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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 called ghostwriters and ghost producers, and they’re a huge part of the music

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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 episode, we explore the forces that led to that dec

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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, to the ambient chime that Brian Eno crafted for Windows 95, to the orches

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Liquid Terror

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 mysterious happens—and it can be heard in Poltergeis

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Mind the Gap

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, hardly anyone knows who those voices belong to. In this

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Hidden Hitmakers

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 shadows. In this episode, we peel back the curtain on

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Happy Little Episode

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 recognizable, and still gives comfort to millions of peo

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Pirate Radio

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 DJs decided to give the people what they wanted,

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Being Dallas Taylor

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 people who share the exact same name have in common? It

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Sul Sul

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 worried that using a real language would quickly get r

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Welcome to Twenty Thousand Hertz

A lovingly crafted podcast that reveals the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. Subscribe now.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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Aural Exam

For our second annual Mystery Sound competition, we’ve rounded up the 20 best sounds from the past year, and invited the hosts test their ears in a competitive guessing game. So bu

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HBO 2.0

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-second theme song before they watch a movie? Does

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It's Not TV. It's HBO.

In the 1980s, every movie that aired on HBO began with a truly epic theme song—a sweeping orchestral piece that triggers instant nostalgia for anyone who grew up with it. Then in the 90s, HBO introduc

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If you’re a human being, chances are, you know someone who is a big time snorer. You're falling asleep to the gentle sounds of crickets, and then BAM, you hear a snore that sounds like an angry troll.

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Creature Speakers

To give voices to the frightening monsters in movies, TV shows, and video games, sound designers often start with animal noises, then apply all kinds of creative processing. But other times, these sou

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Video(less) Games

In the past, video games were largely inaccessible to people with visual impairments. But these days, game makers are adding all kinds of innovative options to make their games more accessible. And so

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Blind Sports

Playing a sport without sight might sound impossible. But it turns out, there are blind athletes all around the world doing exactly that. Instead of using their eyes, these players rely on their ears

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Listening to the Movies

When Matthew Shifrin was growing up, his blindness meant that trying to enjoy a movie or TV show was often a confusing and frustrating experience. But then, Matthew discovered something called video d

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Sonic Bubbles

For over a century, humans have been using technology to shape our sonic environment. White noise machines, nature recordings, noise canceling headphones and high-tech hearables all allow us to create

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Domestic Symphony

Not long ago, our home appliances made nothing but abrasive beeps and harsh buzzes. In recent years though, these devices have started to chirp and sing with carefully designed tones and melodies. But

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The Windsor Hum

In 2011, residents of Windsor, Ontario started experiencing a strange rumbling hum that rattled dishes and kept people awake at night. Then, after years of getting nowhere, the mystery of the Windsor

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The Buzzer

Since World War I, countries around the world have been broadcasting mysterious numerical messages via shortwave radio. Though concrete evidence is hard to come by, the general consensus is that these

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Stay Tuned

Nearly a century after they first appeared, the Looney Tunes are back in an all-new series. To bring this iconic franchise into the present, the creators are looking to its past, taking it back to the

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Prop 'til You Drop

In part 2 of our exploration of Foley, the Warner Brothers Foley team takes us into the all-important prop room. Along the way, they demonstrate how they make the sounds for flapping birds, breaking b

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Foley Artists

When it comes to film sound, Foley Artist might be the most important job you've never heard of. These performers record custom, synchronized sound effects to create the sounds for characters' foots

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The Leaky Pipeline

In the late 80s, a small French company found a way to pair analog film with pristine digital audio. But getting their system into theaters would involve a long legal battle, hiding out in a Vegas bat

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Auditory Icons

We live in a designed world, and alert tones are no exception. Every beep and ping that your phone or laptop makes probably went through multiple rounds of revisions and approvals. So what separates a

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Progression Obsession

There are a few specific chord progressions that show up again and again in popular music. Across hundreds of hit songs, the same basic musical formulas have been used by artists ranging from Lynyrd S

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SM7

Since their founding almost a century ago, Shure has created some of the most iconic microphones ever made. In this episode, we worked with Shure to tell the story of the SM7 dynamic microphone: from

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Minecraft

Since its official release in 2011, Minecraft has grown from a small, experimental indie game into the best-selling video game of all time. Today, the game's haunting music and quirky sound effects ar

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20th Century Fox

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 chime that Brian Eno crafted for Windows 95, to the orches3