Best Sound Design Studios in Seattle (2026)

Introduction

The 9 studios below all record, design or mix sound from a Seattle-area base in 2026. They range from commercial voice and mix rooms that have served the city’s agencies for decades to a game audio division owned by Streamland Media, a small game audio collective and two podcast specialists.

Seattle’s audio market is shaped by two kinds of client. Agencies such as Publicis Seattle, Copacino and DNA book voice, sound design and broadcast mixes for regional and national campaigns, and two of the longest-running rooms, Bad Animals and Victory Studios, share a production building in Interbay. Game work is the other pillar, with Xbox in Redmond and Valve in Bellevue nearby. In January 2026 Streamland renamed its games division Arrival, which includes the Seattle studio that began as Clatter&Din.

Studios were chosen for their services, the clients and credits they publish, and evidence of a working Seattle-area address. Several well-known names turned out to be music recording studios without audio post services, or game audio companies based elsewhere, so the list stops at 9 rather than padding it. It is unranked, since the right studio depends on whether you need a broadcast mix, game audio, an audiobook or a podcast.

The best sound design studios in Seattle

1. Bad Animals

Independent, owned by Mike McAuliffe and Tom McGurk · Interbay · badanimals.com

Bad Animals is a full-service audio post studio covering voice recording, voice casting, ADR, sound design, original music and mixing. It began in 1979 as Steve Lawson Productions, took the Bad Animals name when Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart joined as owners in 1990, and was bought in 1999 by a group of sound engineers and Charlie Nordstrom. Since 2018 McAuliffe and McGurk, both national Emmy recipients, have owned it outright.

The studio moved into the Victory Studios production building on 15th Avenue West in 2018 and runs several recording rooms there. It works for agencies, production companies, filmmakers and brands across TV, film, streaming, radio, gaming and corporate content. The site does not list recent campaigns, so ask for a reel close to your format.

2. Pure Audio

Independent · South Lake Union · pureaudio.com

Pure Audio has worked in Seattle’s creative community for more than 23 years, from a studio on Fairview Avenue North. Its team, including Paul Goldberg, Steve Heinke and Kathy Levin, handles voice-over recording, sound design and mixing, talent casting and dialogue direction, ADR and original music.

The client list leans towards advertising and games: Valve Software, Microsoft, Publicis Seattle, Copacino and DNA Seattle are among those it names. It also takes less common briefs, including museum installations, fireworks soundtracks, live theatre and large public-sector RFPs.

3. Arrival (formerly Clatter&Din)

Owned by Streamland Media · Seattle · arrivalgc.com

Arrival is Streamland Media’s games division, with facilities in Seattle, Los Angeles and London. Its Seattle studio started as Clatter&Din, which Streamland bought in December 2020 and ran as the Pacific Northwest hub of Formosa Interactive. Formosa Interactive was renamed Arrival in January 2026, with Paul Lipson as president.

The company covers game sound design, voice, music and post, alongside co-development work such as cinematics and technical art. Clients it lists include Xbox Game Studios, PlayStation Studios, Capcom, Ubisoft, Activision, Bethesda and Annapurna Interactive. Its cinematics work on Ghost of Yōtei was nominated for Best Sound Design in a Video Game at the 2026 Music + Sound Awards.

4. Victory Studios

Independent · Interbay · victorystudios.com

Victory Studios has run production facilities in Seattle since 1978. Alongside studio and equipment rental, editing, colour correction and media transfer, it has an audio suite built around Pro Tools and a WhisperRoom booth, used for foley, voice-over recording and final mixes.

The studio says its audio work spans feature films, video games and national advertising campaigns. It suits productions that want picture post and the sound mix handled in the same building, and Bad Animals works from the same building for larger voice and sound design jobs.

5. Mirror Sound

Independent · North Seattle · mirrorsound.com

Mirror Sound is a recording studio on NE 191st Street in north Seattle with a voice-over booth and audio post services covering editing, mixing, sound design, ADR and foley. Its staff came from radio and corporate work at NFL Films, Queen Village Recording and MacDonald Recording.

Audiobooks are a large part of the work, for publishers including Audible, Hachette, HarperCollins and Brilliance Publishing. It has recorded Captain Sig Hansen of Deadliest Catch, Richard Sherman and Ken Jennings, and runs remote sessions over Source Connect for clients and talent outside Seattle.

6. Plant Based Audio

Independent, owned by Katherine Tole · Seattle · plantbasedaud.io

Plant Based Audio is a game audio collective rooted in Seattle’s game development community. It offers voice acting and casting (with The Halp Network), dialogue editing, sound design and music, and its team has worked on AAA and indie titles, with experience in VR and licensed IP.

Clients include Jackbox Games, Everbloom Games, Goblinz Studio and Trinket Studios, and its portfolio includes Tee K.O. 2. Katherine Tole runs it with a network of contractors, which suits indie studios that want to scale audio up and down between milestones.

7. Larj Media

Independent, women-owned · Seattle · larjmedia.com

Larj Media is a podcast production agency founded in 2011 by Tina Nole, a former executive producer at Air America and CBS News, and run with Joelle Nole. It handles strategy, production and audio mixing for branded and mission-driven shows.

Clients include Microsoft, Orgain, the Gates Foundation, UW Medicine and The B Team. Its work was shortlisted at the New York Festivals in 2025 and won Gold at the Signal Awards in 2023. It suits organisations that want the editorial side of a show handled as well as the sound.

8. Pacific Audio

Independent · Seattle · pacificaudio.co

Pacific Audio is a Seattle audio production business run by engineer Brian Pake. It covers podcast editing, noise removal and audio cleanup, mixing and mastering, and sound design and music composition.

Clients it names include the University of Washington, Boeing, InVisionApp, Bizzabo and Killer Visual Strategies. It suits teams that record their own shows or explainer content and need a reliable editor and mixer for the finishing stage.

9. Sound Audio Solutions

Independent · Seattle · soundaudiosolutions.com

Sound Audio Solutions is a small Seattle studio that has supplied voice talent, sound design and music since 1996. It specialises in audio for educational software, corporate training and professional learning programmes, and also works on advertising, games and film.

Clients include Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill Education, LeapFrog, Humongous Entertainment and Edmark. It suits e-learning and edtech teams that need consistent character voices and short sound cues across a large number of lessons.

What to look for in a Seattle sound design studio

Start with the format. Commercial rooms such as Bad Animals and Pure Audio are set up for agency sessions, voice casting and broadcast mixes on short turnarounds. Game audio teams such as Arrival and Plant Based Audio work to milestones and deliver assets for implementation in an engine, which is a different rhythm from locking a 30-second spot. Podcast specialists such as Larj Media and Pacific Audio focus on dialogue editing and loudness for streaming platforms.

Book the people as well as the room. Seattle’s audio scene is small, and much of its experience sits with a handful of long-serving engineers. Ask who will run the session, whether the sound designer also mixes, and whether music is composed in-house or licensed, and listen to recent work in your format.

Check remote options. Many Seattle sessions involve talent, agency or game teams in other cities, so confirm that the studio can run Source Connect or a similar link, and agree how takes will be labelled and delivered.

Finally, plan how files and feedback will move. A single job can produce several mixes, stems for each version, alternate VO takes and separate deliverables for broadcast, online or a game build. Clear naming, one place where the client and studio can find the current mix, and a record of which notes were addressed in which pass will shorten each review round.

How Fabric helps sound design teams

Fabric gives a sound studio one workspace for session files, stems, scripts and client feedback, with AI search across all of it. Each job can have a shared space holding the script, music brief, VO takes, every mix sent for review and the final deliverables. There is more on the underlying problem in your audio sessions are scattered, and a short primer on what a stem is.

Session folders and stems sit in Fabric’s cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space, and the built-in viewer plays files without other software. Audio and video transcription turns uploaded WAV, MP3, M4A and video files into searchable text with clickable timestamps, so a producer can find the take where the talent reads a particular line. Search works by meaning across scripts, briefs, notes and transcripts.

For review, a mix or a folder of versions can be published as a web page with password protection, and link analytics shows when each named recipient opened it and for how long. Agency, game and podcast clients can leave threaded comments through a shared link without creating an account. Comments on audio and video are timestamped, and annotations also work on PDFs and documents such as scripts and cue sheets.

For studios working through long lists of game or e-learning assets, a folder can become a kanban board whose cards are the audio files themselves, moving from recorded to edited to approved.

Password protection and link analytics are included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best sound design studio in Seattle?

It depends on the work. For commercials and broadcast, Bad Animals and Pure Audio are the longest-running dedicated audio post studios on this list. For games, Arrival runs a Seattle studio for major publishers, and Plant Based Audio works with indie developers.

What happened to Clatter&Din?

Streamland Media bought Clatter&Din in December 2020 and ran it as the Seattle hub of Formosa Interactive. In January 2026 Formosa Interactive was renamed Arrival, and the Seattle studio now works under that name.

Which Seattle studios work on video games?

Arrival works with publishers including Xbox Game Studios, PlayStation Studios and Capcom, and Plant Based Audio works with studios such as Jackbox Games. Pure Audio lists Valve Software among its clients, and Victory Studios and Bad Animals include gaming in their audio work.

Where can I record voice-over remotely with a Seattle studio?

Mirror Sound runs remote sessions over Source Connect and phone patch, and records audiobooks for major publishers. Bad Animals and Pure Audio both offer voice casting and recording for commercial and game projects.

Who produces branded podcasts in Seattle?

Larj Media produces podcasts for organisations including Microsoft and the Gates Foundation, and Pacific Audio edits and mixes shows for teams that record their own. For studios that make wider branded video and social content, see the best content studios in Seattle.

Related lists

Sound design studios in other cities: New York · Los Angeles · London · Chicago · Toronto

More in Seattle: Creative agencies · Content studios · Post-production · Video production · Animation · Advertising agencies

Run your sound studio on Fabric: Fabric for music creators · Best cloud storage for music production · How to organise audio project files