A long time ago, there was an ex-television promo producer and a musician with a major-label deal who each had a dream: arriving late for the SAT exams in their underwear, while Mindy Cohn (from 'Facts of Life' fame) was proctoring the test, dressed like a soft-shell crab.

Realizing they shared a common -- if not disturbing -- vision, the two men established VideoHelper Music and Sound Design in March 1995. Voted the 'Worst Possible Name for a Company' by the woman who works at New York's City Hall, the company created the award-winning VideoHelper Production Music Library - which changed an entire industry. Unfortunately, that industry was the poultry industry.

The music library developed a cultish - and highly diverse - user base, catering to producers who wanted music that didn't sound like stereotypical 'television music.' One release in that music library was Disc 9 1/2: 'Noises and Drones,' created for clients who requested sound design elements that reflected the aggressive, no-apologies attitude of the library. The disc was immensely successful. Soon the sounds from that disc could be found in more places than chlamydia.

Originally designed as a 150-element supplemental disc, it suddenly blossomed into an all-consuming search for the most arresting sounds ever made. Ten sound designers studied almost every sound design collection available, determined to do something different and create a package that offered more vision in both value and sonic attitude. Over 25 interviews with TV, radio and multimedia producers revealed what each was looking for in a sound design element package - and what they thought could be improved. Two years of obsessive research, recording and replacing very broken equipment went into VideoHelper's first sound design product: Noise Generator.

During these two years, the sound designers did anything they could to collect interesting and evocative sounds. Like:

  • Spent a considerable amount of time inside a garbage dumpster with a hammer and portable DAT recorder.
  • Risked their lives trying to drive down a crowded expressway while simultaneously dangling a microphone out the window in attempts to get the 'whoosh' of a passing semi.
  • Stuck a microphone inside a USPS mailbox and started hitting it with a sledgehammer.
  • Lifted, then repeatedly dropped a manhole cover in the middle of a kind-of-busy Manhattan street, recording the results.
  • Snuck into construction zones, recording building demolition.
  • Broke an awful lot of stuff that wasn't theirs.
And what did they get? Nearly arrested. Several times. [Intereresting, non-technical side note: if you want to get in heaps of trouble, try the mailbox thing. Apparently it's kind of like getting a 'Royal Flush' in the poker game of law-breaking.]

Armed with over 1,200 hours of incredibly wild sounds - they took them back to the studio and processed the crap out of them. Using high-end processors and plug-ins, they twisted, pulled, cajoled and -- in some extreme cases, violated -- those sounds until they didn't sound like ANYTHING anyone had ever heard before.

The sonic Frankenstein that resulted became the four-CD set NOISE GENERATOR, which gained enormous popularity and whose sounds can be heard on most major TV networks, movie trailers, video games, and radio stations across the world.

In the end, noise generator became not only a product, but the name of the sound design subsidiary of VideoHelper, which later released two new sound design products: SLAM*BANG*BOOM and TRANSITIONS.

VideoHelper's sounds and music can be heard almost everywhere, including ABC, NBC, CBS, CW, HBO, TBS, TNT, MTV, VH1, WWE, CNBC, MSNBC, and most other acronyms, excluding VCR, AWOL, SWAK and SWFNS.

The company is located in New York City and has many talented employees, some of whom are still serving time for offenses committed while banging on mailboxes.