We hope you all had a wonderful winter holiday break and New Years celebration! As those of you Angelenos already know, we experienced an uncharacteristically long rainy stretch to bring in our New Year here in California. As ready as I am to be on the other side of this rain, it does provide a great opportunity to pull out the field recording gear and add some new rain recordings to my personal library. As I was cleaning up my recordings, I felt compelled to start putting them into context with other layers which progressed into experimenting with some simple but effective rain designs. This blog post will share what I learned in the process!
These past few weeks, I must shamefully admit that I’ve been binging seasons of crappy reality TV…Ink Master in particular. There’s a particular sound the editors use in this show that is impossible to go unnoticed. Even if you’ve never seen a single episode of reality TV, chances are you’ve still heard this sound somewhere. It’s of the dramatic, screeching, tension-building stinger variety, commonly found in the horror/thriller genre.
As we near the end of 2025, we are taking a look at the most visited blog posts by our readers over the past year.
We’d like to thank all of our blog readers for the continual support and giving us a platform to share our latest projects, news and post-production sound knowledge with a very special community. Here are the top 10 Boom Box blog posts that were most frequented viewed in the year of 2025. Some are old, and some are now, so check them out!
Happy Holidays from Boom Box Post!
Season’s greetings to all of you editors, mixers, engineers, recordists, professionals, prosumers, students, freelancers, and everyone in between. Whether you’re aiming to dazzle a certain individual in your life who is passionate about sound/post production, or if you’re a professional in the sound industry finding it difficult to put together your holiday wish list, worry not, we’ve got you sorted!
We are always thrilled to share our most recent releases! Whether it’s another season of a long-running favorite, or the premiere of a brand new series, it’s always a special time seeing our work finally available for your viewing pleasure. Here’s a list of new and upcoming releases we’ve been patiently waiting to share with you!
As sound editors, we’re constantly coloring our audio clips on the timeline hundreds of times throughout the workday. In the same way that each of us has our own unique approach to sound selections and design, I’d hypothesize we each have our own individualized color-coding habits as well. Do some people seriously color-code magical chimes as anything other than yellow?? My curiosity motivated me to do a simple survey around the office—asking each editor exactly which color from the Pro Tools Color Palette they’d choose for specific sounds. The results were fascinating!
Our Black November sale is live, and our entire Boom Box Library site it 50% off with code NOVEMBER50.
Everything is on sale including our massive Everything Bundle. Our libraries start at as little as $7.50 during the sale! Don’t miss out this chance to elevate your sound effects library at just a fraction of the usual price.
This past weekend I took a quick trip to Coachella Valley near Palm Springs, CA for some R&R. We stayed in a condo right on the golf course, but as I’m no golfer, I mostly enjoyed the serenity the course offers. Funny enough, I actually didn’t see a single golfer over the weekend. So I took advantage of the empty course by pulling out my field recording gear and searching out subjects to record. Now for a successful field recording excursion, best results are achieved with proper location scouting and planning… but as this was a low-stress weekend I lowered my expectations and went along with whatever I could find. Below you’ll find some of my field recordings from the weekend, along with two soundscapes I designed. Enjoy!
I recently sat in on a predub session with re-recording mixer, Jacob Cook. He was mixing a super heavy sound effects portion of an episode and I noticed he would regularly glance over at his loudness meter. See, he had the mix in the ballpark, but for this pass he was punching up certain scenes, making more creative choices and giving it a more dynamic, story-driven polish. Now although the decision making of his mixing was first and foremost informed by the story he was telling, he had to make sure he was still working within the guidelines of the delivery loudness specifications. This prompted me to look a bit deeper into loudness metering to help myself understand it a bit more for when I mix my own projects. Loudness can seem technical and intimidating at first, but what I’ve gathered is that it’s really about one simple idea: making sure your mix sounds balanced and consistent wherever it’s played.
Mixing for multiple mediums is difficult. What once was a straight forward process (project A is for theatrical release, project B is for TV, etc) has evolved over the years to become much more complicated. Every film, though it may start out in theaters, will undoubtedly also be consumed on an iPhone.
I for one think we need to stop panning materials like it’s all going to a giant screen. I try to live life by the “everything in moderation” mantra and I think it serves us well to approach mixing for multiple mediums in this way.
In the spirit of Halloween, we brought back another edition of the “Death by Sound Effect” series! For those unfamiliar with this sound design challenge: we brainstorm a list of some imaginative (and gruesome) ways one’s life could end, then ask our sound editors to pick one and design the sound of it. Let’s see what they came up with!
A filled out library is essential for any sound effects editor. We here at Boom Box use the BBP original libraries on the daily, but there’s some disagreement on which library is the best. I decided it’s time to settle the score!
Artificial intelligence use has recently become top of mind for many of us, especially those of us in creative industries like sound and music. So, I wasn’t completely surprised when Soundgirls invited me to take part in an panel at their upcoming virtual conference regarding AI in the sound industry. I had an intensely fun and engaging first conversation with the other panelists, each of whom are in different areas of the sound industry, where we shared our personal hopes and fears. But it occurred to me that I would love to hear what your thoughts are on AI.
It’s already that time of the year again! Judging for the 4th Children’s and Family Emmy Awards has just commenced. Boom Box Post was fortunate enough to submit 9 projects for consideration this year! We’re extremely proud of our sound work on these series and would love to share with you. Below you’ll find our highlights and a first look at some of our favorites.
As we prepare to flip our calendars from September to October and officially enter Spooky Season, I felt it was appropriate to take a look and listen to the origin story of these iconic soundtracks, and how they shaped our perception of the sound of Halloween over the years.
Sometimes it’s good to revisit the highlights! Our Inside Sound Design series has given us the chance to pull back the curtain and share the creative process behind some of our favorite projects. Whether you missed them the first time around or just want a fresh dose of sound design inspiration, here are five of our favorites (plus a bonus honorable mention) that worth another look!
You may have aced our previous sound effects crossword puzzles, but let’s see how you do with these audio post terms! This puzzle will test your knowledge of the tools and workflows of our industry. Good luck!
As sound editors and mixers, we spend our workdays in rooms isolated from the outside world, buried in our waveforms and plug-ins. But sometimes the most valuable exercise is simply stepping away from your workstation and listening to the world around you.
Do you typically arrange your plugins and windows in a specific way for your editorial and mixing work? What if your window layout loaded up the same every time opposed to requiring you to reconfigure from scratch? Let’s break down how to take advantage of Pro Tools Window Configurations!
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