Meet The Audio Team Behind The Bear
Who Are Major, Evan, and Sound Lounge
Founded in 1998, Sound Lounge is an audio post studio based in New York City, known for its deep roots in film, television, and commercial work. With nearly three decades of experience, the studio has built a reputation for growing talent from within and staying at the forefront of audio post.
Steve “Major” Giamaria, supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer, along with Evan Benjamin, dialogue editor, have shaped the sound of FX’s The Bear across all four seasons from their base at Sound Lounge. Now a partner at the artist-owned post house, Major joined Sound Lounge nearly 19 years ago after studying sound recording technology at SUNY Fredonia and starting out in live sound. “I started in the machine room as an assistant, and I never left,” he says. “Luckily, I landed at a place that’s artist-owned and really into cultivating talent from within.”
Evan’s path began at Berklee College of Music in Boston. After playing in bands and working at various music houses in New York, he eventually landed at Soundtrack NY, where he spent seven years before going freelance. “I was always interested in the recording side of things,” he says. A connection with a former colleague brought him to Sound Lounge, where he’s now a regular fixture. “It just became a relationship over the years… I moved in here full-time around 2018.”
Together, they’ve crafted a soundscape that captures The Bear’s signature intensity—a blend of chaos and intimacy that reflects both the pressure-cooker energy of a professional kitchen and the emotional weight behind each character’s journey.
Roles Steve and Evan played in The Bear
FX’s The Bear is known for its fast pace, overlapping dialogue, and raw emotional energy—and the sound plays a huge part in making that work. From the clatter of pans to the quiet tension in a stare-down, the audio has to feel real but also be clear enough to follow. That’s where Major and Evan come in.
Major is leading the team at Sound Lounge through every season of the show. “The nature of the show is chaos,” he says. “But you also have to control it.” His job is to take all the layers—dialogue, effects, music—and shape them into something that feels alive but never overwhelming.
Evan, the show’s dialogue editor, handles one of the toughest jobs in post: cleaning up and stitching together performances that are often improvised and full of crosstalk. “I’ve gotten very good at getting rid of one syllable out of another syllable because of The Bear,” he says. Using tools like iZotope RX and Sound Radix Auto-Align Post, he’s able to dig deep into the audio to make sure every line is usable, without losing the natural rhythm of the scene.
Their work starts with production sound mixer Scott D. Smith, who records on set in Chicago. Thanks to the consistency across seasons, Major and Evan have built a direct line of communication with Scott. “He’ll text me stuff while he’s on set,” Major says. “Like, ‘Hey, we’re shooting this kind of scene,’ so there’s a bit of a back and forth, which is great.”
Workflow, Tools, and “Doors”
By season three of The Bear, the sound team at Sound Lounge had become more deeply embedded in the postproduction process, often working on episodes before picture lock. This early involvement gave them more creative input, which is especially valuable in episodes that leaned into stylized sound design.
One of the most ambitious examples was the episode titled “Doors,” which captures the repetitive, high-stress rhythm of opening a restaurant. “It’s just the same day over and over again, and more and more chaos,” Major explains. “It was interesting how they were able to blend chaos and monotony, and how we got to kind of amp it up with sound.” Set entirely to a classical music score, the episode features rapid scene changes and layered transitions that demanded tight coordination between editorial and mix.
To manage that complexity, Major mixed the show using Pro Tools on an Avid S4 control surface paired with a Pro Tools | MTRX Studio interface. “Sonically, I could hear the difference right away,” he says of the Pro Tools | MTRX he recently upgraded to. “Everything got simpler—we went from five boxes down to one.” The setup also enabled flexible routing and room tuning, which became essential as Sound Lounge upgraded its studios to support Dolby Atmos® and more dynamic workflows.
This streamlined setup gave the team the flexibility to choose rooms based on the needs of each session, rather than being tied to specific gear. It also supported a more collaborative environment, where sound design, dialogue, and mix could evolve in sync with picture editorial.
The Challenges on The Bear
One of the biggest challenges the team faced was managing the show’s unpredictable, overlapping dialogue with limited takes and a lot of improvisation. Major often had to deconstruct entire scenes and rebuild them from scratch to make the chaos feel intentional and clear. “You end up taking all the extra sounds out of a scene just to try to make the dialogue play," he said. “And then you have to build it back up, element by element.”
Evan used iZotope RX to surgically remove unwanted syllables from crosstalk and clean up noisy takes without losing the natural rhythm of the performance. Outdoor scenes added another layer of difficulty, with sirens and car horns interrupting lines that couldn’t easily be re-recorded. “Sometimes you end up with something you have to cobble together because that’s what the production audio allowed them to do,” Major explained. Rather than defaulting to ADR, which they try to avoid to preserve the show’s raw, in-the-moment energy, they used every tool available to make the original audio work. “You want to have that aliveness left there,” he said. “If they came in to do ADR, keeping the energy in ADR would be challenging. The actors and our ADR team are great—we just want to save it for when we really need it.”
Words of Advice from the Team
For anyone looking to break into post-production sound, both Major and Evan agree it’s not just about knowing the tools—it’s about how you show up. “You still have to do the boring things that you have to do in any other job,” Evan said. “Show up on time, know how to be with other people in a room, and know when to keep quiet.” Major added that patience is key, noting it took him 15 years before anyone really noticed his work. “I was fast long before I was any good, and that served me well,” he said. He also stressed the importance of mastering Pro Tools like an instrument: “When you’re in the room with clients, that’s your concert. You don’t want to be learning your scales in front of people.” Their advice is clear—be reliable, stay curious, and treat your craft with the same discipline as any serious musician.