Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to another edition of Access podcast, the podcast
Speaker 1: about podcast and today Z it's all about sound, sound, sounds,
Speaker 1: sound sound, sound, sound, sound design. It's fascinating. Good sounding
Speaker 1: podcasts are super important. And if somebody who knows this
Speaker 1: well as Dallas Taylor, host of twenty Hurts, he's coming
Speaker 1: up at a second. Let's check out some of his
Speaker 1: good sounds. Right now, you're listening to twenty Hurts The
Speaker 1: Stories behind the World's most recognizable and interesting Sounds, hosted
Speaker 1: by Dallas Taylor. This is the story behind the emergency
Speaker 1: alert system. So that wasn't a real emergency, but that
Speaker 1: distinctive dissonant tone and got your attention, didn't it? And
Speaker 1: for good reason, that sound has accompanied weather alerts and
Speaker 1: other important warnings here in the US. So, Dallas, welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. I want to just say how you
Speaker 1: came about being on the show? Is such a podcasting
Speaker 1: way of coming about being on the show. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: want to go over this real quick. Are you aware
Speaker 1: exactly of how how all that has happened for me
Speaker 1: to get in touch with you? Not at all? So
Speaker 1: that I'm looking forward to hearing this. So I went
Speaker 1: to West Virginia University. A guy named Scott Simons went
Speaker 1: to West Virginia University with me. Now Scott is the
Speaker 1: he does uh. He's one of the guys in the
Speaker 1: band for America's Got Talent. He's the musical director for
Speaker 1: the new Steve Harvey's show. Um. But he also is
Speaker 1: the singer songwriter of the Paw Patrol theme song. That's right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this, we did this. We went back and
Speaker 1: forth on Twitter on this and I was blown away
Speaker 1: because I have a five year old and a two
Speaker 1: year old and so we know that very well. I've
Speaker 1: even been to pot Patrol live so and I can
Speaker 1: sing every word and the entire pot Patrol uh theme song,
Speaker 1: which I will not do. I know nothing about it.
Speaker 1: All I know is that we were we were at
Speaker 1: the n C Double A Games in San Diego, and
Speaker 1: you know, he knows that I'm the podcasting guy, and
Speaker 1: he's like, listen, I just was listening to a podcast
Speaker 1: about the E A S. S System and being a
Speaker 1: radio nerd, I was like, I gotta hear that, and
Speaker 1: he so we texted me your show this weekend. I
Speaker 1: listened to it and then went nuts Ford with nuts
Speaker 1: Ford love it. Love it to death and like binged
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of them, and then immediately got a
Speaker 1: hold of uh, Chris Peterson and I heard and said,
Speaker 1: we gotta can you help me track him down. Let's
Speaker 1: let's get him on the show. So I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to have you on because I just I absolutely I'm
Speaker 1: a I'm a huge fan of twenty hurts. It's such
Speaker 1: a good podcast. Well thank you. This is this is
Speaker 1: quite the like shot to the ego, so I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I can just have you follow me around, um,
Speaker 1: if I can afford that, and just tell me how
Speaker 1: great I am. And I'll tell you I get you know,
Speaker 1: I'm the I that everybody and their mother text me
Speaker 1: you gotta hear this podcast or you gotta listen to this.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I know, I'm busy. I got too many
Speaker 1: podcasts to listen to. But first of all, it was
Speaker 1: it was the topic. Uh. And then also when Scott said,
Speaker 1: you know, Scott's musician, and he said, listen, this thing
Speaker 1: is about sound design, but but it's not. You just
Speaker 1: gotta check it out. And I was intrigued because I
Speaker 1: love good sound and I love podcast. It sound great
Speaker 1: and I think that that is it's vital to the
Speaker 1: future podcasting that more podcasts sound as good as yours.
Speaker 1: I mean, if they could, because yours is one of
Speaker 1: the I will say it maybe the best sounding podcast
Speaker 1: I've ever listened to. So thank you. I want to
Speaker 1: backtrack and talk about your relationship with sound. When did
Speaker 1: you fall in love with having things come into your ears? Well, uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go way back. So, UM, I grew up
Speaker 1: in the Delta of Arkansas, very poor area, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't particularly great in school or anything. Um, but I
Speaker 1: eventure really found band and I went in and started
Speaker 1: playing the trumpet, and it really became the only thing
Speaker 1: I was really good at in my life. Um. I
Speaker 1: mean I was okay like math and science and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, but really like what got me out, not
Speaker 1: got me out of trouble and kept me going to
Speaker 1: school and all that stuff was was really like playing
Speaker 1: the trumpet, and um, my band teachers and my friends
Speaker 1: there and so that really like took me from this
Speaker 1: very very poor area to getting like a full scholarship
Speaker 1: and all the stuff. So it was just one thing
Speaker 1: that just came really naturally to me, thankfully, and um,
Speaker 1: and so it all started being like a trumpet player
Speaker 1: and then going to school and really like thinking about
Speaker 1: classical trumpet and jazz trumpet and all that stuff. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: in college, I started to struggle with some really bad
Speaker 1: performance anxiety. It was a thing where like I loved playing,
Speaker 1: but I didn't like the idea that my best performance
Speaker 1: was going to be in a practice room. I really
Speaker 1: wanted some to do something in this field where like,
Speaker 1: once it it was may aid, it stayed made and
Speaker 1: it just went out to the world identically every time. So, um,
Speaker 1: kind of struggled for a little while late in college
Speaker 1: figuring out how I was going to transition from this
Speaker 1: thing that I had done for most of my life
Speaker 1: up until that point. And uh, and pretty quickly, like
Speaker 1: there was a there was a very very short phase
Speaker 1: of like recording music, but I didn't particularly love the
Speaker 1: atmosphere of that. Um, there's a lot of just like
Speaker 1: kind of coolest person in the room room type of
Speaker 1: politics that go on in that. Not everybody, but I
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of us understand what that is
Speaker 1: to to go into a studio and record music. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: so I kind I consider myself like always kind of
Speaker 1: like a science nerd and like a space nerd, and
Speaker 1: like I mean, nerd isn't the right word. So I
Speaker 1: guess what I mean is like whenever going into the
Speaker 1: recording studio, like music is such a personal expression of
Speaker 1: of like a motion that that's like deep and important. Um.
Speaker 1: But it also on the r hand, just um can
Speaker 1: really explode into just like really um non uh pragmatic
Speaker 1: type of like thinking and and it's more so just
Speaker 1: like living. I think that's a really weird way of saying.
Speaker 1: Just like the culture of the recording studio can sometimes
Speaker 1: feel like it's a popularity contest and like who's the coolest,
Speaker 1: and it's not like a like a logical, pragmatic type
Speaker 1: of process. And that's why like whenever I found post
Speaker 1: audio and sound design for like advertising and TV and
Speaker 1: things like that, um, it felt like I found like
Speaker 1: my science and and like my creative science nerds over there.
Speaker 1: And so I felt like I really belonged in that
Speaker 1: very analytical thinking and and kind of thinking about physics
Speaker 1: in a way, but in a creative way. And so
Speaker 1: UM fell in love with that. Uh. Started working in
Speaker 1: television news. That was my first job into this whole field,
Speaker 1: and UM, what did you do for television news? So
Speaker 1: I were My very first job was like an intern
Speaker 1: ship running a camera at an a at a Texas
Speaker 1: news station. UM. But that quickly led me out to
Speaker 1: working at Telemundo out in l A, which I don't
Speaker 1: speak Spanish, but running their board for their news stuff,
Speaker 1: and then UM that kind of led to working at
Speaker 1: Fox and UH and then eventually led to finally getting
Speaker 1: into post audio at G four, which is an old
Speaker 1: TV UM or an old television network for video games,
Speaker 1: which was before it's time. UM, and then UH landed,
Speaker 1: then after that landed a senior sound designer position at
Speaker 1: the Discovery Channel and UM all of their networks they
Speaker 1: have like fifteen networks, and then after that started my
Speaker 1: own company where we work with all kinds of different networks,
Speaker 1: so like HBO and Netflix and UM, Discovery and National
Speaker 1: Geographic and lots of like advertising brands like Nike and
Speaker 1: different cars and shoot, does that mean when you do
Speaker 1: sound design for these companies? Like, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think a lot of us understand what goes into what
Speaker 1: we hear because with video it's so it's so you know,
Speaker 1: for most people, they you know, they don't even realize
Speaker 1: that a lot of the video experience is coming from
Speaker 1: what they hear as much as what they're seeing. Well,
Speaker 1: you'd be surprised. There's actually a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the industry to UM. I send out a lot of
Speaker 1: connection emails just kind of getting us on there on
Speaker 1: people's radar, And just today got I got a couple
Speaker 1: of emails of just like, well, I'll ford for this
Speaker 1: onto our music department. UM So a lot of people
Speaker 1: naturally think, well, what other sound is there in all
Speaker 1: of these things other than music? And um and I
Speaker 1: guess I usually will say, like, well, what other sounds
Speaker 1: are there in life? Like if you walk outside, do
Speaker 1: you have a soundtrack? Or like, you know, if you
Speaker 1: drive somewhere or if you walk somewhere, All of those
Speaker 1: things in a picture form gets recreated because it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound very good, just to kind of like put a
Speaker 1: singular mike out there and just you know, it's like
Speaker 1: if you have a think of an old video camera
Speaker 1: or something, or even an iPhone camera or something, like
Speaker 1: your your point it at someone and how's that audio sound?
Speaker 1: It's distant. It's kind of like it's not very like
Speaker 1: crisp and clean it's like that sound versus what like
Speaker 1: a movie sound is. And on the movie side, every
Speaker 1: element from the ground up is rebuilt. So you have like,
Speaker 1: you know, the winds are like tracks of very specific
Speaker 1: winds and environments, and then you have things like um fully,
Speaker 1: which is all the things you touch with your hands
Speaker 1: and feet typically, so like if you're walking, Um, we're
Speaker 1: going to record all that stuff separately, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: put a microphone like two inches away from when we
Speaker 1: record it to make sure that it's just crystal clear,
Speaker 1: and we have we can we can feel out those
Speaker 1: levels and stuff when we're mixing it. You also have
Speaker 1: something called heart effects, So these are things like door
Speaker 1: slams and explosions and things like that that we can
Speaker 1: kind of build. And then um, then we have kind
Speaker 1: of abstract emotional effects, and these are things like wooshes
Speaker 1: and trailer hits and scrapes and things that make you
Speaker 1: feel something. UM. So that's what I do most of
Speaker 1: the time for my day jobs. So for the past
Speaker 1: twenty years, it's been rebuilding all of the environments and uh,
Speaker 1: and really everything sound related to picture except for music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I teach it at university and a lot of You know,
Speaker 1: my students are multimedia students, and I always tell them,
Speaker 1: I said, a good video is not good if the
Speaker 1: audio is bad, because that is the number one mistake
Speaker 1: of video young videographers and filmmakers is they forget about
Speaker 1: the sound. And I want to talk about your podcast
Speaker 1: and how you got into that, but I want to
Speaker 1: share with you how I've used your podcast, um, because
Speaker 1: your podcast, UM, you know, it is all about the sound.
Speaker 1: And we you know, my students this week this is
Speaker 1: this is how nerdy I got for your podcast. I
Speaker 1: came into class, they played their assignments. I changed the
Speaker 1: assignment in the middle of the class of what we
Speaker 1: were gonna do the next week, and said, listen, you
Speaker 1: guys all need to be inspired. So I played them
Speaker 1: a couple of things from your show about voice acting,
Speaker 1: and I played them the e A s Uh piece
Speaker 1: and and then and then their assignment this week is
Speaker 1: to find a good sounding podcast, something that sounds good,
Speaker 1: and then use that as inspiration to do their podcast
Speaker 1: this week. Because I don't think that there is I
Speaker 1: think that that's what makes these great podcasts downed out
Speaker 1: right now is the sound. So when were you listening
Speaker 1: to a podcast and going, boy, that sounds good, or
Speaker 1: or were you thinking that doesn't sound good, maybe I
Speaker 1: should do something? Um. It all definitely for me, it
Speaker 1: definitely goes back to Radio Lab. Um. That that was
Speaker 1: um for podcasting and for even sound design in general.
Speaker 1: That was a real like watershed moment um across the board.
Speaker 1: I mean we did have big shows like This American
Speaker 1: Life and other things, but Radio Lab really challenged what
Speaker 1: you could do with sound only UM. And then that
Speaker 1: really kind of like spawned some other offshoots. And so
Speaker 1: I consider myself probably you know, uh great great grandchild
Speaker 1: aild of something like the Radio Lab um experience and
Speaker 1: something that you know, the from Radio Lab. It kind
Speaker 1: of like that's that's kind of how you birthed things
Speaker 1: that sounded great like invisible and even boosted a lot
Speaker 1: of production value on some of the big shows already. UM.
Speaker 1: And so that that really is like the starting point
Speaker 1: of in Radio Lab also started around the time whenever
Speaker 1: I was really in my like starting to get into
Speaker 1: my prime of being a sound designer, and so jed
Speaker 1: Abomad like really like doing these crazy sounds along with
Speaker 1: this thing like really inspired even what I was doing
Speaker 1: on the TV and film and advertising side of what
Speaker 1: I was doing. Um we would. I would reference that
Speaker 1: a lot in the way that like being able to
Speaker 1: have invoked sort of like feelings in the way that
Speaker 1: you craft sounds and everything. Um. So that's really where
Speaker 1: it started. And since then, just because I'm in sound,
Speaker 1: I'd never really consume anything that doesn't sound great. I
Speaker 1: just think that that's kind of like a starting point
Speaker 1: for um. So you've not into my podcast at all. Well,
Speaker 1: I just it's one of those things that's like, um,
Speaker 1: I think you hit the nail on the head with
Speaker 1: like the video versus the audio thing, and um we
Speaker 1: I would encourage people, especially who are in film school
Speaker 1: and things like that, to be able to tell a
Speaker 1: story with audio only. I think that should be a prerequisite.
Speaker 1: Um because the point being is we only have even
Speaker 1: though it is you know, there is a visual element
Speaker 1: to this, you know, multi sensory thing. Uh, sound is
Speaker 1: the other element. There's only two human senses that we
Speaker 1: can put together with most of the visual content out there.
Speaker 1: And whenever you have forty people on a set and
Speaker 1: you have one or two sound people and then you
Speaker 1: move that into post production and you have you know,
Speaker 1: eighty people working on it and a handful of sound people.
Speaker 1: It just shows like just the the stress. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that like that, and I know that visuals
Speaker 1: do take a lot more of just like you know,
Speaker 1: equipment and things like that, but that also translates a
Speaker 1: lot into like the way that people produce things and
Speaker 1: they really think of sound as an afterthought, and that
Speaker 1: that goes for pretty much like advertising and um film
Speaker 1: and TV and all that stuff. And really this podcast
Speaker 1: for me was like a like a silent protest against
Speaker 1: that without necessarily saying it. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of undercurrents to what like I'm trying to say that
Speaker 1: will reveal itself at fifty or a hundred episodes rather
Speaker 1: than kind of at the five or ten mark. And
Speaker 1: I think once once like it's all revealed, it'll be like,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, Like this richness of this sense is
Speaker 1: just cannot be denied and cannot be ignored anymore. So
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm working branded content as well, and
Speaker 1: you know your podcast in a sense is a branded
Speaker 1: content podcast for what you do. Did you mean it
Speaker 1: to be that? Because I don't. I can't think of
Speaker 1: any other branded content podcast that I've ever listened to
Speaker 1: that now has advertising on it, so that people were like,
Speaker 1: I know, you know, it's like, you know, getting paid
Speaker 1: to do your own advertisement. Almost is how did this
Speaker 1: all happen? Well, Um, so I own a sound design
Speaker 1: studio called De Facto Sound and I and if you
Speaker 1: listen to earlier episodes, you'll hear it. Right at the
Speaker 1: very beginning, it will say from de Facto Sound, you
Speaker 1: were listening to twenty hurts, um about fifteen episodes ago
Speaker 1: or so we dropped that completely. Um. And at the end,
Speaker 1: if you listen to some of the earlier shows, it
Speaker 1: would say, um, you know this is produced by the
Speaker 1: team at De Facto Sound. And then now it says
Speaker 1: this is produced out of the offices of De Facto Sound.
Speaker 1: So um. With all that said, uh, it was a
Speaker 1: thing that I did want to highlight what we do
Speaker 1: at this company because podcasts, notoriously don't make very much money.
Speaker 1: And so my hail Mary was at least if we
Speaker 1: kind of put our name on it, maybe the point
Speaker 1: zero one percent of people out there in this audience
Speaker 1: who might work at an agency or something might start
Speaker 1: might sendto something that could help pay for this podcast, UM,
Speaker 1: and that worked. Actually, UM, we don't get any sort
Speaker 1: of like windfall work from the podcast, but but it does.
Speaker 1: We have actually gotten some serious jobs just because people
Speaker 1: were fans of the podcast. But over time it really
Speaker 1: took on a life of its own. Like we UM,
Speaker 1: I don't really think of it as a branded podcast
Speaker 1: anymore so, UM, even though we still keep that first credit,
Speaker 1: that's more so for the fact of sound that is,
Speaker 1: that's more so for just our team because we worked
Speaker 1: so hard on it, thinking about it and talking about
Speaker 1: it all the time. But it's its own now, like
Speaker 1: the podcasts its own business and its own its own
Speaker 1: it has its own like aspirations for what it is
Speaker 1: that don't involve like what de Facto Sound is doing.
Speaker 1: So it is. It began as a't like it was.
Speaker 1: It was began from that group of people thinking about
Speaker 1: those things. But really I feel like now it's just
Speaker 1: its own thing. So it's kind of it was like
Speaker 1: definitely a little bit of a branded podcast at first,
Speaker 1: and then now I feel like it's just kind of
Speaker 1: like a its own thing really, but it has it
Speaker 1: has worked for us a little bit. There is so
Speaker 1: much to be learned from your podcast. It is a
Speaker 1: it is a learning experience. And you know you mentioned
Speaker 1: Jad Apple rom And and I quote Jad probably daily. Uh.
Speaker 1: He has a little thing on YouTube about sound and
Speaker 1: how it creates empathy and a good podcast, a good
Speaker 1: radio show creates empathy. And you know you do such
Speaker 1: a good job with the subjects that you talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, to make me, you know, on maybe on
Speaker 1: the exterior, I'm like, I don't know if that's interesting,
Speaker 1: And then five minutes in, I want to know everything
Speaker 1: about it. What have you found to be? You know,
Speaker 1: the most surprising things you've learned just just hosting this show? Um? Interesting? Um.
Speaker 1: The most surprising thing that I've learned through this is
Speaker 1: how I suddenly whenever we put hit published on an
Speaker 1: episode that I can't remember what we've ever done before
Speaker 1: I published. So every time I think about like pot
Speaker 1: prior shows, I'm like, I can't think of a single
Speaker 1: show we did, because there's there's you know, ten ahead
Speaker 1: of us that I'm always thinking of. Um. I think
Speaker 1: that what I've learned overall, because I can come out
Speaker 1: of like the TV film advertising world, is that TV
Speaker 1: film advertising versus other fields. Uh again, really really underappreciate
Speaker 1: sound like pretty extreme. Whenever you look at other fields,
Speaker 1: whether it be science or math or space or you know,
Speaker 1: anything that that we talk about that's not TV film related, Like,
Speaker 1: we find that those people all take it very seriously
Speaker 1: and it's an equal partner to that. Even whenever you're
Speaker 1: talking about video games, UM, sound is an equal partner
Speaker 1: all the time. And so UM. What I've learned at
Speaker 1: least that kind of gives me a little bit of
Speaker 1: like hope, is that there's a lot I think there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a renaissance of the way people use sound
Speaker 1: in visual uh situations. And the film people have got it.
Speaker 1: Like there film sound, especially on the big blockbuster stuff
Speaker 1: is is excellent and they take it really seriously, but
Speaker 1: everything else doesn't typically UM so UM. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess that that's like a big overarching thing is that
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of work to be done in
Speaker 1: in in the media that we create. UM and and
Speaker 1: of course, like you know, three fourths of the of
Speaker 1: the shows that we do have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: with the industry at all that I work in. UM.
Speaker 1: But that's just something that kind of sticks with me,
Speaker 1: is that a lot of people care about sound and
Speaker 1: they think about it a lot. Um, it just happened.
Speaker 1: I just happened to work in an industry where they
Speaker 1: don't particularly do that very often. I UM, my personal
Speaker 1: philosophy on on the future of podcasting and sound is
Speaker 1: is growth. Because I've always looked at podcast as an escape.
Speaker 1: You know. I tell folks that, UM, as somebody who
Speaker 1: has had a lot of crazyness in my life, my
Speaker 1: my escape would always be books. You know, I could
Speaker 1: read a book and get into it and forget about
Speaker 1: whatever else I was was obsessing about. And and podcasts
Speaker 1: fill that same gap in the brain, you know that
Speaker 1: that they create this this safe place, this place where
Speaker 1: you can escape. And and in a world where we're
Speaker 1: being inundated on Facebook and social media, which just so
Speaker 1: many different things, and they're also it's it's seems more
Speaker 1: aggressive and negative than the last. Uh. That's where I
Speaker 1: think podcasts can really benefit society. And I think, and
Speaker 1: I say all this to say, you know, kudos, because
Speaker 1: I do feel you're one of those shows that that
Speaker 1: fill that gap. I mean it really, I was excited
Speaker 1: to do this interview because I was excited to listen
Speaker 1: to your podcast because it is such a good, good
Speaker 1: a good thing therapeutically for people. Well, yeah, I'll tune
Speaker 1: tune you into a little bit of things that I've learned.
Speaker 1: That's actually brings up another uh point that I'd like
Speaker 1: to make. Um. One we started this this podcast was published,
Speaker 1: um six days six or seven days before the presidential election.
Speaker 1: So if you can think about the climate that we
Speaker 1: were in whenever this podcast launched, um, everyone associated with
Speaker 1: it cannot couldn't ignore that stuff. However, when we launched
Speaker 1: the podcast, you'll notice that like nothing is political at all,
Speaker 1: and it's very much an escape and um, and I
Speaker 1: think that you're definitely like tuning in on some of
Speaker 1: the things that I hope that people will eventually you
Speaker 1: start to notice is that I really wanted it to
Speaker 1: be a complete escape from just stress in general. Um,
Speaker 1: there are some things that we talk about that are
Speaker 1: stress inducing, but the show is really like a lot
Speaker 1: about mindfulness is something that I've kind of found we
Speaker 1: we've touched on that in a few episodes, but even
Speaker 1: for me personally, the show has become something that has
Speaker 1: become a little bit more grounding in my own reality.
Speaker 1: I tend to at least I've heard in the past
Speaker 1: that like you know, anxiety is living your mind living
Speaker 1: too far in the future, and depression is your mind
Speaker 1: living too far in the past. And the real balance
Speaker 1: is is trying to like land right there in the present,
Speaker 1: you know, be with my kids, like be uh with
Speaker 1: my friends, with my colleagues, like be in my work,
Speaker 1: and really devote my whole self to it. And I
Speaker 1: think that sound and revealing the sonic things around us
Speaker 1: really grounds you to your reality because that's not a
Speaker 1: past or future thing, it's a right now and you're
Speaker 1: experiencing it constantly. Um. So that's been really important to me,
Speaker 1: even in the tone of the show, is like a
Speaker 1: real grounding and giving people the opportunity to maybe tune
Speaker 1: in on a sound and maybe they don't know what
Speaker 1: it is to know it or not, but they've kind
Speaker 1: of grounded themselves by by now starting to think about
Speaker 1: like this next layer of what they're hearing. And so
Speaker 1: that's something that's become really important to me, at least therapeutically.
Speaker 1: That's something that I personally needed in my life and
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that podcast people um need that too. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just nod in my head the whole
Speaker 1: time that you're talking, You've made me think about a
Speaker 1: few different things. Of one was the episode about voices
Speaker 1: sounding like instruments. I've been like, I've been for days,
Speaker 1: going God, what is my voice? I think it's it's
Speaker 1: got to be something terrible. It's like a harmonica or
Speaker 1: something awful. Um, But it's fun to think about. And
Speaker 1: then when you were talking about the stress inducement, and
Speaker 1: I did see stress inducement from one of your podcasts,
Speaker 1: I played the E A S. One from my class
Speaker 1: and I had one student in particular, and you I mean,
Speaker 1: she got visible visibly and physically upset by it because
Speaker 1: of this the sound and the that you know that
Speaker 1: that sound really like really, I mean, I couldn't believe this,
Speaker 1: this real effect that it had on her. But it
Speaker 1: was great for the class to see and show them
Speaker 1: how powerful what they're doing can be. You know that
Speaker 1: they want to be these you know, these these podcast producers.
Speaker 1: This is this is what you can do with with
Speaker 1: just five minutes of sounds. So and even with that
Speaker 1: E a S episode, the whole reason that I wanted
Speaker 1: to do it, it was something that I was kicking
Speaker 1: around on the back burner for a while, but I
Speaker 1: was in a in like a like an auditorium and
Speaker 1: they were probably a couple of thousand people in the auditorium,
Speaker 1: and um, everyone's phone started going off with that, with
Speaker 1: that alarm, um in the middle of the auditorium when
Speaker 1: it was pretty it was relatively quiet and what and
Speaker 1: like everyone was kind of looking at their phone and
Speaker 1: my phone hadn't gone off or anything, but I had
Speaker 1: to like leave to walk out to make sure that,
Speaker 1: you know, everything was okay. I mean, I'm on the
Speaker 1: I'm on the outskirts of Washington, d C. So you
Speaker 1: can see what I mean by that. Um, but it, uh,
Speaker 1: that is a terror inducing sound, especially if you find
Speaker 1: yourself in certain locations that could be you know, consider
Speaker 1: I mean, think about what happened with the people in
Speaker 1: Hawaii with a straight up missile incoming fine shelter with
Speaker 1: that sound. I mean, that's that's horrible and that sounds
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's designed to get your attention, and
Speaker 1: it did just that. And um, you know, I could
Speaker 1: imagine people actually suffering some from some long term stress
Speaker 1: just because of that. Oh. Absolutely. And you know, as
Speaker 1: a radio nerd, it's one of those things that you know,
Speaker 1: growing up, I've worked in radio since I was sixteen,
Speaker 1: and having to do those tests every day and or
Speaker 1: every week, it's you don't even think about where it
Speaker 1: all comes from. And one of the conversations that it
Speaker 1: sparked in our class as well was, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: forty four, so I still remember when it was I
Speaker 1: was a kid. We we were pretty sure we were
Speaker 1: going to be nuked by the Soviets at some point, um,
Speaker 1: And and these guys don't have that, and it's so
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's just it's just an example
Speaker 1: of like the all the conversation that can jump out
Speaker 1: from talking about this very annoying sound that people take
Speaker 1: for granted exactly. Yeah, it could go so far um
Speaker 1: with that conversation and just bring so many memories up
Speaker 1: if if it was used in a really serious way.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's one of the many things that
Speaker 1: kind of triggered different emotions in your mind. And something
Speaker 1: that I think a lot about is just like how
Speaker 1: sounds and experiences can kind of like put yourself in
Speaker 1: a good or a bad place depending on how you've
Speaker 1: heard that or experienced it in the past. Um. For example,
Speaker 1: one of our earliest episodes was about eight bits sounds
Speaker 1: and it was just like deconstructing like even like Mario
Speaker 1: Brothers sounds and stuff. And I remember just even feeling
Speaker 1: like I was five again because that's whenever the Nintendo
Speaker 1: came out. And um, those those very very unique feelings
Speaker 1: that that that sound can bring out is really special.
Speaker 1: Before we get into my my last segment, which is
Speaker 1: our three Killer Questions, I've got to ask about Roman Mars.
Speaker 1: I know you have to be a huge fan and
Speaker 1: and and you know, I think you know you got
Speaker 1: to do or you were you were in an episode
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. How thrilling is that? Um? What
Speaker 1: was cool? Because Roman and I have a have a
Speaker 1: pretty long history together just as friends. Um, I was
Speaker 1: a sound designer. He was he had started a podcast
Speaker 1: seven or eight years ago. I started listening to his podcast,
Speaker 1: like right at the very beginning before he really blew up,
Speaker 1: And um, was was out in San Francisco and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: let's let's grab dinner sometime. I'd love to just you know, meet,
Speaker 1: And I'm a sound designer and I do this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think he was naturally interested. And then, um,
Speaker 1: I was naturally his interested in his thing, and we
Speaker 1: just hung out and then after that became Facebook friends
Speaker 1: and just randomly commented on things back and forth for
Speaker 1: five six seven years, like nothing more than that. And
Speaker 1: I was just such a fan of what he was doing,
Speaker 1: and every time he would do a sound show, I
Speaker 1: would just immediately gobble it up. And um. But over
Speaker 1: the years, um, he he very much really started to
Speaker 1: focus in on that architecture design and and really zone
Speaker 1: in on that, even though they still do some sound
Speaker 1: episodes here and there, and um, because of that, I
Speaker 1: felt like there was enough of an opening and enough
Speaker 1: of like a respectful opening that I could just kind
Speaker 1: of command all of the sound stories that I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear them do. And um. And and with Romans
Speaker 1: Blessing a little bit, because I know that he's flattered
Speaker 1: that he's kind of inspired a lot of shows like mine.
Speaker 1: So with with his Blessing a little bit, I was
Speaker 1: just like, I'm gonna take this and just kind of
Speaker 1: see where it goes and put together some episodes. The
Speaker 1: first couple of episodes took us probably eight months to
Speaker 1: make because we didn't know what we were doing, and um,
Speaker 1: and then I just happened to bump into him at
Speaker 1: a at a podcasting conference, and he was just talked
Speaker 1: to talk about how how great it was, and it
Speaker 1: was amazing. He's such an encouraging person and um, in
Speaker 1: a shoot a few days later he said, hey, can
Speaker 1: I play it on my show? And it was just
Speaker 1: really organic and kind of eight years in the making
Speaker 1: in a way. But he's just such a kind person
Speaker 1: who really has a heart for growing things, especially things
Speaker 1: that are highly produced, and especially in that very like
Speaker 1: educational infotainment type of space. And so I felt felt
Speaker 1: right and it was very thrilling, and even when it
Speaker 1: re told me, I think my heart stopped. And then
Speaker 1: whenever I actually looked at the stats and saw it
Speaker 1: on his feed, it was it was overwhelming. All right. Listen, Hey,
Speaker 1: I always saw wrapped things up with three three questions.
Speaker 1: I'm a radio guy, so we have our you know,
Speaker 1: little cheesy radio things that we do three killer questions. Um,
Speaker 1: the first question I have for you, Dallas Taylor, if
Speaker 1: you could listen to a podcast featuring any person living
Speaker 1: or dead, who would you want to listen to? Oh?
Speaker 1: I mean, if I overthought this, I could come up
Speaker 1: with a lot. But the very first person that came
Speaker 1: to my mind was Abraham Lincoln because one, we don't
Speaker 1: know what he sounds like he was right before that time.
Speaker 1: And and two is just like the crux of the
Speaker 1: history that that influences everything, like so much of what
Speaker 1: he did in that moment. Uh is we're living in
Speaker 1: this timeline. And uh, I would love to just I
Speaker 1: could just eat up that timeline from his perspective forever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he's and being such a such a you know,
Speaker 1: wonderful arts or you know, just to hear his voice,
Speaker 1: you hear his delivery in his cadence, that would be fascinating.
Speaker 1: And we forget how how young our country is. A
Speaker 1: lot we we take a lot of things for granted.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I think he lived in a in
Speaker 1: a moment that really defined if this was going to
Speaker 1: keep going or not. Yeah, all right, So what's the
Speaker 1: one piece of technology in your life that you remember
Speaker 1: thinking this is changing my life? Oh? Um, Again, I
Speaker 1: could overthink this, but if I was to stick with something,
Speaker 1: it's probably that very first iPhone that really kind of
Speaker 1: connected me with the world on a on a second
Speaker 1: by second basis basis. And it harmed a lot too.
Speaker 1: Whenever I'm talking about mindfulness and things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: but we are living in the very first generation of
Speaker 1: just ultra hyper connectivity and um. Out of all the
Speaker 1: time that humans have been roaming the earth, UM, now
Speaker 1: we're living a very unique time in our and our
Speaker 1: bodies and minds are trying to adapt very very quickly.
Speaker 1: But so I think that even for me, that was
Speaker 1: definitely like a big shift between like I'm living in
Speaker 1: my own little bubble to living in a global like
Speaker 1: global society all the time. And what's the last podcast
Speaker 1: that you binged, uh? S Town? I think it was. Um.
Speaker 1: I would say that there's the worst thing you could
Speaker 1: do for your podcast consumption is start a podcast, because
Speaker 1: even when on on all the times that I typically
Speaker 1: listened to the podcast, whether it be in transit, if
Speaker 1: I'm in New York and I'm kind of walking around,
Speaker 1: I listened to podcast. Um My, my trip to and
Speaker 1: from the office is about five minutes. Now that has
Speaker 1: all been filled up with just approving my own podcast.
Speaker 1: So I've gotten so far behind. And I think S
Speaker 1: Town was like right when we started or shortly after,
Speaker 1: So that was like the last one that I just
Speaker 1: listened to every single episode of it's tough. I mean,
Speaker 1: with my job I listen to I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many podcasts that I have to, you know, check
Speaker 1: out for folks during week And it's so nice to
Speaker 1: have a show that you find and that you want
Speaker 1: to just be excited that you have so many episodes
Speaker 1: to go back and listen to. And that's how I
Speaker 1: feel about your show. I'm I've just been I've been
Speaker 1: looking on the site. I'm like, oh gosh, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to listen to that one. I got that one
Speaker 1: planned for when I'm at the park this weekend. UM.
Speaker 1: So that's awesome. Thank you so much for doing your
Speaker 1: show and and and and and just bringing you know,
Speaker 1: bringing that awareness to sound and to quality, because I
Speaker 1: think that that that's strong, that the quality that you
Speaker 1: strive to do UM is important and I hope other
Speaker 1: people are inspired by it. I've been inspired by it.
Speaker 1: So thanks alas well. Thank you. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And now we are joined by my producer, zz He.
Speaker 1: How are you that I know you edited this interview.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy the really geeky conversation that we had
Speaker 1: after the interview? I did you know why? Because it's
Speaker 1: really cool to hear two people, so you and Dallas
Speaker 1: who love sounds so much. It's just like being so
Speaker 1: passionate and getting to talk to each other about how
Speaker 1: much you love sound, you know. I mean that's what
Speaker 1: you love about podcast is that you want it to
Speaker 1: be as a high quality as it can be. And
Speaker 1: you guys both know that. I think that we might
Speaker 1: maybe release that as a little separate segment, but in general,
Speaker 1: we had a conversation about, um, you know, my belief
Speaker 1: that the ability to create empathy is something that podcasts
Speaker 1: do well and that it's it's something that could be
Speaker 1: good for society. And then and then I do feel
Speaker 1: that way. I do feel that what we do in
Speaker 1: podcasting in general can be very beneficial for for people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it totally came through in the whole episode. That's
Speaker 1: good listen. Um, there's a lot of great sounding podcasts
Speaker 1: out there, and I know there's a few that we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about today. So let's get started on that.
Speaker 1: What you got for us? All right? My first one
Speaker 1: is was actually our first episode ever from Mission to Zix.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, Mission to zis tell people about that. So, um,
Speaker 1: they are a improv comedy storytelling podcast, and it's crazy
Speaker 1: when you listen to it, and then when you get
Speaker 1: when you get to talk to them like we did,
Speaker 1: just how much work goes into putting all of that together,
Speaker 1: with the sound effects, with the voices each they invite
Speaker 1: comedians to do, like play a special character each week,
Speaker 1: and it's so well thought out and it's just really
Speaker 1: cool to hear once you hear the whole episode together.
Speaker 1: It's here a little bit. Hi, I'm Jennifer's squirrel. It's
Speaker 1: nice to me. I'm the holographer at the school here,
Speaker 1: and it's hollow dayDay. Hello, you say day Hello Hello. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they came on our very first show. We had
Speaker 1: set land On and Mushon Zolfagari who plays Bargie Uh.
Speaker 1: And their new season is in production right now and
Speaker 1: they've been teasing it on the admission to zix on Twitter.
Speaker 1: So follow them to find out when the new season
Speaker 1: comes out, and go back and listen to our very
Speaker 1: first episode and hear how how it sounded and how
Speaker 1: the show's evolved a bit. I think we've come a
Speaker 1: long way, come a long way, see, but it was
Speaker 1: a good first episode. Also at the same point, well,
Speaker 1: they were a great guests. This show is all about
Speaker 1: the guests. Nobody, nobody ever says I'm listening to that
Speaker 1: show just because of Maddie. Nobody. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: anybody out there. There might be a couple, thanks, if
Speaker 1: you're a couple of people. All right, what do you
Speaker 1: got from? Number? Two? Four? One is Radio Lab Radio Lab.
Speaker 1: So I've been listening to their I love JAT, I
Speaker 1: mean I have an unhealthy love for Jat Apple Apple
Speaker 1: rom really I said apple Apple mum. Actually I've been
Speaker 1: listening to their latest two episodes. It's part of a
Speaker 1: trilogy called Border Trilogy, and the first episode is um,
Speaker 1: this guy who's an antipop anthro anthropologist, anthropologist, I have
Speaker 1: an accent. Okay, you guys, we should say you're you're
Speaker 1: from Sri Lanka, so some words are hard. This is
Speaker 1: not your first language? Is not? Sorry? What's your first language? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It looks like spaghetti. Really, people have told me can
Speaker 1: you talk about our podcast in singles for a second?
Speaker 1: I need someone to talk to me for me to
Speaker 1: talk to them back. Z no in just in English?
Speaker 1: All right, there you go anyway? Okay, soologist, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so he this episode the first episode out of the
Speaker 1: three is his name is Jason da Leon and he
Speaker 1: is going across the Sonoran Desert Wow English is hard Um,
Speaker 1: and he finds artifacts left by migrants who tried to
Speaker 1: cross the border, and he tries to piece them all together,
Speaker 1: and he found a human arm one time. So he
Speaker 1: was like that kind of set him off on this journey.
Speaker 1: So I just love how they incorporate the narration with
Speaker 1: the interview. You know, it's incredible. Check it out. We'll
Speaker 1: see little tasted that one. So for the next several years,
Speaker 1: Jason just keeps going back to this stretch of this
Speaker 1: snorin desert, ripped clothes, fragments of clothes and bushes, gathering
Speaker 1: whatever he could find, dirty socks, and you know, like
Speaker 1: an archaeologist, he would collect this stuff, bandages, item mindset,
Speaker 1: categorize it, hocktail dresses, high heel shoes, try and figure
Speaker 1: out who it came from, why it was there, baby bottles,
Speaker 1: hair curlers, toys, rappers. He did this year, sneakers photograph.
Speaker 1: After years picking up this shoes, dresses, backpacks, bibles, bottles,
Speaker 1: and then one day human arm. He finds an arm.
Speaker 1: We're all big fans of Radio Lab. What else you got?
Speaker 1: What's the last one? Last? Yes, I'm new to this one.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm new to this. This is one
Speaker 1: of those that when people talk to me about podcasts,
Speaker 1: like all of songs quote, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll check it out. Sometimes a lot of our guests
Speaker 1: have said that's the last one they binged. Also it's
Speaker 1: it's excellent. Yeah, So the one I chose was the
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson won because I love Jack Johnson, and um,
Speaker 1: it's just a really cool um. Sorry, it's just a
Speaker 1: really cool podcast because they have the actual artists on
Speaker 1: to break down the songs and give the backstory and
Speaker 1: the stories of how the instruments and the whatever came
Speaker 1: together to make that song possible. And at the end
Speaker 1: they played the song for you. So it's a really
Speaker 1: cool way. And the host talks at the front and
Speaker 1: at the back that's it. The rest is the artist.
Speaker 1: It's great and I'm so excited I finally got into it.
Speaker 1: Now I have something else to bene check it out.
Speaker 1: We're just goofing around and I think it was time
Speaker 1: for dinner, and we're like, don't forget the idea as
Speaker 1: it put it down. Yeah, he sent it to me
Speaker 1: like a month later. He's like, I remember this jam,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking us nice. So when I started
Speaker 1: making the record, I played it for my friend Robbie
Speaker 1: that was helping me produce, Robbie Lachritz, and he dug
Speaker 1: the groove. But the first thing that Robbie said when
Speaker 1: I played it to him was like, us cool, but
Speaker 1: we gotta get rid of those nineties drums. Sounds like
Speaker 1: every nineties hit right there. And I was like, no way,
Speaker 1: it's like James Brown, funky drummer beat like na not
Speaker 1: at all. He was like, it's more of the Wonder
Speaker 1: Wall beat it back and so anyways, I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, whatever. I was a little offended, but not
Speaker 1: that much. Well, see, those are some very good suggestions
Speaker 1: this week. And I learned something. I learned that in
Speaker 1: Sri Lanka they speak single single singles, and you can
Speaker 1: only tamil and tam You can only speak it if
Speaker 1: it's spoken to you. Yeah, just because after I moved here,
Speaker 1: I just English was so predominant. You know for me,
Speaker 1: were you speaking at home still single? Yeah, your mom's
Speaker 1: mad at me, like she'll yell at me and single.
Speaker 1: You know, that's usually what would she yell at You
Speaker 1: give me, give me, give me something, give me one
Speaker 1: little taste of it, like not cleaning off my room. Well,
Speaker 1: let's hear it. I want to hear it. And no,
Speaker 1: I gotta have her, really, k really, it takes me
Speaker 1: such a long time to terrible teas for the listeners. Sorry,
Speaker 1: just go YouTube. Oh my gosh, next week, I promise, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get you. Guys, we'll have some singleings actually in
Speaker 1: two weeks. If you're new to the show or old
Speaker 1: to the show. We've set our production schedule now for
Speaker 1: every two weeks so that we can bring you better
Speaker 1: programs and better guests, including Mr Greg Broups, who I'll
Speaker 1: be talking to you on next week. So I'm excited
Speaker 1: about that. He's a He's a somebody I used to
Speaker 1: know well and haven't talked to him a few years,
Speaker 1: so I'm excited to reconnect with him Ben for my night. Well,
Speaker 1: quick story. When I first moved to America, Whose Line
Speaker 1: Is It Anyway? Was one of the only shows my
Speaker 1: brother and I watched, and so having him on is
Speaker 1: really cool for me. Oh good, maybe I'll let's ask
Speaker 1: him a question. I'm nervous, he's too smart the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks to everybody who was involved, Casey, I want to
Speaker 1: thank you. I'm wantin Dalton. I want to thank David
Speaker 1: who was our engineer, and Katie and Don here at
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio San Francisco. Chris Peterson, the godfather of
Speaker 1: podcasting at I Heeart, we appreciate all that you do
Speaker 1: for the show and especially Z producer Z executive producer Z.
Speaker 1: Thanks for all you do here. She goes a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, all right, everybody, thanks for tuning in. Remember
Speaker 1: go find a podcast, listen to it and go tell
Speaker 1: your friends about it. And if you can't listen to
Speaker 1: it on I Heart, thanks for listening. By