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 team from Meditative Story to tell a story from his former life as a musician. It’s about losing the thing that had defined his life for more than a decade, and finding something entirely different in the process. This remix concludes with an all-new segment where Dallas reflects on what it was like to finally share this story.
In the 1960s, stereo sound revolutionized the music industry. But it turns out, a pioneering engineer named Alan Blumlein had actually invented stereo a full three decades earlier. Due to tragic events in World War II, his innovations were forgotten for decades. In this episode, we worked with OnePlus to tell the story of how audio has evolved from mono, to stereo, to quadraphonic, to surround sound and beyond. Today, we even have immersive, three-dimensional systems that can simulate 128 speakers using just two. Featuring Alan Blumlein’s son Simon Blumlein, and music producer Robin Reumers from the Abbey Road Institute.
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 listen along and test your knowledge of classic sci-fi movies, strange animal calls, video game themes, UI sounds, and more. One thing is certain: It’s gonna get toasty.
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 bring it all crumbling down: the digital synthesizer. To defeat this opponent, they’d have to recruit a new ally… and maybe even join forces. Featuring Bob’s daughter Michelle Moog-Koussa, Don’s collaborator Ami Radunskaya, and journalist Ryan Gaston.
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 well known, but just as important. This standoff created sounds that were unlike anything that had been heard before. It redefined what a musical instrument could be. And it changed the sound of pop music forever. Featuring journalist Ryan Gaston and composer David Rosenboom.
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 that annoy us, and surround ourselves with sounds that we love. When we do, it can have huge benefits for our mood and wellbeing. In this episode, Dr. Laurie Santos of The Happiness Lab joins Dallas to create a Handbook for Sonic Happiness. Featuring auditory psychologist David Poeppel, psychology researcher Giulia Poerio, clinical psychologist Ali Mattu, sound scholar Mac Hagood and acoustician Trevor Cox.
There’s a certain musical phrase that you’ve probably heard hundreds of times. It’s used to emphasize dramatic moments in movies, cartoons, commercials and musicals, most often as a gag. But while this little melody is everywhere today, the question is: Where did it come from? In this episode, we investigate the mysterious origins of a famous 3-note sting. Featuring Sound Historian Patrick Feaster and Composer Dick Walter.
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? The thing that defined your past, and was supposed to define your future? For our 150th episode, Dallas tells the personal story of how he lost something that meant the world to him… and how that loss eventually led him to become the person he is today. This story comes from the podcast Meditative Story.
