The Acoustic Worlds of Radiolab Creator Jad Abumrad

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
You're listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz, the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds.

**Dallas Taylor** (0:10)
I'm Dallas Taylor.
Over the last 10 years of Twenty Thousand Hertz, we've explored sound from so many different angles, from films and TV shows to history, brain science and beyond. But I would be remiss if we never covered the person who I consider the most recognizable and interesting sound designer in podcasting. I also think about this person as simply being one of the greatest sound designers in history. And that's Jad Abumrad, who I first knew as the creator of Radiolab.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:42)
You're listening to Radiolab.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:45)
Radiolab. From?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:47)
WNYC.

**Dallas Taylor** (0:48)
C?
For years, Jad was Radiolab's main host, editor, sound designer, and composer. And the way that he uses immersive sound to craft emotional, enlightening stories inspired the sound of Twenty Thousand Hertz. But it's not just about inspiration. Twenty Thousand Hertz wouldn't exist without Jad Abumrad and Radiolab. And here's why.
Unlike YouTube videos, Instagram, or TikTok, podcasts don't grow by going viral through an algorithm. Instead, they often grow when a more popular podcast replays one of their episodes or features the host as a guest. And back in 2011, Radiolab played an episode by a little show called 99% Invisible. That boost helped 99PI expand into a huge success. And then, years later, 99PI paid it forward by featuring 20,000 Hertz several times. Which I know is how many of you first heard us. So I like to think of our show as the grandchild of Radiolab. And that it continues the sonic standard that Jad created.
Recently, I had the opportunity to spend the day with Jad at his home studio in New York City to learn all about his creative process and his thoughts on audio storytelling. So on a crisp autumn day, I knocked on the door of his studio.

**Jad Abumrad** (2:12)
Hiya, come on in. Welcome to my studio.
My name is Jad. I'm not quite even sure what to call myself these days, but musician, composer, radio storyteller, podcaster. I created Radiolab and Dolly Parton's America, and a bunch of other radio shows and podcasts. And mostly I do it here.

**Dallas Taylor** (2:31)
Jad Studio is a bright room with a desk, a computer, and musical gear all over the walls and surfaces. Microphones, synthesizers, stringed instruments, guitar pedals.

**Jad Abumrad** (2:41)
This has been my sanctuary and my workspace for about 14 years.

**Dallas Taylor** (2:47)
Like me, Jad didn't start his career wanting to tell audio stories. I went to college for music and played trumpet in the orchestra.
For a while, I wanted to be a conductor. And Jad actually has a pretty similar background.

**Jad Abumrad** (3:00)
So I went to Oberlin Conservatory for four years to ostensibly be a composer, which is what I kind of thought I was going to do. Ever since I was five, I pretty much had that idea. I was like, that's what I'm going to be. And so I came to New York to do that, and it didn't go well. I realized that writing music for other people actually turns out to be really hard.
So a couple years out of school, I kind of had the post-college flail, what am I going to do with my life moment? My then-girlfriend, now wife, we were standing on the platform to the G train, and I remember she was like, well, you like to write stories, and then you like to play music. You don't seem to be doing well at either independently, but what if you stuck them together and like, I don't know, do radio?
I was like, oh, okay.
I ended up volunteering at a radio station, purely based on that insight at first. And the first day that I showed up, there had been some sort of staff revolt the day before, something, the place was empty. There was the news director and he had nobody to cover the news. And I just walked in the door and he was like, take this tape recorder, go to City Hall, there's a protest, cover it. And I remember just like running towards City Hall being like, what do I do with this thing? What does it even mean to cover something? I had no idea. I recorded some tape, ran back to the station, and then you were cutting it with razor blades. And first day, I was like taping bits of tape together. And long story short, by 3 o'clock that night, I had a 12-minute piece on the radio.

**Dallas Taylor** (4:42)
Sadly, that segment has been lost to the sands of time, which Jad actually might be happy about.