2020 has been a rough year in almost every respect, but it has actually been a really good year for The Tonebenders Sound Design Podcast?! We put out 31 episodes this past year, which is just a few less than in 2019, but way more than any of our other years since we started in 2012. Our listenership continues to grow and we are so amazed by how many tune in. By any measure this has been a truly successful year.
The year started out on a high in early January. René had the opportunity to record crowds and ambiences at the Winter Classic outdoor ice hockey game in Dallas on New Year’s Day. He got some amazing recordings and made a great episode out of it. Then a few weeks later, René and Tim finally met in person while in Austin, Texas to do a bunch of in-person interviews. Everyone we talked to while in Austin was phenomenal! We got a bunch of great episodes while there, a few of which will be listed below. We also co-hosted a Sound Design Meetup, which was a total blast. We were shocked to see that so many people came out to raise a glass and share stories. A truly magical evening.
Then the pandemic hit. The audio world was devastated. Anyone working on set was out of a gig. Anyone that worked in post production was in a panic, trying to figure out how to keep working in the new world of lockdowns and social distancing. Tonebenders made a choice to try to be a voice for the sound community in this difficult time, as much as we could. Normally we release episodes fairly randomly; they come out simply when we get the time. In March, for the first time, we made a release schedule and planned to put out a new episode on Tuesday every week for as long as we could. We started on March 17th, with our eps 129 – COVID and The Sound Community Roundtable. Other episodes were dedicated to helping audio pros set up makeshift at-home studios, data management best practices, and recording in our suddenly quiet cities around the world. We maintained that weekly pace for 16 weeks, essentially 4 months…….. and then we crashed.
The weight of our own full-time day jobs in audio post, family commitments that were way more demanding then usual and just plain old fatigue finally caught up to us. We had to go on a hiatus for 2 months in September and October.
When we got the energy to pick up the pace again we came charging out of the gates with some of our best episodes ever. We were able to carry that momentum right through to the end of 2020 with our recent CrowdSource Sound Effects Roundtable, which is a must-listen. We also have a bunch of new interviews “in the can” already, so we can confidently say that early 2021 is going to be amazing as well.
We want to send out a special thanks to all 52 of the fantastic guests we had on the podcast this year. We are humbled by their generosity of time, spirit and knowledge. As usual we are bowled over by our listeners too. We have a such a great community of people working in sound following us. Through emails and meetups, like in Austin, we have gotten to know some of the people listening — and a more interesting group of people you could not find. We hope to be able to do more meetups in 2021, whenever things get back to some sort of normal…… who knows?!
In case you missed them over the last 12 months, here are the top five most listened to episodes in 2020:
131 – Randy Thom on Getting the Most Out of Spotting Sessions
Randy Thom is an iconic figure in the sound-for-picture community. He has done a lot of interviews over the last few decades, so we didn’t want to do a standard walk through his career. We wanted to find a topic that Randy hadn’t talked about before and I think we hit the jackpot. Spotting sessions are a tricky part of the business, especially early in one’s career and Mr Thom was the perfect person to help de-mystify the process. Lots of great stories along the way too.
146 – Sound Design For Westerns Roundtable
How can you possibly go wrong with this kind of experience on a panel, taking on a great topic! Wylie Stateman, Don Sylvester, Valerie Deloof and Mandell Winter all have tons of films under their belts and lots of great stories on how to bring the Wild West alive sonically. Everyone wants to do a western sometime in their career where there’s so much room to have fun in the sound design.
This man is a legend in the Game Sound World. So well-spoken and thoughtful. I think we all learned a lot from this one. This is why Tonebenders needs to do more episodes about game audio. Martin has a standing invitation to come back anytime!
127 – ATMOS For The Rest Of Us Roundtable
This was a fun episode that we did while in Austin, recorded at the great SoundCrafter studios. The premise of this talk was that we were all dipping our toes in the ATMOS world and learning as we go, figuring out how the smaller studios, without full tech staffs, can get the most out of the format. Dolby actually reached out to us to say they thought this episode was great.
143 ADR Roundtable with Emma Butt and Shayna Brown
This is another episode recorded in Austin, this time in the booth at Chez Boom. This is the third year in a row that an episode focused on dialog has been in the top 5. It appears there is just not enough content out there about working with dialog in post production. Emma and Shayna are as good as it gets in the ADR world and they have lots of great tips on how to navigate the process. They also tell us about how hard it is to be a woman in this business….. their stories need to be heard.
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Obviously using the metric of “most listened to”, favours episodes that came out earlier in the year and benefited from a longer time to gather plays. This puts episodes featuring the sound teams behind The Queen’s Gambit, and The Boys, or interviews with Julian Slater, Tim Rakoczy, John Pritchett, and Emma Butt at a clear disadvantage, as they all came out in November or December, but they are well-worth a special mention.
We had so many great talks this year, it feels weird not to mention them all. If you are new to our podcast, please take the time to go back through our feed. Most of our episodes are evergreen and will still be worth a listen.
Thanks for listening over the last 12 months. We are having a blast putting these episodes together and it would not be worth doing if you were not out there to hear them.
One thing we ask of you, is to simply pass the word along to help other people find Tonebenders. Feel free to let any of your work colleagues or classmates know about us. If you like an episode, take a moment to shoot out a tweet or make a post to help more people find us.
Let’s head into 2021 with our heads up and our microphones out! Goodbye 2020, hopefully we don’t see anything like this again….
Stay tuned for more Tonebenders Sound Design Podcast.
