Sound Foraging with Dogbotic

Sound design is a wizardry that goes unnoticed even though it surrounds us. It’s also more bonkers than I imagined. This talk by Kirk Pearson starts with “How to make a T. Rex sound in three relatively achievable steps,” and goes wilder from there. It finally answers the mysteries of where the goriest sound effects come from.

Dogbotic is one of North America’s premiere audio studios — composing for animation, film, installation, theater, podcast, games, web, radio, and every other medium in between. They’re mad scientists of audio that relish in making sounds you haven’t heard yet. Specialists in making weird and strange sounds for weird and strange people.

If you’ve ever wondered how to sound design a technology that doesn’t exist yet, or noises for animals that don’t exist anymore, then this talk was made for you. They will show you how they built their own synthesizers for Rihanna’s SavagexFenty show, how they used the sounds of pasta to bring a tentacle monster to life for Adult Swim, and how you can do it too.

We talked with Kirk Pearson about his book on making electronic music. You can get started making your own sounds with a Boxytone Synth Kit on Maker Shed.

Dogbotic is returning to Maker Faire Bay Area 2025.