669: Dallas Taylor | The Psychology of Sound Design

669: Dallas Taylor | The Psychology of Sound Design

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[00:00:09] Dallas Taylor: There are these kinds of funny sounds that they're kind of funny to me because they're so overtly trying to like affect you. I'm thinking things like in a trailer where you hear like a blah or it's like [bruh] — you know, are we ever going to get there? [bruh] — maybe — [buzz] and then some like a line that's like a little piece of what's going to happen in the movie followed by like a whole re-imagined '80s track in a new way, that's kind of spooky. It's like the building blocks of a trailer. And so like hits and shimmers and zings, and those things are used just so liberally in advertising, just to reach into your like primal brain and try to pull on that fear response.

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[00:01:43] Today, on the show, my friend, Dallas Taylor, the host and creator of Twenty Thousand Hertz. This is a lovingly crafted podcast, revealing the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. Now I know a lot of people are like, "What sound? I never really think much about it." I am with you. I get it. Most of us probably think that we experienced the world through our eyes. That to me seems like the most obvious channel of input, right? But I think you might start to realize just how much of an influence sound has on our experience of the world once you listen to this episode. 

[00:02:15] Naturally, in our conversation here today, we dip a bit into sound design, but I wanted to take a dive into sonic branding. Why is it that some sounds seem specially designed to stick in my head for days or even decades? And how did these crafty SOB come up with just the right tunes to burrow into your brain and stay there? Also, how does sound actually affect our brains? For me, certain types of genres of sound could really get under my skin or make me feel really relaxed or pump me up. In fact, sound can even influence our shopping habits and even make food taste better. I am not kidding. I had no idea this was even possible. Again, this episode might be a bit outside our usual flavor, but I really enjoyed it. And I know you will as well. Now, here we go with Dallas Taylor. 

[00:03:01] I'm not sure people have heard of sound designers before, and if they have, they're probably on the same page I was before this, which is, oh yeah, they pick the music for a scene in a movie and that's about it. Or maybe they add like a punching sound if the punch isn't loud enough and the stunt scene, but obviously there's a lot more to it. You're kind of part of this big magic trick where you're not — the audience isn't thinking about what they hear but what they see, and you're maybe adding, if it were a drawing, you'd be shading it, right? with a pencil. 

[00:03:32] Dallas Taylor: Right. You're spot on. Because I think a lot about sound design as a slight of ear, because we're essentially putting up a smoke screen for what it actually sounds like. And so what a sound actually does is just tons of like layers of stuff. I do a lot of trailers and you know, with big blahs and buzzes and things that just like want to get you totally hyped. But what I get is like raw dialogue from the set that sounds like it's kind of far away and it doesn't sound great. You know we might have music and stuff, but there's just like a million sound effects, like categories and layers to every single piece of like video or film or television or ad that we do.

[00:04:12] Jordan Harbinger: So when you look at two guys and they're like, all right, the trailer is, they're climbing a mountain and it's really isolated and it's really snowy. It's just kind of muted. Or maybe there's some ambient noise and they're like, yeah, you're going to have to get rid of that because all you hear is the microphone clipping from a lot of wind hitting it at the same time. Are you thinking in your head, "We're going to make that whistling sound that snow hitting snow on the top of a mountain makes"? 

[00:04:36] Dallas Taylor: Yes, because when doesn't sound good at all. Wind, if we just take like a sample of wind or like, we go out and record wind, usually when you bring it in, it sounds like white noise. It sounds like, [shhh]. 

[00:04:47] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:04:47] Dallas Taylor: So even you saying like top of a cold mountain, I'm like, that is like a fake wind. And I'm always telling — like I lead a whole sound design team. So every time it's cold. I'm like, "Don't give me like the white noise wind. I need like the whistle like performed wind. It's like, [whoosh] and we got to perceive it that way as humans. But like when you put a microphone somewhere, sometimes the microphone does not capture what your brain has interpreted. 

[00:05:14] Jordan Harbinger: Right. It just sounds like [slurp]. 

[00:05:16] Dallas Taylor: It just sounds like [swoosh]. 

[00:05:18] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:05:18] Dallas Taylor: And there's really no character or coldness to it. And so even like with every environment that we do or Foley or something, it's all like performative. Like we're thinking a lot about what's being said. Should it be like dissonant wind? Is something dissonant happening on screen? So we'll even affect choices based of the content of what we're trying to make the viewer feel like. 

[00:05:40] Jordan Harbinger: I'm Googling dissonant because it sounds probably like what it is, but I'm not even sure what that means — what does that just lacking a harmony is what that technically means, but what does that mean when I'm looking at an image?

[00:05:51] Dallas Taylor: Right. Like as sound designers we can make wind or environments or a walla. Walla, it's just people talking and stuff. We can choose and craft these sounds and mold them to have a character of their own. And so what I mean by that is like wind itself might seem really straightforward. And if you just put a microphone out in the wind, like I said, it's just [shhh]. 

[00:06:12] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:06:12] Dallas Taylor: But you can have that speed at which it's whistling can be the flow of the edit, like the speed — like the dissonance that you create within that, maybe it's like hitting something that has two kinds of off pitches that are kind of clashing if we want to make someone start to feel tense along the way. 

[00:06:30] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:06:30] Dallas Taylor: So like sound design is very much like composing the real world in a lot of ways. You know, when we've also had this rich cinema history that has kind of taught us what these things sound like as well, which are not really real.

[00:06:46] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It programs our brain with what we expect to hear. I know it's funny. You mentioned the tension thing because one thing I was thinking of was— I think it was Free Solo or maybe it was another movie that I saw where somebody was climbing and there's a scene where — it might've even been like Mission Impossible with those fake rock climbing scenes with Tom Cruise. But there's one, you know, he's hanging with one hand and I noticed the wind got higher pitched, which means faster. I'm like, oh, so the wind just happens to kick up even faster when he's hanging by one hand. And I thought, oh no, no, they're trying to get us to feel like—" 

[00:07:15] Dallas Taylor: Tense. 

[00:07:15] Jordan Harbinger: —he's off balance and that things are happening rapidly. So they just speed the wind up in reality. There's probably no wind on this area at all because his clothes aren't even really moving or anything. He's just hanging. 

[00:07:26] Dallas Taylor: Yeah, it's like a magician. I actually love magic. I've gone to so many magic shows what a magician is doing is something that looks so eloquent and clean in front of you. But there's all this dirty work that happens. Like just in the shadow, you can't see it. And everything looks really fluid. Everything makes sense. But like right underneath the surface, there's a lot of like, just work happening, just to craft, like every microsecond. That's sound designed essentially. 

[00:07:50] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I guess if people want to compare, watch a small indie film that has a scene and then watch a very similar scene in a Hollywood blockbuster and the sound — the lighting is a major thing, of course, but the sound is also really, really obvious. Because you sound like you're in the person's shoe when they're walking on gravel in the Hollywood one, whereas you just don't hear it at all probably in the indie film. 

[00:08:13] Dallas Taylor: It's very boring. 

[00:08:15] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:08:15] Dallas Taylor: For the most part, because a lot of times we'll receive scenes or a collection of scenes and just hearing what's on set is pretty boring, but then there's like these other categories of sound design that like are much more overt. So, you know, we talked a little bit about environments, but there are these kinds of funny sounds — that they're kind of funny to me because they're so overtly trying to affect you. I'm thinking things like in a trailer where you hear like a blah or it's like [brrr] you know, "Are we ever going to get there?" [brrr] 

[00:08:41] Jordan Harbinger: Right. 

[00:08:42] Dallas Taylor: Maybe [whizz] then some like a line that's like a little piece of what's going to happen in the movie, followed by like a whole re-imagined '80s track in a new way. That's kind of spooky. It's like the building blocks of a trailer. And so like hits and shimmers and zings, and those things are used just so liberally in advertising just to reach into your primal brain— 

[00:09:06] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:09:06] Dallas Taylor: —and try to like pull on that fear response. 

[00:09:08] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's funny. You're obviously really good at this because as you described that, I'm like, okay, character is standing on an open plane, dystopian skyline in the distance— 

[00:09:17] Dallas Taylor: [Whoosh] 

[00:09:18] Jordan Harbinger: —flash to split second of an action scene where an alien is like reaching out towards them later on in the movie.

[00:09:24] Dallas Taylor: [zap-zap-zap] 

[00:09:26] Jordan Harbinger: Right. Yeah, exactly. And there's drum beats and that loud, like foghorn, that's not quite a foghorn thing. It just sounds like [waah]. 

[00:09:33] Dallas Taylor: [Bwaah] 

[00:09:33] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:09:34] Dallas Taylor: Aha. 

[00:09:34] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. And it is funny because it's almost predictably cliche. And yet if you find a trailer that doesn't have that y'all didn't do your job, right? In this decade anyway.

[00:09:43] Dallas Taylor: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:09:45] Jordan Harbinger: Until we get sick of that because everyone uses it and then you have to find something else. 

[00:09:48] Dallas Taylor: But there's a good reason for it. And this is what's so fascinating, just kind of about sound design to me is like a lot of this stuff may seem like it's just like, oh, that's a scary sound. Let's put it in. But a lot of this stuff is very much psychological — it's playing off of our primal urges and feelings. Like we're living in like the future right now. This is our ancestors would see this, like we're living like legit in the future. 

[00:10:11] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I'm looking at you on a screen. I'm talking to you like you're right across from me with almost no latency. It's amazing. 

[00:10:16] Dallas Taylor: Now, even a couple of generations ago, the lifestyle for all of human history before that was a lot different, you know, hunter-gatherer, basic needs, things like that. So like when we put in these hits, like our brains are still pretty living in a thousand years ago. Like, you know, we're getting there, but there's so many things in the way that we do things that just our brains aren't prepared for anxiety situations, you know, public speaking, things like that. 

[00:10:42] In sound, that's a thing that you can kind of play off of. You know, if you're in the creaky old house and you hear one little twig break or something in the middle of the night, like your brain goes straight to, "There is a robber and I'm about to get — I'm in trouble." Meanwhile, it was just like, your house settling or something like that. A lot of those sounds are really just trying to hit you in those places that are kind of the primitive brain to make you feel these early responses, that they would naturally have. And so it is very much like a magic trick mixed with like neuroscience. 

[00:11:13] Jordan Harbinger: You've found switches and people's brains and many you flip them with these sounds or you push these little buttons that I guess, are — they got to be kind of tricky to find. How do you come up with the [waah] sound, right? Is that just trial and error? 

[00:11:27] Dallas Taylor: Usually you make them. Luckily, we have Hans Zimmer who just beautifully blog everything for a decade. And so we have kind of these just epic sounds here that we hear, but we can't just take on Zimmer. So then you have to challenge all these sound designers and composers to go, "Can I make something that's just as epic that can still affect people that way?" Now I argue that we've gone so far in the epic direction, especially with superhero movies and things like that. That is becoming a super cliche thing. 

[00:11:54] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:11:55] Dallas Taylor: Like even if we rewind a decade or two ago, do you remember when trailers were just like Jack met Julie in the coffee shop? And there was a little bit— 

[00:12:03] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, just stuff that happens in the movie that's cut together. 

[00:12:06] Dallas Taylor: It's just stuff that happens, cut together with a narrator. 

[00:12:08] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:12:09] Dallas Taylor: Now, we've hit this, like the 2010-plus cliche. I think people are getting a little tired of, which is just like overly epic, everything rather than kind of crafting a mini-story or whatnot. But you know what? It's marketing. There's a lot of money involved. 

[00:12:23] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:12:23] Dallas Taylor: We're trying to get $500 million out of a movie. Like they're going to probably throw everything they can at it. 

[00:12:29] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I mean, I remember before these trailers were so commonplace, you'd watch a trailer like that and it would leave you going, "Whoa. I cannot wait to see that." And now, it's just like, "Oh, it's a movie trailer." 

[00:12:40] Dallas Taylor: Right. 

[00:12:41] Jordan Harbinger: But you have to constantly evolve these things in sound is a big part of that. Do you find that your curation of sound — because I assume you're not just making trailers, you probably have like a nice acoustic environment in your house? That's not that noisy. And all of a sudden elements of your sound design come into your real life. We can talk about in a second, but I wonder if it extends to other elements of your personality? Like, do you try — are you a foodie? Do you try and design your food too? 

[00:13:03] Dallas Taylor: Oh my goodness. That's very sharp to think about. Yeah. Because I think so much about it, the sense of hearing, which is a sense that a lot of people don't think much about. I do think a lot about just like sensory things in general. I do parallel just personal life. I am just obsessed with fine dining, new flavors and cooking myself. It's really similar, but yeah, like just stimulating a sense in a brand new way is definitely something that I'm pretty addicted to. I mean, I do that all day long with hearing. 

[00:13:33] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:13:34] Dallas Taylor: Food is another place where I spend way too much time. 

[00:13:37] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It's like the most obvious kind of, "Well, if I'm going to listen to sounds all day, I'm going to also do stuff with tastes, when I don't have to do it for money." You also seem like the kind of guy who opens a bag of noodles and goes, "Whoa, listen to this bag. I should keep this bag. I might need this bag for later. Listen to that sound of the bag makes." Are you that guy? 

[00:13:53] Dallas Taylor: You know what? Like when we are doing footsteps on grass, most of the time, you know, that little yellow sweeper, it's almost like hay, that it's just the real standard broom.

[00:14:06] Jordan Harbinger: Like a broom, yeah.

[00:14:06] Dallas Taylor: If you look at the most classic broom you could imagine, and it has those like — I don't know, hay looking, I'm sure that there's a name for that. 

[00:14:11] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, the dry straw broom from the— 

[00:14:14] Dallas Taylor: Yeah, that dry straw broom. Most of the time when we're just putting in footsteps that are on foliage or grass or whatever, we're just crunching that as we're watching the screen, just because it sounds so much more distinct.

[00:14:25] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. 

[00:14:25] Dallas Taylor: And a lot of times, even in Foley, especially with animation and stuff — actually with dirt, a lot of Foley studios will just have a little dirt pit where I've seen them manipulate just little tiny bits of dirt with their fingers, because it sounds more crisp and clear, not all the time, and also dirt is dirty. So you don't want to just start stomping around in a room and kicking up dust. 

[00:14:45] Jordan Harbinger: Right with full of electronics. For people who don't know what Foley is, this is — well, how do you even explain this? I've seen it in studios. I'll rent a studio and I'll go, "Why do you have gravel in a small kitty litter sandbox looking thing?" And they'll go, "Oh, we do Foley here too." And it's just making a sound that is supposed to be like footsteps hitting the ground. Like you just mentioned with dirt, except you have to do it into a really high-quality microphone. And like you said, you don't want to just start making a huge mess in a room with a $30,000 soundboard. You have to have it sort of localized. 

[00:15:15] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. I think that the confusion with Foley is like, "Why don't you just go to a library, find footsteps and then kind of sync them in there." Foley's job is to be a very performative art, because if you just kind of put in stock footsteps, even the way we walk can vary greatly. Like if you're mad at your partner or something, you want to stomp away, that's a different performance of a stomp than — I don't know — someone you haven't seen in a long time arrives at your front door and you're like, "Oh my goodness." 

[00:15:43] Foley is essentially the sound elements that a human in the piece is touching. Whether it's with their hands, they could be their clothing and it could be their feet, generally. Now, Foley will kind of veer into more unique sounds and stuff because they have giant rooms of junk. But for the most part, like the core aspect of Foley is done by humans in front of a screen in real-time because what they're trying to do is all of those intangible moments they're trying to perform for the actor. It's like an extension of what the actor is doing. So if you have bad Foley, you can actually take away from the performance of the actor. 

[00:16:18] Jordan Harbinger: This makes sense. It's kind of like if I brush my shirt off, it makes a little sound, but if you're going to do Foley of that, it's going to be like, you're a microorganism that's between my hand and the shirt in terms of volume. It's like [swoosh] you know, especially if it's in slow motion, it's like [swoosh] and each footprint, even if I'm running through a forest, it's almost like there's a microphone in the sole of my shoe that's miked up. Now, it wouldn't actually— 

[00:16:42] Dallas Taylor: That's actually right. 

[00:16:42] Jordan Harbinger: —make that sound. It makes the sound that you make in your head when you think that, but not the actual sound. 

[00:16:47] Dallas Taylor: So onset, in any production set, the only thing that matters is the dialogue, especially when you're working with celebrities, because if you're going to try to get them at back into a room to overdub it or do 80 ADR on top of it, that's where they rerecord their dialogue on top of the screen. 

[00:17:01] Jordan Harbinger: ADR is — say that again. 

[00:17:03] Dallas Taylor: So that's automated dialogue replacement.

[00:17:05] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. 

[00:17:05] Dallas Taylor: So that's where — let's say it's too windy on set and they're outside. These actors have to then go into a really highly polished studio and then they have to watch their performance and rerecord the dialogue on top of it.

[00:17:15] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm. 

[00:17:16] Dallas Taylor: For example, like The Lord of the Rings films, I've heard that 98 percent of all the dialogue was recorded in a studio. Everything you see on camera was not used, other than like two percent. And this is kind of like an American style in general, but the reason that everything is so crisp and clean in Foley is exactly what you just said. The difference is, you know, when you're on set, it's just trying to capture the voice because that is just the gold. Because an actor who wants to really put everything into their performance there, the sound person's responsibility is that voice, that performance. And so that microphone is not pointing at their feet. That microphone is not pointing at their shoulder. It's not pointing at what they're touching it. It's pointing right at their mouth. And that stuff doesn't matter because all of that stuff can be re-performed.

[00:17:55] And when it's re-performed in Foley, you're right, every single body part that's being reflected in the piece, the microphone could be inches away from it. So everything is just really crisp and clean. And that's why like movies and high-quality TV shows just like the sound is like so visceral. Can you imagine every single thing making a sound has a microphone which is just inches away from it? And it's just super clean. 

[00:18:19] Jordan Harbinger: I know that from watching a ton of TV as a kid, your brain makes this picture, the sound picture of what things should sound like, and as an adult, when I'm — let's say I'm clean a windshield and it doesn't make that squeaky sound that you expect a windshield to make, I'm like, am I doing this wrong? Where's the sound that a squeegee makes when it touches glass? And it's like, that's not real, man. That's made up by a Foley artist. 

[00:18:42] Dallas Taylor: It's quite a bit different. But then on the flip side, it's amazing what we can hear in real life that it's just a lot more visceral than hearing it through, like fakeness and speakers and things. And so that's part of like a thing that I think a lot about is like getting people more conscious about their sense of hearing. Because when you become more conscious about it, it can be really visceral. You know, it's like if you listen to a wonderful, like track of music that just really inspires you or something that makes you feel amazing, you are active listening in that moment.

[00:19:09] You're opening up the sense. You're letting it absorb into your brain. But I argue that you can do that with just sound in general, like the sound of your friends' laughter. Like just really appreciating that beauty in that and just real vibrations in the real air, you know, going from a real thing to your real ears is a really powerful sense. 

[00:19:28] Jordan Harbinger: Is that like when people say analog sounds better than digital, is that kind of the same argument?

[00:19:34] Dallas Taylor: You know, it's funny that I have kind of a controversial opinion on that. I am not really in the camp that analog sounds better than digital, but what I will concede is that the way that we approached music in the analog era was much more active than how we approached music in the digital era. And what I mean by that is like whether you had a cassette tape or a record, you had to like dig through bins to find something that you may or may not even be able to listen to. You look at the artwork — you know, you've got a tower record, you spend 30 minutes getting there. You go through it, you pull it out, you go buy it. Like you're invested in listening to this. You have like skin in the game for this thing. You put real money down here and you've spent time. 

[00:20:15] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:20:15] Dallas Taylor: So you then go back. So then when you put this record on, you're like training your body and mind to think about it and engage with it. Same thing with the cassette tape. You only had so many of them, I wasn't rich. I could only have a few of them and some of them I didn't even like, but I would listen to it because that's all I had. The thing that we lost in the transition from analog to digital is that approach because now it's like, everything is so disposable. If I don't like something in two seconds, I can skip if I don't like something, you know? 

[00:20:42] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:43] Dallas Taylor: So it's like the programmatic album, like the art of it is just so easily lost. And so we get like a big series of big singles and music that's now being made for that style of just like almost clickbaity type. I mean, there's still amazing music being made, but I think that's the thing that bums me out the most is that we just don't approach even listening to music with the same level of skin in the game as we did when they're analog mediums.

[00:21:09] So I wouldn't really say they sound better or worse. I just think that we, our minds, we're more conscious about listening. Therefore, that's a big reason why I think analog sounds better because we're more primed for it. 

[00:21:20] Jordan Harbinger: Ah, interesting. We might even be — won't go down the evolutionary path here, but yeah, like you said, more primed for it, I think is a great way to phrase it.

[00:21:28] Sonic branding is interesting, right? We can still— people maybe don't even know this exists, but the second I give you an example of the Intel inside sound, right? When you see those commercials. Yeah, we'll play that sample right now, Jase. I got the samples link for Jase in the show notes here in my notes, my producer will play this. Everybody knows what that sound is. And if they were like, "Wait, what was that? I think I've heard of that." The second they hear it they're looking at the logo in their head. And so— 

[00:21:53] Dallas Taylor: Mm-hmm. 

[00:21:53] Jordan Harbinger: —this is a brilliant play because you can evoke a branded logo or animation in someone's head with a sound, even if there's no screen anywhere near you. What else is going on with sonic branding? That can't be the only reason they do this. 

[00:22:07] Dallas Taylor: When Netflix leaned into that and made a sonic brand that was there all the time, I felt like that was a moment in history where it really started to explode. Many more companies started going, "What's the reasoning for this?" You know, we're very visual creatures in general. So like a logo seems to make a lot of sense. Artwork makes a lot of sense. With sound, we just don't think about it a lot. So we don't go, "What does it matter? Like what something sounds like?" 

[00:22:32] Thinking of like The Office episode, where like Dwight keeps getting like toys or something. Every time he does something, it's like this Pavlov's dog thing, you can make a sound or do something that recalls a feeling. If you walk into like your grandmother's house and you smell that dish that she only she makes or that baking that only she did that just washes you with nostalgia and good feelings. So when you think of something like Netflix, which I kind of considered the most iconic sonic branding out there, it's a call to action that says, "You're done. Put your phone down. You're about to watch something incredible." Your brain unconsciously is thinking about this because you know, hopefully, you're watching stuff that has a consistency of entertaining you. And if you have that positive association, then that sound is essentially training you to go, "It's time to stop with all those other things. Listen now." 

[00:23:25] Jordan Harbinger: You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Dallas Taylor. We'll be right back. 

[00:23:30] This episode is sponsored in part by Seekr. We live in an age of information/disinformation overload. It's hard to tell what's true or false. And the steps we take to better evaluate news and get access to reliable information is so important, which is why I like Seekr. Seekr is a search engine but it's special in that. It makes it easier for you to access reliable and better information by AI machine learning as well as these scores, which I'll tell you about in a second, that gives you transparency about what you consume online. So how it works is, you know, you search for something like you usually do. And next to each article, you'll see a Seekr score. So you know how reliable the information actually is. Seekr evaluates the articles using best practice journalistic principles. So you know what you're getting yourself into before you go and read the piece. You can even adjust filters for what political lean preferences. And I find these features all really useful when I'm trying to access reliable information that's not clickbait, incoherent rants, et cetera. So go to seekr.com to learn how you can make better decisions with access to better information. That's S-E-E-K-R.com. 

[00:24:38] This episode is sponsored in part by HubSpot. Running a business is a lot like running a pirate ship. You've got your eye on the prize and an entire crew to coordinate. Luckily in the business world, there's a lot fewer sea monsters to navigate and a lot more HubSpot. HubSpot has an easy-to-use CRM platform that helps you grow your business. It seamlessly connects all your teams, grows with your business, and delivers a better experience for your customers. Consider it a treasure map with a very clear X marks the spot. Plus with helpful educational content, a supportive community, and access to hundreds of app integrations, HubSpot's all-in-one platform is built to grow with your ship and the sea of sameness that is other CRM companies. HubSpot allows you to customize your cruise experience, helping your company be a great partner to your customers. Connect your people, your customers, and your business at hubspot.com.

[00:25:22] Hey, if you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing authors, thinkers, and creators every week, it's because of my network and I'm teaching you those same skills, how to build your network. I'm teaching you for free it's over in our Six-Minute Networking course. That's over at jordanharbinger.com/course. This free course is about improving your networking and connection skills and also inspiring others to develop a personal and professional relationships with you. It'll make you a better networker for sure, but it will also make you a better connector and a better thinker. That's all at jordanharbinger.com/course. And most of the guests that you hear on the show subscribe and contribute to that same course. So come join us, you'll be in smart company where you belong. 

[00:26:00] Now back to Dallas Taylor. 

[00:26:03] Yeah. I want to talk about the Netflix sound the [tudum] or whatever it's called. 

[00:26:07] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. 

[00:26:07] Jordan Harbinger: You did an episode on this and we'll link to that in the show notes to your podcast. The ingredients of this are really interesting. I don't understand for the life of me, how people come up with the idea on how to make a sound, but that's why you guys do what you do, because it's not something that I can just — that anybody can just pick up and do randomly. It just seems like — for those of us that have ever looked into getting sonic branding, like, I would love to do that for this show. And I thought, "Oh, that's probably going to be like several hundred dollars, but it's worth it." And I got it quote and they were like — I was like, "This is more than the house that I grew up in."

[00:26:37] Dallas Taylor: Right. 

[00:26:37] Jordan Harbinger: And they're like, "You don't understand. Here's the process. It's going to take months for us to come up with the values—"

[00:26:42] Dallas Taylor: Oh, yeah, easily. 

[00:26:43] Jordan Harbinger: "—of your company and what you do. And we're going to have to listen to possibly hundreds of hours of things that you've created in order to embody you and your show, and you as a creator in like a two or three-second-long sound. And we have to try zillions of different things in order to get that." There's going to be guys and gals sitting in a room, banging on cars and plastic bits and instruments until they get a feeling for what this means. And it's got to be translated. It's like translating a book, War and Peace into cling on. Like, someone's got to sit there and do that. And that's what happens with these sounds. 

[00:27:18] Dallas Taylor: That's what's really surprising. Because I do a lot of sonic branding and I study it and I make shows about sounds but I think there is this assumption that like a sonic brand is a cool sound. That is just the opposite. I would say that the thing that takes us the longest out of everything we do is sonic branding. The shorter the sound, the longer it takes, and this thing can take months.

[00:27:37] And the reason it takes months is because every one of these sonic brands mean something deeply. That's one of the reasons I started the podcast is because there are these incredibly nuanced stories behind why things sound the way that they do that are just going to be lost to history. And so sonic branding is something that if I'm getting into a situation with sonic branding, it is a long process of strategy. I need to understand what a company believes, where they're going. I don't need to work with someone who's like an assistant to the marketing, you know, assistant. 

[00:28:07] I need to work with the CMO or the CEO. That's hard to get because you don't want to be in a situation where you're representing an entire company, either visually or sonically, and you don't have the ear of the person who has their finger on the pulse of everything. So that is hard in and of itself. Otherwise, you find yourself in a situation where you're going through people and then you start designing by committee. And then it turns into just a sound that they just never use. 

[00:28:30] Jordan Harbinger: It's just a crappy jingle at that point. 

[00:28:31] Dallas Taylor: It's just a thing. It just doesn't mean anything. And so that's what's really interesting about sonic branding is that, that all needs to mean something. Hopefully, these stories help the company understand themselves better when they do this. I found out that many of these sonic logos that we've profiled in the past, that most of them have adopted that internally into their marketing training to have people understand why things are the way that they are. That's what I find so interesting about sonic branding, generally, it's just because it can teach you what people believe when you unpack it. 

[00:29:00] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:00] Dallas Taylor: And you can go into certain periods of time and go, okay, this was made in 1992, and you can understand why they were thinking the way that they were and did they achieve it or not.

[00:29:08] But yeah, it's a very long strategy process. I would say that it's 95 percent strategy and 5 percent creation most of the time. 

[00:29:16] Jordan Harbinger: Sure. No, that makes sense. I mean, in the Netflix episode of your show, they sent out a survey to a bunch of people with all these different sounds. They didn't tell them what it was for. Like what five words does this evoke? And somehow the tudum sound evoked the word movie, which was just almost like a coincidence, but shows that whoever invented that or came up with that had really nailed it. Because they didn't say this is for Netflix, they just said, what does the sound remind you of or whatever? 

[00:29:41] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. 

[00:29:42] Jordan Harbinger: A bunch of people said, movie. 

[00:29:43] Dallas Taylor: And this was after probably a year process of going through, you know, countless. I mean, I legitimately, I don't even think it's possible to like, know exactly what ballpark it, it was in because there's just so much experimentation. But by the time it even hits that, this is a year, I believe they said it was like a year of just trying different things — like bubbles coming out of the earth and some sideways thing over here and some sideways thing over there and they were putting it with their logo and all that stuff.

[00:30:06] What was interesting about that particular thing is when I was — it was actually the first time that the company had ever spoken on it. So I was speaking with Todd Yellin who had led the effort at Netflix and the thing that he said that I don't even think he heard when he said it. And because it never really registered exactly what he said, but he said, "I really wanted this thing to evoke, "Aha! It's Netflix." And when I heard that in the interview, I went, "That's the logo. Do you notice that?" And he didn't even kind of register that. Because I think I even brought that up after we had done it, we were done recording. I said, "Did you realize that you said that in the brief, when you started this, you said you wanted it to evoke, 'Aha! It's Netflix." And I was like, "That's legitimately the exact same thing that's happening here. [Tudum] by the end of this." 

[00:30:47] And so they were exploring all these different options. You know, he loved that — kind of going back to what you were saying with the movie and when they were kind of putting this in front of audiences and stuff, there was another option that I found hilarious is that they wanted to kind of evoke the old Leo the Lion idea, you know, like MGM— 

[00:31:04] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, okay.

[00:31:04] Dallas Taylor: —there's a lion in the middle of it and just go [growl] they wanted this to feel like a big cinematic moment. So they thought a lot about animals being a part of it or having some sort of call and response in there. The thing that I learned out of that logo that just kind of blew my mind is he said, there was almost a goat bleat in that cell. And I was like, "I don't believe you." And he was like, "You can hear it. Don't play it in your podcast because this is like pretty deep stuff." 

[00:31:27] Jordan Harbinger: [Baa] This is Netflix. 

[00:31:30] Dallas Taylor: The PR person played it straight off of their phone. They said, "No joke. This is exactly what we were doing." And it sounded exactly like the Netflix logo. It was just like this. I went [tudum] [baa]. No joke. We legitimately even — like in the show with him saying, "Thank God I did not use the goat sound." 

[00:31:47] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, man. Can you imagine spending — how much do you think it costs to develop the final Netflix sound? And then imagine spending that amount on a goat? 

[00:31:55] Dallas Taylor: I think it's like — I don't even know how much it would cost, but you got to realize like the assets of these things, what they turn into the value. It's like the McDonald's that [dadadadada] the marketing people have been quoted as saying that's a billion-dollar asset. 

[00:32:09] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. 

[00:32:10] Dallas Taylor: Because they've been using it for over two decades. 

[00:32:12] Jordan Harbinger: Really? I remember — McDonald's used to change their, I guess, sonic branding, but a lot of their slogan or whatever because it used to be like, "Food folks and fun." And I remember saying, "This isn't landing for me." And I remember my best friend and I as a kid, I'm still friends with him — now he's a prop designer in Hollywood. He's like, "I don't like this one." And I'm like, "I don't know why I have an opinion, but I agree with you." I'm like 12 years old critiquing McDonald's new branding campaign. But I remember thinking, "Food folks and fun" doesn't really land for me. And before that — I can't remember what it was. I think it was, "A good time for the great taste at McDonald's." And the fact that I remember that means they invested well in that branding. 

[00:32:45] Dallas Taylor: That's a good one. And we played both of those on there but "Food folks and fun" was kind of a dud.

[00:32:49] Jordan Harbinger: It was it. Okay. 

[00:32:50] Dallas Taylor: So what they were trying to fix with the [dadadadada] is at this point in McDonald's I think it was like early 2000s, I think, that's when they were exploding around the world. So they had a problem. They had every single market with their own ad agencies defining what McDonald's is, independently.

[00:33:06] Jordan Harbinger: Oh man. 

[00:33:06] Dallas Taylor: So what they were trying to solve as they needed to have some sort of short jingle, some sort of sonic logo that can be adapted but it's still a holistic focus of what McDonald's is, whether you're in Japan or in Arkansas. That was the challenge. And it was a German ad agency that put this thing together. They had to make like a jingle that could be malleable. So like [dadadadada] it could be hip hop. It could be on a zither. It could be on anything. You can turn that into a country thing. You can turn it into whatever you want it to be, but the core I'm loving it [dadadadada] is always there. Not in every single thing, but at least that's kind of what the quintessential McDonald's message is. And so they've stuck with it two decades and I was shocked to find out that it's been that long. 

[00:33:52] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That is a long time. 

[00:33:53] Dallas Taylor: And there's lots of controversy on who wrote it. 

[00:33:56] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. There's a one might say there's beef surrounding it, or one might say that that's the realest beef McDonald's is actually involved with. All right. I'm done. 

[00:34:04] Dallas Taylor: It's a pretty fun one. 

[00:34:06] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. They had Justin Timberlake in there and now I remember— 

[00:34:09] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. 

[00:34:09] Jordan Harbinger: —there was a piece on him kind of thinking he got the raw end of the deal because it's a billion-dollar asset. And it's like, well, I don't know if you made — it's like the person who drew the swoosh saying, "I only got a few hundred dollars for this."

[00:34:20] Dallas Taylor: He also did not write it. And what's so funny— 

[00:34:22] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:34:23] Dallas Taylor: —about the Justin Timberlake aspect is because he was like — I think he was like in the launch spot or something, but he did. Before this was even announced, he did "I'm loving it too" before McDonald's even announced that it was going to be part of their branding.

[00:34:37] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, wow. 

[00:34:38] Dallas Taylor: So he had that, I'm loving it song. Like there's this like song that Justin Timberlake does, that's called I'm loving it. And he does the, like, "I'm loving it," and it's a bunch of, you know, dancing people and whatnot. "I'm loving it." But then that ended up turning into the McDonald's thing. But I find it so funny that there was like this corporate thing that was being seeded by Justin Timberlake in the, "I'm loving it to her," before it even happened. I think it's kind of brilliant, but he didn't write it. 

[00:35:01] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:35:02] Dallas Taylor: He maybe had some hand in that, but as far as the actual jingle and the strategy, that was a couple of people at an agency, a music agency over in Germany. 

[00:35:10] Jordan Harbinger: I feel like he was probably compensated quite handsomely for it. And honestly— 

[00:35:13] Dallas Taylor: Yes, I'm sure he's given a lot. 

[00:35:14] Jordan Harbinger: —it's only enhanced his brand, the fact that they were able to play this thing and that you still hear it occasionally and you may be associated with him. I feel like he was able to make a living off of that. And if not, then it didn't hurt. 

[00:35:25] Dallas Taylor: He pulled himself up from the bootstraps after that and made something of himself.

[00:35:29] Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. Yeah. He's not exactly destitute after the McDonald's campaign. Let's talk about sonic branding when it comes to stuff around the house. I was doing laundry yesterday. I have an LG washer. 

[00:35:40] Dallas Taylor: [Dah, dah, dah, dah] 

[00:35:42] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, you know it. 

[00:35:42] Dallas Taylor: Is that the one? 

[00:35:43] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's the one. And my wife can do it. I can do it. Our auntie that helps take care of the kids will even — I'll catch her kind of humming it. 

[00:35:52] Dallas Taylor: Uh-huh. 

[00:35:52] Jordan Harbinger: My mother-in-law can do it. I've got a two-and-a-half-year-old kid and he can't do it exactly right every time but even he will start to do it when or after it goes off, he'll repeat it. And so that means it's really working at kind of a primal level, because this is a kid who barely speaks in complete sentences most of the time, right? He's two and a half years old. 

[00:36:11] Dallas Taylor: Right, yeah. 

[00:36:11] Jordan Harbinger: And he speaks two languages. So it's already a little delay there, but yet this LG washer thing, he's almost got it nailed. 

[00:36:17] Dallas Taylor: Yeah, I could sing the whole thing. 

[00:36:18] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, well, yeah, easily. Because when I was a kid, the washer went [beep]. 

[00:36:21] Dallas Taylor: [Beep] 

[00:36:21] Jordan Harbinger: And it was done. That was it. 

[00:36:24] Dallas Taylor: What that's communicating is just like, "I don't care. Just come get it." But yeah, the [dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah] to me, that's like the most Japanese thing that we know in America. 

[00:36:36] Jordan Harbinger: That may be the case. Yeah. 

[00:36:37] Dallas Taylor: It's so pleasant. It's kind of why I'm jealous of the Japanese in general, because they're, so forward-thinking on like sound things. It's like, even in their Metro, they have different jingles for every stop. I mean, come on. That's amazing. So that's great. But yeah, the appliance sound design is something that's becoming more and more popular. Again, trying to associate positive thoughts with these things that are generally not positive. UI sounds on these things, for me, when I hear that, I just think, "Oh god, I got to fold the laundry." 

[00:37:06] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, it means, "Ugh, god, I can't just leave it in there. 

[00:37:09] Dallas Taylor: If you had that jingle after it auto folded it, it would be the best jingle in the world. It would be the most famous jingle in all of history. 

[00:37:15] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Come put on some more underwear. Now it's just, "Hey, you better fold this before everything gets cold and wrinkly." 

[00:37:21] Dallas Taylor: And all wrinkly.

[00:37:22] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Yeah, exactly, and all wrinkly. NBC has a chime that I grew up with that I still can do, even though I haven't watched TV in decades other than, you know, cord-cutting stuff on the Internet, that type of thing seems like — do they pioneer sonic branding television stations or was it — or sorry, radio stations and then eventually made it to television? Where did the whole thing start? 

[00:37:45] Dallas Taylor: So what's amazing about that — I was a sound mixer in Burbank at the NBC Studios. So I would walk by this giant mural that would talk about the chimes like every day. I never really thought about it. So it kind of told that story, but what's interesting about the [dun, dun, dum] ah it wasn't perfect. You might have to auto-tune that. 

[00:38:02] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. We'll play the sample. Yeah, we'll auto-tune it. 

[00:38:07] Dallas Taylor: That was not like, "We need a sonic brand job in 1932," or something. What it was is it was solving a radio problem. So now we don't have to deal with this, but back in the day of analog, when they were going to go from the news here to the radio drama here, they had to have someone physically pull a patch cord out and put it in somewhere else. And we all know what that sounds like. [static sound] You know, we don't do it with our headphones on because it hurts our ears, but they needed something to cover that. So basically, they have an announcer saying, "This is WNBC." And then literally back then it was announced are going, [dun, dun, dum]. So they would cut to them.

[00:38:44] There'd be like a patch, cable change. And then it's kind of a seamless transition. And so at first, it was like seven notes. I can't even remember what all the notes were, but it was too complex. And then they kind of shorten it down to three that we know now. And also even back then, they used it to notify affiliate stations of breaking news coming in what they call the fourth chime. Like go, [dun, dun, dun, dun] and then like, everyone would go on alert, like when D-Day happened, they did that.

[00:39:12] Jordan Harbinger: So it's like, "Hey, there's war news," or actually important breaking news, not the stuff we have today where it's like, "Breaking news. Here's a photo essay from East Germany." 

[00:39:20] Dallas Taylor: Some celebrity did a thing— 

[00:39:21] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:39:22] Dallas Taylor: —breaking news, but back then, like breaking news— 

[00:39:24] Jordan Harbinger: Kim Kardashian broke up with Pete Davidson. 

[00:39:25] Dallas Taylor: Right, exactly. So, yeah, it kind of there was a very pragmatic use for that sound and then, because it just continually was used. And then this is now a positive association with people, it just kept going. So I'm a big fan of like, when you make something great, do not let it go. Like NBC, if they tried to get a new hot shot, like sonic brand, it would be a colossal failure. Like you have something that's like nearly a hundred years old that people associate, like it is valuable, lean into it more and they have, and they've done that. 

[00:39:54] Jordan Harbinger: They'll put a little modern — you hear it occasionally with a plugin or something where they run it through or they use a different instrument. But even then in your head, you're almost here in the original, at least I am. 

[00:40:04] Dallas Taylor: Right. Yeah, little xylophone [dun, dun, dun]. 

[00:40:07] Jordan Harbinger: What's going on then with there's new online issues or I should say Internet-age issues with sound? And misophonia is a disorder that I had just recently heard of somebody wrote in to our advice Feedback Friday inbox about this. And when I tell friends about it, at least one in a group of 10 will go, "Oh, I think I have. I have that. You know, when this and this, and this happens, I get really agitated and I start to get really annoyed." And I guess misophonia would be considered a very adverse reaction or just a generally adverse reaction to certain sounds. And there's a scale where it's sort of, "Hey, that's a mildly annoying thing, stop doing that," or, "I should move away from that." And then at the end of the scale, it's uncontrolled rage at a certain sound. And most people don't have that end of the scale, but certain people with neurological disorders or like sometimes autism and things like that, they can have a completely violent reaction. 

[00:41:02] Dallas Taylor: Even bad associations too.

[00:41:03] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:41:04] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. So misophonia is interesting. The thing that I've found were like 150 episodes into the show, we do a lot of science shows and concept shows, and the thing that I've learned— because I feel like I'm on the front line of this — is just how more there is to do in research with sound. Like, I think that with our other senses, we're just a little bit more conscious about it. So I think we think more in general and we study it more. With sound, like I've found the bleeding edge of what we don't know. And misophonia is one of those things. Even with the most expert guests, it is very hard. There's very little grasp on exactly what's happening there. But what essentially misophonia is, is exactly what you said. It's like a physical, like overwhelming hatred for a certain type of sound. 

[00:41:45] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm. 

[00:41:45] Dallas Taylor: So for people who are not misophonic think about like — I wouldn't consider myself one, but there are certain like textures if I rub my nails on or something. 

[00:41:53] Jordan Harbinger: Yes. 

[00:41:54] Dallas Taylor: Or like, if you take like a fork and you do your teeth and you pull the food off with your teeth. 

[00:41:58] Jordan Harbinger: Ugh, yeah. 

[00:41:59] Dallas Taylor: Like those things like will really get into you. 

[00:42:00] Jordan Harbinger: Nails on the chalkboard is the cliche one. 

[00:42:02] Dallas Taylor: The nails on the chalkboard — but imagine that. A lot more things and I believe — and this is completely speculation. I'm not a scientist, but I think that that's part of an overall sensory issue. I believe that the way that we all perceive the world is different. The way that we hear the world is different. The way that we feel the world is different because it's all interpreted by our brains.

[00:42:21] I've asked people like sometimes someone who might have a very over-the-top reaction to certain sounds might also have very over-the-top reactions to very overt spices and things like that. So I think that there's a lot of work to be done in like sensory studies because I think that there's a very big spectrum of how we all experience our senses.

[00:42:41] And I think to assume that everyone experiences the senses in exactly your way is tough and misophonia is one of those that I think it's just helpful to just be aware that just because a sound doesn't bother you doesn't mean that it can just trigger really nasty stuff for other people. And— 

[00:42:59] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[00:42:59] Dallas Taylor: —there's a lot of people with it. I know right now, There's a lot of people saying, "I think I have that." 

[00:43:04] Jordan Harbinger: Yes. 

[00:43:05] Dallas Taylor: Because every time I bring it up, it's always just like, "You just explained a thing that I've never thought before," but it's legitimate. 

[00:43:11] Jordan Harbinger: Right. Yeah. There's people who say, "There's this guy in my office, who's perfectly nice. We're actually kind of friends, but he does this thing with his foot or with his finger and it's driving me absolutely insane." And it's like Chinese water torture and they'll put headphones on and it kind of doesn't help because their ear is almost listening through the headphones for this particular thing. And they have to also not see it because when they see it, they can kind of hear it, even though they can't really hear it and it's driving them crazy. And for me, ASMR, which is like the — well, I'll let you explain what it is, but this triggers by misophonia and it makes me want to — I am not even exaggerating. I've never done this, of course, but it makes me want to pick up my laptop and smash it onto the floor until it explodes when one of those videos comes on YouTube because it's the whispering and the lip-smacking. And it just makes me physically, almost like violent/ill at the same time. I hate it. I hate it.

[00:44:04] Dallas Taylor: What it does for me is it gives me very pleasant tingles all the way down, like my spine. I can trigger ASMR response. So to explain what ASMR is, I think it's like— 

[00:44:15] Jordan Harbinger: Autonomous sensory meridian response. 

[00:44:17] Dallas Taylor: There you go, yeah. So what's happening — so there's this concept of synesthesia. So this is a really fascinating topic and we've covered that before. And it's like cross-over senses, like senses that start to smear together. You know, someone who might hear something, but perceive it as a color. I've worked with sound designers who go, "This sound here is very purple to me," and I've come across a lot of people who do that. ASMR is like a hearing touch synesthesia.

[00:44:46] This is an example, I'm getting it right now just talking about it. It's an example of like something happening in hearing that's crossing over into some weird part of our brain that's now becoming touch. And so for me, what happens with these really tiny sounds, there's a lot of arguments of why these sounds work. And a lot of people say it's because like how you were taught to gently as a baby or things like that. But these really quiet sounds really gentle sounds. And I'm not even getting close to what they do. It's a lot of like whispering. 

[00:45:12] Jordan Harbinger: Maybe we can play a sample of a YouTuber, three or five seconds doing it. I can't listen to it because again, I will smash the computer. 

[00:45:20] Dallas Taylor: You're all listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show. My preps — mouse smacks don't exist and even touching the microphone is kind of edited out. 

[00:45:39] Jordan Harbinger: It creates an itch in my brain that I can't scratch. That's the best way for me to phrase it. It's an uncomfortable itch. 

[00:45:44] Dallas Taylor: For me, it's all external though. It triggers somewhere like where my shoulders meet my spine. And it just, it gives me like goosebumps, but not real goosebumps, but it just tingles all the way up the back of my head kind of down my shoulders. And the funny thing is, is I went into making the show going, "This is totally bogus." And then I realized, "Wait a second. It's like musical chills in a different way." Like if music gives you chills, like that's kind of what an ASMR response is, but think of ASMR is something where you can just do it on demand. So I would encourage people like if you're in the right environment and you have a very quiet thing and you're kind of watching these things and you're trying to feel something in the back of your neck, there's going to be a lot of people who go, "Oh my goodness, I can do that." And I just don't know how our brain works. Like, is that something that was valuable to us a million years ago? 

[00:46:31] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Good question. 

[00:46:32] Dallas Taylor: Or are we moving into that crossover sensory stuff? I don't know. It's just fascinating. 

[00:46:40] Jordan Harbinger: This is The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Dallas Taylor. We'll be right back. 

[00:46:45] This episode is sponsored in part by GoodRx. Prices have gone up on almost everything. So remember to use GoodRx to at least save on your prescription costs. With GoodRx, you can instantly compare prescription prices at pharmacies in your neighborhood and find discounts that could save you up to 80 percent, which is a chunk of change, especially on a prescription. GoodRx is free and easy to use, and it works whether you do or do not have insurance. And even if you do have insurance, GoodRx might actually even beat your copay price. So you might not even have to use your insurance. The price with GoodRx would actually be lower. Check GoodRx online or in their app. They have five-star reviews galore. It's one of the most downloaded medical apps. From there you can find prescription savings at over 70,000 pharmacies nationwide like CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Vaughn's, Walmart, and more. Lots of you hit me up telling me how GoodRx saved you a ton of money. My father-in-law uses it. He's always stoked. He's always saving like 30 bucks on his prescriptions. 

[00:47:36] Jen Harbinger: So for simple, smart savings on your prescriptions, check GoodRx. Go to goodrx.com/jordan. That's good-R-X.com/jordan, goodrx.com/jordan. GoodRx is not insurance but can be used in place of insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid. In 2021, GoodRx users saved 81 percent on retail prescription prices. 

[00:47:56] Jordan Harbinger: This episode is also sponsored by Every Man Jack. Every Man Jack men's care products use the best clean naturally derived ingredients. There are no parabens. No phthalates. If you've been paying attention to the interview, I did earlier with Dr. Shanna Swan, you know that we should watch what we put on our body because your skin is the largest organ. And since it's porous, it absorbs a lot of what we put on it. From bodywash, deodorant, and skincare products to shampoos, bombs, oils to tame and nourish your hair and beard. They've got really nice scents inspired by the great outdoors like sandalwood, cedar woods, sea salt. It doesn't smell kind of like fake, which I like. My favorite is their exfoliating citrus bodywash. I got to exfoliate all over the place without those phthalates. It has a perfect amount of exfoliation. Refreshing scent perks me up in the morning/early afternoon, depending on how lazy I am getting ready in the morning. Again, no parabens, no endocrine-disrupting phthalates. They use as many clean naturally derived ingredients as possible and use responsibly made packing. 

[00:48:50] Jen Harbinger: Every Man Jack men's care, naturally derived, outdoor inspired. Look for them at Target, Walmart, Amazon, or everymanjack.com. 

[00:48:58] Jordan Harbinger: This episode is also sponsored in part by Nissan. The future will be great, but today is just as incredible. Meet Nissan's most advanced lineup. If you can't get enough adrenaline, there's the all-new 400 HP Nissan Z, or for your off-road adventures, check out the all-terrain Nissan Frontier. If you're more of a spontaneous road trip type of person, hop in the Nissan Pathfinder. So let's enjoy the ride. 

[00:49:18] Jen Harbinger: 2023 Ariya and Z, not yet available for purchase. Expected availability this spring for 2023 Z and this fall for 2023 Ariya. 

[00:49:26] Jordan Harbinger: Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. By the way, all those URLs and discount codes — I know you're not going to memorize that stuff — we put them all on one new mobile responsive page over at jordanharbinger.com/deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the search box on the website at jordanharbinger.com as well. So please do consider supporting those who support us. 

[00:49:47] Now for the rest of my conversation with Dallas Taylor. 

[00:49:52] I would love to see a study where they measure 60 and 70-year-old men and women. And then they measure 20 and 30-year-old men and women. And see if any of the older folks even have this. Because they might be like— 

[00:50:02] Dallas Taylor: Right. 

[00:50:02] Jordan Harbinger: "What the hell?" Meanwhile, everybody who's been sitting in front of a screen for three decades is all programmed — our brains have all sort of grown roots into the machine, so to speak. 

[00:50:12] Dallas Taylor: We just want like gentle things. 

[00:50:14] Jordan Harbinger: Right. Oh god, for me, I can't — there's one particularly popular, there's a ton of ASMR YouTubers and they get millions of views. There was one, I saw a story done on Vice by a friend. And she's beautiful and she's very talented at what she does. And she seems like a very nice person, but her videos when I see them, you know, I just want to put my fist through the screen. And I keep thinking if I ever met her, I don't think I could have a normal conversation with her because she would immediately trigger me. I would just be like, "I can't even look at your face." And again, she's like a beautiful, nice person. I'm sure. But I just can't deal with the feeling that I get from somebody whispering or eating noodles into a microphone. It just makes me like physically ill.

[00:50:54] Dallas Taylor: Some of that are kind of gross. So I agree with that, but I will say that I like that we're on the complete opposite side of this because it's like a perfect example. Because like, for me, when I think of ASMR videos, I'm thinking mega-relaxation, like I'm thinking, "Okay, I'm just going to be almost just like deep breathing for me." It's just like, it's going to ground me. So what these ASMR artists are doing for people who are like, that is a really big service. It's kind of like doing a Calm app or something. I promise I don't know what I'm not saying. 

[00:51:22] Jordan Harbinger: It's like a guided meditation for somebody. 

[00:51:24] Dallas Taylor: It's almost like a guided meditation. It's just like a gentle — it doesn't mean anything it's just to get you calm. And I really appreciate what ASMR artists are doing, but then with anything online, it can get real weird.

[00:51:36] Jordan Harbinger: Like there's this. 

[00:51:37] Dallas Taylor: We had somebody on our show like there was just like eating pickles, like just to hear the snap of the pickles.

[00:51:41] Jordan Harbinger: That wouldn't bother me. I feel like that wouldn't bother me. 

[00:51:43] Dallas Taylor: I just thought, I was like, oh, that's so satisfying. 

[00:51:45] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Yeah. That does sound satisfying. The whispering makes me and the whispering in the small — it makes me want to be like, "Speak louder." Like again, it's like an itch somewhere in my body or brain that I can't scratch because it's not really there. 

[00:51:56] Dallas Taylor: Mouth sounds are really — I think when you are talking about smacking your noodles, that's when it's like, "Oh, that's just kind of gross." 

[00:52:01] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Well, my dad smacks his lips when he eats. Maybe that's why I hate it because this reminds me of that. 

[00:52:07] Dallas Taylor: Association. 

[00:52:07] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, negative association. Speaking of sound and food, are there sounds that can make food tastes differently or better? That seems like that should exist. 

[00:52:18] Dallas Taylor: Yeah, supposedly. So we've done a show on that too. So that is another synesthesia thing where we're trying to use something in hearing in order to cross over into food. And so Charles Spence is like the authority on this, but they've done all kinds of studies where they're playing different tracks of music. They've even done this in marketing to make like beer taste sweeter or more bitter. They've given people like chocolate with different tracks of music or soundscapes and kind of gauge the sweetness on it.

[00:52:50] And you know, to me, I think there's a legitimate thing there because I think that for me, like music in a fine dining situation is a very important thing. Music in a super loud bar or something is different. I don't know, it's not quite the sensory thing that I enjoy, but I think kind of ambiance is really important. And if you go into kind of fine dining that it's very important that they keep it very quiet, intimate between you and the person you're talking to. And usually something very light possibly. But with food, yeah, there are restaurants that play certain things because they believe through studies that it makes things taste better.

[00:53:25] I believe it. You know, it may be very subtle. And I think with anything sensory, you have to realize that these are extraordinarily nuanced and it's not something you're just going to have a Hershey bar put on this track and go, "Oh, it tastes different." It's like, you really have to dig deep, try different things. And really, again, going back to the very beginning, open up that consciousness on hearing to be able to really kind of even determine if that's possible for you. 

[00:53:49] Jordan Harbinger: Looking at new devices, like noise-canceling headphones, which I really like. They create a bunch of different sounds probably that I can't hear that fight — well, actually, how do those work? You'd probably know this. 

[00:53:59] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. The simple answer is that there's a little microphone. That's recording everything outside and it's coming in and it's instantaneously flipping the signal. So think about like what you would consider like a sine wave, or just for anybody who's like, have you ever seen just like audio waves, like think of audio waves in your brain, you think of a line that goes up and there's a line in the middle and then that line crosses and it goes down and then it comes back and meets in the middle. That's a sine wave. It's the most pure tone. So we're going to think about the sine wave. So what happens is, is if you're recording that sine wave, what happens in the noise canceling is immediately it's flipping the phase. So that's where it's generating an opposite signal to the signal that's coming in.

[00:54:40] So, therefore, in theory, if you have a wave for form going up and the same wave for them going down, it cancels out to nothing. So even if you've ever worked in audio or anything like that, if you just simply take a piece of audio, put another piece of audio, flip the phase on it, it will go to silence, even though it'll play in the door or whatever, but yeah, that's essentially how that works.

[00:54:59] Jordan Harbinger: So if I'm canceling out a really loud sound, does that mean I'm just playing another really loud, but opposite sound into my ear. 

[00:55:08] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. There's a lot of debate on that. I've talked to Bose directly about that specific thing. The idea is that you still don't want to be slamming doors around noise-canceling headphones, because what you'll hear is the noise-canceling will fail. So a lot of times, like if I have headphones on and maybe I slam a door, you'll actually hear it disengage. And you'll kind of hear like just kind of a clicky digital thing because it just can't keep up with that level of volume and the transient because it's so fast. Is it doing a flip? I'm not exactly — it's so complex. I think it's happening inside like the mechanism. 

[00:55:41] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. 

[00:55:41] Dallas Taylor: I think it's actually like doing a cancel out by the time it's hitting your ear. 

[00:55:45] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, interesting. 

[00:55:45] Dallas Taylor: But at the same time, Bose and these companies would say you don't use these for hearing protection. So I'm sure there's a lot of nuance to that.

[00:55:51] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I love noise — the reason I'm asking is I love these things. They've been a godsend because I'm one of those people who can't block things out very easily. And even with noise-canceling headphones, I'll hear like my kids say something, which is probably a good thing for keeping kids alive, but it's a bad thing for focus and concentration, especially when my wife or a nanny or babysitter or a grandparent is there and they're fine. They're just whining about Gummy Bears. So I love noise-canceling headphones, but I also started to think, oh, okay. I don't want to become reliant on these things. Like I have to be able to focus on my own at some point. I don't want to diminish that ability if that's a thing. 

[00:56:26] I've got a couple of friends of mine, they have to bring white noise or fan sound devices to hotels, or they will not sleep. And if they move in with like a significant other, they'll bring a freaking giant, 1979 fan that they bought and they've had for years, their whole life pretty much, then I have to bring it to that person's house because they can't sleep without this exact sort of fan tone all the time. 

[00:56:51] Dallas Taylor: Yeah.

[00:56:51] Jordan Harbinger: What's going on there?

[00:56:52] Dallas Taylor: So, yeah. And then on the fan side, that's something that's fascinating because I also cannot sleep without white noise. What's actually happening here is it's that primal thing. There's levels of sleep. And I think we all know that there's like kind of deep and REM. There's kind of light sleep and somewhere you're conscious and where you're not, but there can be external factors that kind of pull you in and out of that sleep, that affect that. You know, like if someone's cooking bacon in another room, like your sense will kind of spark up a little bit. It's not going to ignore it because it's unnatural. So our senses kind of ignore things that is not valuable, but when we're vulnerable, you know, think of us in the cave or out in the world, when we're vulnerable, the sense that's going to keep us most protected is going to be kind of amped up subconsciously. And so when we're sleeping, that sense is going to be hearing for the most part. I mean, of course, your other senses will be able to react if someone hits you or something. 

[00:57:43] Jordan Harbinger: Sure. 

[00:57:43] Dallas Taylor: But hearing is kind of like a defense, it's a way to be able to snap you out of it. So why I use white noise is because there's been so much bad sleep prior to that. And it's very much like if you're in your house, everything is just dead quiet and you hear a bang. 

[00:58:02] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm. 

[00:58:03] Dallas Taylor: Your brain is so primitive that it's just going to jump right up and think the worst immediately because you're in fight-or-flight mode at that moment. What may have happened is a dump truck may have just drove by and it just happened to slam something or maybe your trash got picked up at night or something. So there's usually like a reasonable explanation, but once you get that rush of adrenaline and it's your life at stake, that's bad sleep and there's different versions of that. 

[00:58:26] So for me, I need to block all of that out. Some people are fine. Like I've kind of had this argument with people who live in New York City. Like for me, I'm from the south, I'm from the country. And for me, the sound of just nature and quiet is what comforts me. Yet, you know, when people are kind of born and raised in New York City, they need that constant — that calms them, a lot of people, which blows my mind. 

[00:58:48] So for me, I cannot sleep if there's hubbub happening. And again, that could just be childhood learned associations. So for me, I got to block all of it out and white noise is every frequency happening that we can hear simultaneously. And so it's a masking effect and that's what the general spirit of why white noise is important, very important to somebody. 

[00:59:10] So, yeah, my wife and I have had this debate many times.

[00:59:13] Jordan Harbinger: Oh god, I can't even imagine if one person needs it quiet or loud, and the other person needs kind of the opposite. You're in trouble. 

[00:59:19] Dallas Taylor: Like she needs a TV going and I cannot— 

[00:59:22] Jordan Harbinger: Ugh. 

[00:59:22] Dallas Taylor: —do it. But what she said is — she doesn't watch news things, but there's a reason for that too. She said that the familiarity of it is a calming, comforting aspect. 

[00:59:31] Jordan Harbinger: Sure. 

[00:59:31] Dallas Taylor: So she feels like she'll just watch the same shows all the time. She knows what's happening. Her brain knows what's happening and it kind of tunes it out. My brain does not work that way. 

[00:59:38] Jordan Harbinger: No, that would be — the light alone would drive me crazy and the changing— 

[00:59:42] Dallas Taylor: Oh, yeah. 

[00:59:43] Jordan Harbinger: I can't even think about sleeping in an environment. Why do things sound better when they're louder up to a point? My producer, Jason is always getting on me about this. He's like, "Dude, you're turning yourself up. Stop adding base to your voice in the podcast. I'm just removing it in post-production. Just stopped doing that." But I can't, it sounds better up until the point where it's, you know, uncomfortably loud. But up until that point, it just sounds better louder. Why? 

[01:00:05] Dallas Taylor: It's funny because we'll get these notes when we're doing trailers and ads and stuff, we're just like, "Turn that up. Now, turn that up. Now, turn the dialogue up, turn the music up, turn the sound effects up," and all this and all that. And at some point we're just like, we just literally turn the entire thing up. And it's like— 

[01:00:20] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[01:00:20] Dallas Taylor: That sounds amazing. Proximity effect is probably a big part of this. I have not studied that specifically. I experience it all the time. There's this thing called the Fletcher Munson curve, essentially what's happening here is the world does not sound like how we perceive it. We are these animals that have these eardrums animals perceive sound in slightly different ways, a lot of crossover on that. 

[01:00:41] So, what happens is, is like we do not perceive all frequencies in a flat response, like low frequencies need a lot of energy for us to hear it. 

[01:00:49] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm. 

[01:00:50] Dallas Taylor: High frequencies that start to trail off to the best example I can give is like a xylophone or like a marimba. You'll see that the low notes on the marimba have very long tubes. I mean, that's for resonance, the length and all that stuff. And then it kind of goes up to short and then it gets long again. That's also kind of representing how we hear and trying to get the marimba to speak in the way that we hear. 

[01:01:12] Jordan Harbinger: Is the marimba that's like a wooden xylophone with the pipes that stick out of the bottom. 

[01:01:17] Dallas Taylor: Right, exactly. And it's kind of curved, but you see a curve at the bottom and at the top, and that's kind of an example of how our hearing hears the real world. So there can be very blaring high pitch sounds that we don't perceive as high pitched. There could be very blaring, low pitch sounds that we also don't perceive as loud. So that's that Fletcher Munson curve idea. And that's what that is, is that's just basically how we hear. 

[01:01:39] When we come closer and we make things louder, we hear the highs. In the sparkle, we hear the lows more. That's something we're trying to accommodate for a lot. Like a lot of times when we pull music under dialogue, the first thing we'd lose because of this concept is the low frequency. So a lot of times when we're pulling music under we're boosting the low end because we want to keep that perceived low end. That might be getting way too in the weeds. 

[01:02:01] Jordan Harbinger: It's a little technical, but it's interesting because otherwise, how do you explain why things sound better louder? It shouldn't really necessarily be that way. Especially given that we just talked about ASMR, which is a bunch of things that are so quiet that they make me angry and violent, right? So, I guess for me, they really sound better louder slash they only sound good at a certain volume and below that they're just irritating as all hell. 

[01:02:23] Dallas Taylor: When we really want to make it hard on us, our mixers or me we'll mix things at a very low volume and make sure we can hear every nuance of it. Because when we pull that up, it's just really consistent. It's not fun to mix things at a low volume because it's just, you don't hear every little nuance, but when you crank that up, but just like it's a tool in the toolkit to like beef up kind of just the frequency range. 

[01:02:44] Jordan Harbinger: What do you think of deep fake sound? This is fresh on my mind because I just saw that Zelenskyy the president of Ukraine. There was a Russian deep fake of him saying, "Oh, we're surrendering, lay down your weapons. And you know, the Russians are going to take you prisoner and it'll all be good and fine." And it didn't fool anyone because the Ukrainians have been seeing Russian disinformation for a really long time and so has it all of Eastern Europe for that matter. But they can do pretty impressive deep fake voices. The video's not going to be too much further away in terms of processing power and the ability to do that in the next few years in a convincing way. 

[01:03:18] But these deep fake voices — I haven't seen what Adobe has said they have and shown what they have because they won't release it to the public, right? for good reason because it's just going to create all kinds of chaos. I did an episode on deep fakes with Nina Schick. It's episode 486. We mostly talked about videos. I predicted that they were going to make a politician either say something that they would never say that's either racist or a big gaffe or a policy change. I didn't think they would have a president surrender in a war, but it's kind of the most obvious use for this kind of technology. 

[01:03:49] Dallas Taylor: Mm-hmm. 

[01:03:50] Jordan Harbinger: But with vocals, it's really going to be hard to detect. Can we trust our ears now? 

[01:03:55] Dallas Taylor: At this moment, maybe. So I did a show on this and the whole thing that I wanted to make sure, as I said, I tasked the team and I was like, "I want my voice for the first minute, minute and a half to be as convincing as possible, but it's not me." And so to do that, we worked with one of the guests and the guest even was very concerned about telling us exactly how it was done. Like we never really got an answer of the actual ways it was done, but essentially he had said, "Send me three hours of your narration. Just nothing else. And then I'm going to push it through some supercomputer and it's going to do a lot of AI stuff and machine learning. And then that's going to kind of make this thing and the more audio, the better because there's just all this nuance." And it just takes — as far as I know, it just takes a long time to make it convincing. 

[01:04:38] So we did that. Fooled a lot of people with the intro not being me. And so the experiment was like, can I convince people who've been listening to all of these shows that I am not real. And I think it did a good job. The show is called Deep Fake Dallas. So like, you kind of are tipped off right off the bat. So I think that you can kind of get it, but if you didn't even look at the title, I think it's really convincing right off the bat. Even when we make episodes now, we put in a deep fake voice of me. That's through our software, to where we have pacing. We have the words per minute, my cadence, all that stuff that we can build out this show, then I can approach it as an outsider and then craft it before I actually come to it. 

[01:05:16] So there's a really interesting uses for deep fake like that. I would never use it on the show, but it's just like a tool to put me in the seat of the listener, rather than me being the seat of the host, which has a different perspective. But will it get better? Yeah, it's going to keep getting better. I haven't heard a lot of deep fakes that are super convincing yet. Where the pitfalls are is in emotion. And I know that's the next frontier where when I'm speaking right now, I'm going up, I'm going down. Everything has meaning. I'm communicating meaning in the way— 

[01:05:47] Jordan Harbinger: Sure. 

[01:05:47] Dallas Taylor: —that I'm singing. 

[01:05:48] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. If you say three children were killed in Odessa this morning, you don't want to say, "Three children were killed in Odessa this morning," right? That would be horrible. 

[01:05:56] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. So that's like the difference between what the machine is doing now versus where it's trying to go. And can you get the machine to understand the context and emotion? I think that's kind of going to be the thing that makes that more convincing and it will be able to pick out in the source audio when someone's like happy or the quirks that they do. I mean, I have voice quirks. You have voice quirks that you just know are you. Yeah. So like the way that we sing our words is complex. And will it get better? Yeah, it will. 

[01:06:27] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. To the point where it can be used against us, especially when you're talking about nation-states. Like, I don't think a nation-state like Russia or Iran or the United States would have any qualms about grabbing Adobe software and being like, "This is what we're going to do with this. We're going to make the Ayatollah say this horrible thing, and we're going to play it for everybody in Iran. And it's going to change the political system over there in a way that we can, that's desirable for us." Like that is almost for sure already happening, but it's undetectable or we're very close to that point and we won't know until later that something is fake. 

[01:06:58] Dallas Taylor: You know, one thing I find interesting is that social media and how much that is important to politicians now, I think is going to be a combating effect of that. You know, if you have the talking head in front of a podium and that's all of the communication comes from, you know, the White House press room, you have a lot of data that you can make sound just like that. 

[01:07:17] Jordan Harbinger: Sure. 

[01:07:17] Dallas Taylor: But when you have someone like Zelenskyy or whatever, going out and just, you know, showing him doing this and doing that and being in the world and just terrible microphone on the phone or whatever, being more active and that's going to be protection with deep fake— 

[01:07:31] Jordan Harbinger: For sure. 

[01:07:31] Dallas Taylor: Because that's going to be hard when you're trying to not only get the cadence right and all this stuff and edit. That's the other thing that we forget about deep fakes. I'm a sound designer. I'm a sound editor. I can not only get a deep fake, but I could adjust it in ways and then edit it to make it exactly the way that I want. I mean, that's what we did in our show. We did a deep fake, but we did like five takes of deep fakes and still pick the best ones.

[01:07:51] Jordan Harbinger: Right. So it's easier to just do it right and real if you can. 

[01:07:55] Dallas Taylor: Right. 

[01:07:56] Jordan Harbinger: It didn't save you time from recording your intro yourself, right? 

[01:07:59] Dallas Taylor: So I think that like part of the way to combat that is putting yourself in situations where it's just not as easy to do that. Like if you're out in the open, if your social media style, like that's going to be detectable, there's a lot of complexities in sound design to not only deep fake the performance but then also get the environments right. Because I think a lot of experts, even like me, I think I'd be able to pick out most if I really analyze how it sounds. 

[01:08:23] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. There's going to be a whole certification process for video. That's been unaltered and is real and there's going to be almost like digital SSL certificates for this video is not — it's real people. It's real sounds. It hasn't been edited. It's been run through a supercomputer that can detect that kind of thing. And then we're going to have to figure out how to not have those forged all over the place. Man, the chase is on, I suppose, the arms raised for deep fakery in audio and video is quite something that we're going to see a lot in the next couple of decades here. 

[01:08:52] Man, thank you so much. This is really interesting from sound designed to why things sound better loud to sonic branding. It's like a whole world that most of us have not thought of because it maybe comes in a little bit under our radar, so to speak.

[01:09:05] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. Thanks. This was fun. And it was so nice to see that we're on two different sides of a hearing thing— 

[01:09:09] Jordan Harbinger: Of the ASMR thing. Yeah. Well, I realize I'm the weirdo, but it doesn't make me feel any better when I hear somebody eating freaking ramen and do a shotgun mic. 

[01:09:20] Dallas Taylor: Yeah. I don't know. I've gotten a lot of reactions. And when we put the show out, it was just like, "I hate this with all of my being." 

[01:09:25] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[01:09:25] Dallas Taylor: And a lot of people were just like, "Oh, it's so satisfying." 

[01:09:28] Jordan Harbinger: I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. Yeah. Well, to each his own, okay, I suppose when it comes to the sound landscape as well. Dallas Taylor, thank you so much, man. 

[01:09:37] If you're looking for another episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show to sink your teeth into, here's a trailer with Moby, iconic musician and producer. This was a super real conversation about creativity, fame, mental health, money, and what really makes people happy and fulfilled. Moby was really open with this one. And even if you're not a fan of the music, I guarantee you will dig this episode. 

[01:09:58] Moby: I grew up in arguably the wealthiest town in the United States, Darien, Connecticut. But my mom and I were on food stamps and welfare. My first punk rock show was to an audience of one dog. And my first electronic music show was to Miles Davis. 

[01:10:13] Jordan Harbinger: "I wanted to stop the show and patiently explained to the movie stars and the beautiful people that they'd made a mistake. They were celebrating me, but I was a nothing. I was a kid from Connecticut who wear secondhand clothes in the front seat of his mom's car while she cried and tried to figure out where she could borrow money to buy groceries. Now, it was 1999. I was an insecure has-been, but we kept playing and the celebrities kept dancing and cheering." 

[01:10:35] Moby: The weird thing is things started to go wrong when I stopped feeling that way. 1999, I thought that my career had ended. 

[01:10:44] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. 

[01:10:44] Moby: My mom had died of cancer. I was battling substance abuse problems. I was battling panic attacks. I'd lost my record deal. And I was making this one last album. And I was like, "Okay, I'll make this album. I'll put it out. I'll move back to Connecticut. I'll get a job teaching philosophy at some community college." And then all of a sudden, the world embraced me. I handled fame and wealth really disastrously. It was so humiliating. I wouldn't trade any of it. 

[01:11:17] Jordan Harbinger: For more from Moby, including how he bounced back from a 400-drink per month booze habit, check out episode 196 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[01:11:27] Now, if that doesn't pique your interest, what will, right? Make sure to check out Dallas' podcast, it's called Twenty Thousand Hertz. You'll find it wherever you get your podcasts. And you'll also, of course, find it linked in the show notes as well. 

[01:11:38] There's a couple of episodes I found particularly interesting. There's one about the Netflix sound effect and the McDonald's branding episode. Of course, the [dadadadada] that we talked about today and the LRAD sound weapon, right? Those dishes that you can aim at riots and it blasts sound them really, really fascinating stuff. There are a lot of good ones to explore. Those are just off the top of my head. 

[01:11:58] Big thank you to Dallas for coming on the show. Please do use our website links if you end up buying a book from any guest on the show. Transcripts are in the show notes. Videos go up on our YouTube channel. Advertisers, deals, and discount codes, all at jordanharbinger.com/deals. Please, and thank you once again for supporting those who make this show possible. I'm at @JordanHarbinger on both Twitter and Instagram or connect with me right there on LinkedIn. 

[01:12:22] Speaking of connecting, I'm teaching my skill set in terms of networking and relationship building. I know the word networking is gross. That's what I'm talking about right here in our Six-Minute Networking course. It's nothing like what you've heard from throwing business cards in people's faces. It's all about building relationships and digging the well before you get thirsty. And it's free. It's over at jordanharbinger.com/course. I don't want your credit card information or your money. jordanharbinger.com/course is where you can find it. And most of the guests on this show subscribe and contribute to that course. Come join us, you'll be in smart company where you. 

[01:12:54] This show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Ocampo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends and you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody who's into sound or into music and jingles, share this episode with them. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on this show, so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time.