About

Twenty Thousand Hertz, founded in 2016, was created & is hosted by Dallas Taylor who also founded Defacto Sound, a sound design company that works on films, video games, and other branded projects. This podcast, per their website, shares “The stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.” Curious about Foley? 8-bit sounds? Or the Emergency Alert System? Great, because this podcast features all of the above.

I found Twenty Thousand Hertz last year while on a search to learn more about sound, sound design, mixing and production. Given that my focus would be in this area, it is always great to learn as much as you can when you are not actively putting in the work to learn how to design and mix sound. I must say that I am very happy to have found this podcast as each and every single episode I’ve listened to has been wonderfully produced (#goals). Gushing aside, while I could have written a full show review – I may still do so – I wanted to share a particular episode that fascinated me on first listen.

Episode – Seizure Sonification

This episode features Brant Guichard who suffers from epilepsy. And not just any type of epilepsy. When Brant has a seizure he hears “musical auras” which he describes as “The Music.” His description in the first several minutes of the episode is gripping as he walks you through his experience of the seizure until he becomes unconscious.

Not only do you hear from Brant, but you can also hear his seizure thanks to artist Brian Foo who visualized the data from his seizure and created music out of it. This episode really stood out for me as you learned about the usage of data, and the type of seizure that Brant suffers from. The story in this episode is engrossing as it is continually layered with music generated by the very seizures Brant describes.  You are always listening as attention shifts from the story with the soft hypnotic notes in the background until they choose to call out an instrument and give it center stage.

And when you are done listening to this episode, be sure to download the rest of the archive and give it a listen.

Details

Website: Twenty Thousand Hertz
Episode: Seizure Sonification (originally featured on Sum of All Parts)
Runtime: 29m

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