TWENTY THOUSAND HERTZ
Produced by the team at Defacto Sound, Twenty Thousand Hertz is a lovingly crafted podcast that reveals the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds. With 20 million+ lifetime downloads, 125,000+ listeners per episode, and 3 Webby awards to its name, Twenty Thousand Hertz is the world's leading podcast about sound.
The show has been featured in The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Salon, Popular Science, and many other outlets. Notable episodes include an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the Netflix audio logo, the controversial backstory behind the McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign, and an upbeat, historical deep dive into the iconic 20th Century Fox fanfare. Subscribe to Twenty Thousand Hertz in your favorite podcast player.
TED TALK
In 2020, our founder & Creative Director Dallas Taylor delivered a Mainstage TED Talk on the transformative power of silence. In it, Dallas tells the story of arguably the most debated musical composition in recent history—composer John Cage's iconic piece 4'33"—and why it’s even more relevant today than it was when it was first performed nearly 70 years ago.
The talk concludes with a performance of 4’33”, where Dallas invites viewers to listen deeply to the rich soundscape around them. Dallas’ TED Talk was later featured on TED Talks Daily, and expanded on the TED Radio Hour. Take a moment to re-engage with the sound of your environment by watching the full talk here.
THE SOUNDS OF SPACE
A collaboration between Defacto Sound, our podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz, and filmmaker John D. Boswell, AKA melodysheep, THE SOUNDS OF SPACE takes you on a journey back in time and to the edge of our solar system and beyond, to discover what other worlds of sound are lurking beyond Earth's atmosphere.
An expanded version of our original podcast episode about the sounds of other planets, this epic CGI short features narration by Dallas Taylor, original music/VFX by melodysheep, and mixing + additional sound design by Defacto Sound.
WHY THE OCEAN IS GETTING LOUDER
In collaboration with Vox, we adapted our Twenty Thousand Hertz episode “20,000 dBs Under the Sea” into a short documentary. The piece explores the rich soundscape of the ocean—from just below the surface, all the way down to the deepest depths—and explains how noise pollution is wreaking havoc on marine life.
99 PERCENT INVISIBLE
To date, we have collaborated with the award-winning design podcast 99% Invisible on four occasions. We wrote, produced and sound designed two 99% Invisible episodes about how sound affects our health—with one focused on urban noise, and the other focused on the sounds of hospitals. Two Twenty Thousand Hertz episodes—about the NBC Chimes and Classic Cartoon Sound Effects—have also been featured on their show.
YOUTUBE
On our Youtube channel, we’ve done goofy “sound redesign” on videos like Chubby Corgis Fighting, a climactic scene from Interstellar, and a “musicless music video” of Wham’s “Last Christmas.” The channel gives us a chance to cut loose and blow off some steam, but it also shows how radically sound can change your perception of whatever you’re watching.