pod.link/1171270672
pod.link copied!
Twenty Thousand Hertz
Twenty Thousand Hertz
Dallas Taylor

The stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds.

Listen now on

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Overcast
Podcast Addict
Pocket Casts
Castbox
Podbean
iHeartRadio
Player FM
Podcast Republic
Castro
RSS

Episodes

Dog Translation Guide

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

20 Nov 2024 · 42 minutes
Cat Translation Guide

Cats can be very vocal creatures, but the exact meaning and intention behind these sounds can often be hard to... more

20 Nov 2024 · 41 minutes
The Voices of… BLUEY!!!

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

23 Oct 2024 · 30 minutes
The Sound of… BLUEY!!!

Since its debut in 2018, Bluey has become one of the most popular and beloved TV shows of all time.... more

09 Oct 2024 · 33 minutes
"blah, blah, blah..."

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

25 Sep 2024 · 30 minutes
Lofi Girl

The Lofi Girl YouTube channel has over 14 millions subscribers, and at any given time, tens of thousands of people... more

28 Aug 2024 · 34 minutes
Sonic Diagnosis

The sounds our bodies make can tell doctors all kinds of surprising things about our health. In this episode, we... more

21 Aug 2024 · 27 minutes
The Sound of Apple 2.0

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

14 Aug 2024 · 29 minutes
The Sound of Apple 1.0

Over the last few decades, Apple has produced some of the most recognizable sounds ever made. In this episode, the... more

31 Jul 2024 · 30 minutes
Listener Stories

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

26 Jun 2024 · 25 minutes
Nursery Rhymes

Many of the songs we sing to our children are hundreds of years old, with their original meanings obscured by... more

29 May 2024 · 46 minutes
Silent Sea

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

22 May 2024 · 27 minutes
TikTok’s Boom-Bling

TikTok’s sonic logo is one of the fastest growing sonic logos in history. Today, that little sound is being heard... more

08 May 2024 · 26 minutes
Late Night

The sound of Late Night television is a complex beast with many moving parts. In this episode, we step inside... more

17 Apr 2024 · 29 minutes
Untranslatable Words

What do you call it when you’re homesick for a place you’ve never been? Is there a word for letting... more

03 Apr 2024 · 29 minutes
Hans Zimmer's Remote Control

Hans Zimmer is responsible for some of the most iconic film scores of the last 35 years. So how does... more

20 Mar 2024 · 49 minutes
Aural Obscura

All over the world, there are unique and breathtaking sounds that you can only hear in one specific place. In... more

06 Mar 2024 · 31 minutes
All About That Bass

If you listen to vintage music, one of the first things you’ll notice is the complete lack of bass. But... more

28 Feb 2024 · 26 minutes
Industrial Musicals

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

21 Feb 2024 · 34 minutes
Into the Huluverse

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

24 Jan 2024 · 29 minutes
Welcome to Twenty Thousand Hertz

The world of sound is full of great stories. To get in touch with your sonic world, follow Twenty Thousand... more

17 Jan 2024 · 2 minutes
Tournament of Champions

For our fourth annual Mystery Sound Game Show, we pitted the winners from the past three years against each other.... more

13 Dec 2023 · 48 minutes
Tune Tech

From electric guitars to samplers to drum machines and beyond, the music we love is only possible thanks to the... more

29 Nov 2023 · 26 minutes
Headphone Handbook

The world of headphones is a deep rabbit hole. With thousands of options and endless technical jargon, it’s hard to... more

15 Nov 2023 · 28 minutes
Sounds That Sell

Since the earliest days of commercial radio, companies have been using sound to worm their way into our brains. And... more

01 Nov 2023 · 26 minutes
Auto-Tone

The sound of a roaring combustion engine is a fixture of modern life. But as electric vehicles become more and... more

18 Oct 2023 · 28 minutes
Wilhelm Screamix

For more than seventy years now, filmmakers have been using and reusing a particular scream. Without a doubt, this is... more

04 Oct 2023 · 24 minutes
Subtitles: On

In recent years, the dialogue in movies and TV shows has gotten harder and harder to understand. No one seems... more

20 Sep 2023 · 32 minutes
Mangini's Moments

Mark Mangini is one of the most prolific sound designers of all time. He’s been credited on over 150 films,... more

06 Sep 2023 · 25 minutes
The Voice Inside

Many of us talk to ourselves in our heads pretty much all day long. But it turns out that there... more

23 Aug 2023 · 31 minutes
Zelda: Tones of the Kingdom

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

09 Aug 2023 · 33 minutes
Zelda: A Beep to the Past

Music is a quintessential part of the Zelda series. And some of Zelda’s most iconic melodies go all the way... more

26 Jul 2023 · 27 minutes
From Cylinders to Streaming

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

21 Jun 2023 · 29 minutes
Seventh-Inning Stretch

Baseball fan or not, there’s one song that virtually every American knows… or at least, we think we do. “Take... more

07 Jun 2023 · 36 minutes
Vocal Stratosphere

Our vocal system is incredibly complex. What we call “the voice” starts with very precise movements of our vocal cords,... more

24 May 2023 · 39 minutes
Songbugs

Why do bugs make the sounds they do? And how do they make them? In this episode, we explore the... more

10 May 2023 · 30 minutes
Breathe Deep

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

28 Apr 2023 · 47 minutes
The Spatial Race

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

19 Apr 2023 · 33 minutes
Found In Translation

Have you ever seen something so cute that you just wanted to squeeze it? Have you ever felt sleepy after... more

12 Apr 2023 · 25 minutes
Insurance Jingles... Why?

For decades, the jingle was king. But in the last twenty years, jingles have nearly gone extinct. Many brands have... more

22 Mar 2023 · 39 minutes
Soundalikes

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

08 Mar 2023 · 33 minutes
Golden

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

22 Feb 2023 · 37 minutes
Recalculating

The voices inside our navigation systems are with us nearly every day. They frustrate us when they lead us astray,... more

25 Jan 2023 · 34 minutes
Endless Hertz

In our third annual Mystery Sound Game Show, the crew from Endless Thread compete to guess the most sounds from... more

14 Dec 2022 · 56 minutes
Synth War II: Digital Doom

In the 1960s, Bob Moog and Don Buchla built synthesizers that changed the world. But by the early 80s, they... more

16 Nov 2022 · 27 minutes
Synth War

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

02 Nov 2022 · 28 minutes
A Thousand Words

Audio description allows you to enjoy a movie or TV show without the need for any visuals. But how do... more

19 Oct 2022 · 32 minutes
The Booj Strikes Back

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

05 Oct 2022 · 29 minutes
1-900-20K-HRTZ

In the late 80s and early 90s, 900 numbers were all the rage. For a couple bucks a minute, you... more

21 Sep 2022 · 39 minutes
Tokyo Rose

In World War II, the Japanese military operated a propaganda station called Radio Tokyo. Along with jazz music, the station... more

07 Sep 2022 · 29 minutes
TikTalk

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

24 Aug 2022 · 33 minutes
Ted Lasso's Dark Forest

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

10 Aug 2022 · 35 minutes
Handbook for Sonic Happiness

We spend a lot of time curating for taste, touch, smell, and vision. But too often, sound gets overlooked. We... more

27 Jul 2022 · 48 minutes
Shock Horror (A)

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

13 Jul 2022 · 32 minutes
Sleight of Ear

What does a sound designer do all day? How do noise canceling headphones really work? And why do modern movie... more

06 Jul 2022 · 30 minutes
Breathe

What if you woke up one day, and found that you could no longer do the thing that gave you... more

22 Jun 2022 · 37 minutes
Relearning Boléro

In the same way that optical illusions can trick our eyes, auditory illusions can trick our ears. This raises a... more

08 Jun 2022 · 43 minutes
Ghosts in the (Hit) Machine

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

25 May 2022 · 32 minutes
Windows_Logon.wav

Part 2 of our series on the Windows startup sounds picks up when Microsoft made the radical decision to kill... more

11 May 2022 · 37 minutes
Ta-da! It’s Windows

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

27 Apr 2022 · 31 minutes
Twenty Thousand Hertz
Relearning Boléro
Twenty Thousand Hertz
0:00
-0:00

Listen now on

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Overcast
Podcast Addict
Pocket Casts
Castbox
Podbean
iHeartRadio
Player FM
Podcast Republic
Castro
RSS

Description

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