PES 217: Dallas Taylor, Host and Creator of Twenty Thousand Hertz

The Podcast Engineering Show

My guest is Dallas Taylor, host and creator of Twenty Thousand Hertz - an exceptional podcast about sound. He is also the Creative Director of Defacto Sound where he has led thousands of high-profile projects ranging from blockbuster trailers and advertising campaigns to Sundance award-winning films and major television series. Follow on Twitter: Dallas Taylor, Twenty Thousand Hertz, Defacto Sound.

FYI, I really enjoyed the episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz titled Silence where Dallas experiences pure silence for himself thanks to a special room called an anechoic chamber!

We discussed SO MUCH in this episode including:

• His studio has acoustic panels and lots of foam, etc.
• Shure SM7b microphone
• Yellowtec boom arm
• Argosy console desk
• Sound Devices MixPre-6
• He has writers on staff
• Uses Rev.com for transcription
• Sound design starts with the script
• Table reads with his team
• He's very cognizant of emotional dynamics of episodes
• Start episodes with a small thing that arouses curiosity
• Every 15-30 seconds he tries to have some kind of sonic change to keep the listeners attention
• Early in his career he worked on foley for films
• Tweak sounds during editing? Yes! Tons.
• His sound designer Soren uses Pro Tools with lots of plugins, etc.
• iZotope software
• Has many sound FX libraries and music beds, etc
• Sound Toys plugins
• Limiters
• Compressors
• EQ’s
• Final MP3 files are between 160-320 kbps!
• Megaphone for hosting - dynamic ad insertion, etc.
• He sells his own ads

Thanks for sharing so much with us, Dallas!