makeover We Didn’t Know We Needed

16 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After 10 years and 400 episodes, our friends at Switched on Pop decided it was finally time to revamp their outdated theme song. In this episode, they...

Inside Apple: Sonic Accessibility

02 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If you want to know where the future of sound is headed, accessibility is a great place to look. And for decades, Apple has been leading the charge in...

“In a World…” The epic evolution of movie trailers

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Movie trailers have changed dramatically over the decades, from the classic “Voice of God” narrators of the ‘80s and ‘90s, to today’s thunde...

“The Autumn, She’s Been Hit!” The wish that changed Halo forever

05 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the late ‘90s, Brian Johnson and Brian Morden were suburban teenagers obsessed with video games and music. And then, through an extraordinary wis...

Solar Symphony: Listening to the Sun’s hidden “music”

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What sound can teach us about our Sun? In this episode, we explore how NASA scientists translate electromagnetic waves from the Sun into sound, and ev...

Speaker Terror Upper: When Bass Tapes shook the streets

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the late '80s and early '90s, a seismic subculture shook the streets… literally. “Boom Cars,” decked out with custom sound systems, roamed ne...

Radio Station Jingles: 80 Years of Earworms

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If you turn on the radio, there’s one thing you’re almost guaranteed to hear: a catchy, over the top jingle proclaiming the name and call letters ...

Sound Pro Smackdown: Guess That Sound! w/ 3 industry experts

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For our fifth annual Mystery Sound Game Show, Dallas invited three friends from the world of professional audio to compete against each other. So cran...

Dog Translation Guide: Decoding Barks, Howls, & Growls

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We all know that dogs are smart, sensitive creatures, but interpreting their vocalizations and behaviors can still be a challenge. In this episode, an...

Cat Translation Guide: Decoding Meows, Purrs, & Chirrups

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cats can be very vocal creatures, but the exact meaning and intention behind these sounds can often be hard to read. In this episode, cat behaviorist ...

The Voices of Bluey w/ Uncle Stripe

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Despite Bluey’s enormous, global popularity, the cast and crew are a tight-knit family, often literally. In part 2 of our story on Bluey, the show’...

The Organic Sound of Bluey w/ Sound Designer Dan Brumm

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since its debut in 2018, Bluey has become one of the most popular and beloved TV shows of all time. In this episode, Bluey’s sound designer and mixe...

"Blah, blah, blah" and the Ungooglable Phrase

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“Blah, blah, blah” and “yada, yada, yada” have had plenty written about them. But there’s a longtime cousin of these phrases that’s much l...

Lofi Girl: The story behind 📚 beats to relax/study to

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Lofi Girl YouTube channel has over 14 millions subscribers, and at any given time, tens of thousands of people are listening together. Created by ...

How Doctors Listen: A sonic journey through the body

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The sounds our bodies make can tell doctors all kinds of surprising things about our health. In this episode, we unpack the history of sound in medica...

The Sound of Apple: Marimbas, Radars & Reflections

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Part 2 of our deep dive into Apple’s iconic sound design, the Apple Design Team unpacks the iPhone’s trio of default ringtones, the evolution o...

The Sound of Apple: Tritones, Chords & Origins

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last few decades, Apple has produced some of the most recognizable sounds ever made. In this episode, the Apple design team pulls back the cu...

Listener Stories: Auditory hallucinations & family whistles

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For this special episode, we’ve passed the mic to our listeners to hear six unexpected stories about sound. Featuring auditory hallucinations, ampli...

The dark history of nursery rhymes

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Many of the songs we sing to our children are hundreds of years old, with their original meanings obscured by history. In this episode, producer Leila...

Sounds of the Deep: Mysteries and threats beneath the waves

22 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Whale songs are some of the most beautiful, cathartic sounds in nature. These extraordinary creatures use sound to socialize, to mate, to find food, a...

Boom Bling: TikTok's sonic guerrilla marketing

08 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

TikTok’s sonic logo is one of the fastest growing sonic logos in history. Today, that little sound is being heard millions of times a day on apps li...

Mixing Seth Meyers: Behind the sound of late night TV

17 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The sound of Late Night television is a complex beast with many moving parts. In this episode, we step inside the daily hustle of Broadcast Mixer Fred...

Untranslatable Words: Guess That Meaning!

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What do you call it when you’re homesick for a place you’ve never been? Is there a word for letting books pile up in your house without reading th...

Inside Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Studios

20 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hans Zimmer is responsible for some of the most iconic film scores of the last 35 years. So how does one person create so much amazing music? It turns...

Hidden Sounds of America: NYC Hum & Underground Organ

06 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

All over the world, there are unique and breathtaking sounds that you can only hear in one specific place. In this episode, we travel to two of the mo...

All About That Bass: How pop became obsessed with the 808

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you listen to vintage music, one of the first things you’ll notice is the complete lack of bass. But turn on a Top 40 station today, and you’ll...

Industrial Musicals: The Golden Age of corporate showtunes

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For more than three decades, it was common for American companies to put on “industrial musicals” for their employees. These elaborate production...

Into the Huluverse: The sonic evolution of Hulu

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, virtually every streaming platform has a sonic logo, from HBO’s classic “Static Angel” to the iconic Netflix “Tudum.” For Hulu, stand...

Welcome to Twenty Thousand Hertz

17 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The world of sound is full of great stories. To get in touch with your sonic world, follow Twenty Thousand Hertz right here in your podcast player. If...

Tournament of Champions: Guess That Sound! w/ past winners

13 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For our fourth annual Mystery Sound Game Show, we pitted the winners from the past three years against each other. The result? Chaos and hilarity. So ...

Tune Tech: Distortion, sequencers, Auto-Tune, and more

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From electric guitars to samplers to drum machines and beyond, the music we love is only possible thanks to the technology used to create it. In many ...

Headphone Handbook: How to pick your perfect pair

15 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The world of headphones is a deep rabbit hole. With thousands of options and endless technical jargon, it’s hard to know which factors really matter...

Sounds That Sell: How companies entice us with sonic candy

01 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since the earliest days of commercial radio, companies have been using sound to worm their way into our brains. And over the decades, they’ve come u...

Auto-Tone: What will cars sound like in the future?

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The sound of a roaring combustion engine is a fixture of modern life. But as electric vehicles become more and more common, these mechanical sounds wi...

Wilhelm Screamix: The sound effect that never dies

04 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For more than seventy years now, filmmakers have been using and reusing a particular scream. Without a doubt, this is Hollywood’s most famous sound ...

Subtitles On: Why is movie dialogue so hard to understand?

20 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, the dialogue in movies and TV shows has gotten harder and harder to understand. No one seems to agree on who or what the main culprit...

Gremlins, War Rigs, & Star Trek Punks

06 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Mark Mangini is one of the most prolific sound designers of all time. He’s been credited on over 150 films, including Indiana Jones, Star Trek, Alad...

Do you talk to yourself in your head? (Not everyone does)

23 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Many of us talk to ourselves in our heads pretty much all day long. But it turns out that there are plenty of people who don’t. In fact, thinking co...

The Legend of Zelda: Tones of the Kingdom

09 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The original Zelda game featured three melodies that would come to define the franchise: the Secret Unlocked Sound, the Treasure Chest sound, and the ...

The Legend of Zelda: A Beep to the Past

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Music is a quintessential part of the Zelda series. And some of Zelda’s most iconic melodies go all the way back to the original game, on the Ninten...

From Vinyl to Streaming: How music formats shaped our world

21 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The history of recorded sound stretches back over a hundred and fifty years, starting with a device that could “record” a voice on a piece of pape...

The secret history of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”

07 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Baseball fan or not, there’s one song that virtually every American knows… or at least, we think we do. “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is one ...

Vocal Stratosphere: The world’s most extreme singing techniques

24 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our vocal system is incredibly complex. What we call “the voice” starts with very precise movements of our vocal cords, and then goes through an e...

Bug Translation Guide: Decoding Buzzes, Chirps, & Clicks

10 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why do bugs make the sounds they do? And how do they make them? In this episode, we explore the un-bee-lievable world of insect sounds, including cric...

Breathe Deep: How I lost my passion and found my purpose

28 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In honor of Mental Health Awareness month, we’ve revamped one of the most personal episodes we’ve ever worked on. To create it, Dallas worked with...

The Spatial Race & the forgotten genius who invented stereo

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

 In the 1960s, stereo sound revolutionized the music industry. But it turns out, a pioneering engineer named Alan Blumlein had actually invented ster...

Found In Translation: Guess That Meaning!

12 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever seen something so cute that you just wanted to squeeze it? Have you ever felt sleepy after a big meal? Or enjoyed bouncing on a puffy cu...

Why insurance jingles never die

22 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, the jingle was king. But in the last twenty years, jingles have nearly gone extinct. Many brands have now dropped their melodic earworms ...

Soundalikes: The secret voice behind Toy Story’s Woody

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“Soundalikes,” also called “voice doubles,” are voice actors who perform as characters that were originally played by someone else. They’re ...

Golden: Finding silence in a world of noise

22 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In a noisy, tumultuous world, how can we find inner peace? This episode features two stories about the transformative power of silence. In the first, ...

Recalculating: The surprising lives of GPS voices

25 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The voices inside our navigation systems are with us nearly every day. They frustrate us when they lead us astray, and guide us through our most memor...

Endless Hertz: Guess That Sound! w/ Endless Thread

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In our third annual Mystery Sound Game Show, the crew from Endless Thread compete to guess the most sounds from this year’s batch. Get ready to list...

Synth Showdown: Digital vs. Analog

16 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1960s, Bob Moog and Don Buchla built synthesizers that changed the world. But by the early 80s, they faced a new challenger who threatened to b...

Synth Showdown: Moog vs. Buchla

02 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the United States, the East Coast and West Coast have rivalries across food, sports, music and more. But there’s another rivalry that’s less we...

A Thousand Words: Audio description for all!

19 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Audio description allows you to enjoy a movie or TV show without the need for any visuals. But how do these narrators strike the right tone for a scen...

The Booj Strikes Back: Why all modern trailers sound the same

05 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 80s and 90s, movie trailers were ruled by “voice-of-God” narrators who used stock phrases like, “In a world…” Today, movie studios ha...

The weird, wild world of 1-900 numbers

21 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the late 80s and early 90s, 900 numbers were all the rage. For a couple bucks a minute, you could call and hear from Hulk Hogan and Freddy Kreuger,...

Tokyo Rose: World War II’s most controversial radio DJ

07 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In World War II, the Japanese military operated a propaganda station called Radio Tokyo. Along with jazz music, the station featured several English-s...

TikTalk: The woman who sued TikTok for using her voice

24 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2018, voiceover artist Bev Standing recorded 10,000 sentences for the Chinese Institute of Acoustics. Bev was told the recordings would be used for...

The sonic secrets behind Ted Lasso

10 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ted Lasso is about more than just an incompetent soccer coach—it’s about overcoming challenges by working together. And that’s exactly what the ...

Sonic Happiness: A guide to feeling better through sound

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We spend a lot of time curating for taste, touch, smell, and vision. But too often, sound gets overlooked. We forget that we can get rid of sounds tha...

Shock Horror A: The origin of the dramatic “Dun, dun, duuun!”

13 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a certain musical phrase that you’ve probably heard hundreds of times. It’s used to emphasize dramatic moments in movies, cartoons, comm...

Sleight of Ear: Behind the scenes w/ Dallas Taylor

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What does a sound designer do all day? How do noise canceling headphones really work? And why do modern movie trailers all sound the same? In this fol...

Breathe: My Unexpected Journey

22 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What if you woke up one day, and found that you could no longer do the thing that gave you the most joy in your life? The thing that gave you purpose?...

Relearning Boléro: How our brains rewrite the sounds we hear

08 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the same way that optical illusions can trick our eyes, auditory illusions can trick our ears. This raises a serious question: what is hearing, and...

Ghosts in the Hit Machine: The secrets of musical ghostwriters

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Many of today’s biggest songs are written and produced by people whose names don’t appear anywhere in the credits. They’re called ghostwriters a...

Why Windows Got Rid of Startup Sounds

11 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Part 2 of our series on the Windows startup sounds picks up when Microsoft made the radical decision to kill the startup sound in Windows 8. In this e...

Ta-da! The history of Windows’ classic startup sounds

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Over the years, Microsoft has made at least ten iconic startup sounds for Windows—from the triumphant “Ta-da!” of Windows 3.1, to the ambient ch...

The Waterphone: Hollywood’s spookiest sound effect

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For nearly half a century, one eerie sound has been showing up again and again in movies and TV shows. It’s typically used when something spooky or ...

Mind the Gap: NYC & London’s iconic transit voices

30 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The voices of subway and train announcements are deeply ingrained in peoples’ lives. Many of us hear them every day, for years on end. And yet, hard...

Hidden Hitmakers: The unsung heroes behind pop’s biggest hits

16 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The names of pop and rock stars are known by millions of people around the world, but the people who actually write their music often stay in the shad...

Happy Little Episode: The soothing voice of Bob Ross

02 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the forty years since The Joy of Painting first started airing, Bob Ross has become a cultural icon. His gentle, soothing voice is instantly recogn...

Pirate Radio: Britain’s AM rebels of the ’60s

16 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1960s, the BBC had a vise grip on British radio, and rarely played the pop and rock music that was all the rage. So a group of rebellious radio...

Being Dallas Taylor: Meeting my name twins

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Your name is so much more than the sound that people call you by. It’s an entire human identity, distilled into a few syllables. So what do six peop...

Sul Sul! Behind the gibberish language of The Sims

19 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When The Sims was first being developed, the creators faced a problem. They knew they wanted these characters to talk and interact, but they were worr...

Aural Exam: Guess That Sound! w/ Underunderstood

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For our second annual Mystery Sound competition, we’ve rounded up the 20 best sounds from the past year, and invited the hosts of Underunderstood ...

The Static Angel: How HBO perfected its sonic identity

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In part 2 of our series on HBO, we explore the tough questions that the company faced in the digital era: Are people still willing to sit through a 90...