How Stranger Things Creates Its Iconic Sound Design (and How You Can Too)

As the world gets ready for Stranger Things season five, we explore the sound design of the iconic Netflix series

The fifth and final season of Stranger Things will be released on Netflix in three parts: two volumes on November 26 and December 25, 2025, and the finale on December 31, 2025.

With build up to the the show being one of the most anticipated Netflix releases of the year, what better time to look back at it’s retro-nostalgic, yet modern and cinematic, sound design.

Drawing from our interviews with Angelo Palazzo, who worked on Stranger Things 3, we unpack the magic behind these iconic sound effects, and offer some exclusive tips for you to know when making your own iconic sci fi sound effects.

What makes Stranger Things sound design so distinctive?

From the start, Stranger Things has stood out not just for its visual homage to the 1980s, but for a soundscape that blends retro sonic textures with horror/fantasy tension. As seasons progressed, the show pushed harder into immersive creature design, atmospheric ambiences, and visceral audio moments.

By Season 3, the Stranger Things team decided early on that we weren’t going to use any of the SFX or backgrounds from the first two seasons and instead built Season 3 entirely from the ground up.

Moreover, for Season 4 the sound-design crew intentionally went “more aggressive, more greedy, abrasive, and disturbing” to match the darker tone of the story. The result: a show that sounds cinematic, expansive, and uniquely its own.

How the Stranger Things sound was crafted

One of the reasons Stranger Things’ sound design is so memorable is the team’s inventive use of everyday materials, creatively processed to build its eerie atmosphere.

For the creature vocals, like those heard from the Demogorgon and other monsters— Dehumaniser and Reformer Pro come in handy for transform human voices into otherworldly textures:

With Dehumaniser, I can process my voice and get much closer to a final result.”

To capture the unsettling movements of Vecna, season four’s sinewy nightmare of a villain, the team recorded fibrous vegetables including carrots, celery, and cabbages to create a “wet, slimy” sense of twisting vines and tendons.

Palazzo noted that he prefers to “start with the most organic sounds” before tweaking, pitching, and layering them into something unrecognisable. Even household items found their place in the Upside Down: sliding closet doors, squeaky hinges, bending wood, and scraping cardboard were all reimagined into aggressive, creature-like sounds.

The result proves that true sonic creativity begins with the familiar—then stretches, distorts, and layers it into something entirely new.

“Reformer Pro is my go-to-tool for quickly creating new fx layers … Dehumaniser allows me to create very usable tracks that will typically end up in my final build.”