Audio Branding
Working with my first B2B client, one of my main responsibilities was ensuring that video content was constantly published. While we could rely on stock footage and previously recorded office-based content, we struggled at first to find audio elements that appropriately portrayed the brand.
There’s no end of music libraries and (groan) AI music generators, but these tracks often feel soulless. This is where expertise in music and audio production started to creep into professional life as a marketer.
Companies spend incredible amounts of money ensuring they are accurately represented with logos, typefaces and colour schemes – but rarely do they think about how their brand sounds. Which is insane, given how much we rely on video content, and given how many businesses try to start their own podcasts.
If you scroll down, you can see some of my previous audio branding projects, including podcasts and adverts.
If you’d like to learn more about my podcast services, click here.
If you’d like to learn more about my music projects, click here.
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In 2021 I was excited to become a Steinberg Certified Trainer. This followed years spent teaching audio production and facilitating music tech education, in schools and online with Cubase.
What does this mean for you? You can rest easy knowing that, whatever project I’m involved with, the audio will be as crisp and clear as it possibly can be.
Audio branding projects
The Conversation Hat Podcast
The Conversation Hat has, over the years, developed it’s own audio identity. We started with some background music and an audio logo, and added stingers over time. Fun fact: the audio logo (the bit where you say the name of the show), was heavily inspired by Radio 4’s Dead Ringers. Now that I’ve admitted that, it’s probably impossible to un-hear. I wanted to make something weirdly serious and cinematic that contrasted against the show’s light, conversational tone. That’s how comedy works, so they tell me.
The background music was easy enough. We wanted something that could sit underneath a speaker in the show’s intro and outro which reflected the tone of the show. I used a collection of synthesizers to make the music, avoiding traditional percussion or drums which I thought would make the music “too normal” – it’s a weird comedy podcast after all. I also made sure to use instruments and voicings that avoided the mid-low frequency range. That way, we wouldn’t need to do any drastic EQ to make the music fit underneath a voiceover.
As the show developed, it became clear that we also needed some stingers – something to divide up the show in the same way chapter headings work in books. The audio logo is super cinematic and feels a bit abrupt if you’re not expecting it, so I wanted to avoid creating more elements in that style. Instead, I started playing around with glitchy audio plugins that distorted and staggered sounds in a fun way. I took clips from the show: guests saying short, funny phrases; anyone saying the name of the show; and I put these through the glitch process. That’s how I made the first batch of stingers for The Conversation Hat.
Here is an episode intro, complete with background music and the audio logo:
This is a collection of our stingers including glitches, titles and quotes:
2 Truths, 1 Lie
In 2025 I was approached to create music for 2 Truths, 1 Lie – an established Edinburgh Fringe show. The show’s creator, Simon Caine, was working on a video ad campaign and couldn’t find music that properly represented the show. Some tracks came close, but they weren’t provided in a format that fit his videos.
Simon and I had a chat – I asked about how 2 Truths, 1 Lie worked, I asked about the ad campaign and how music libraries had let him down. He didn’t yet have completed edits of the videos, and wanted the flexibility to re-use the same music without needing me to recreate the track for each specific ad. I offered him a solution: I could create a piece of music and supply it in a “cookie cutter” format. He’d have separate sections for intros, quiet sections, energetic sections and transitions from each into the other. That way he could just align audio files in his editor, no need to crossfade.
I’d also provide a selection of classic cinematic BOOM sound effects so he could emphasise each new speaker.
Simon was excited about the cookie cutter format, that solved a problem for him. But what kind of music was I going to create?
The 2 key terms that came out of my chat with Simone were “anarchic” and “sleuthing”. I thought these were totally at odds – how can you make something that feels like a mystery is being solved, whilst also being raucous and chaotic? Thinking on these terms for a while, I realized I could solve it with jazz, (this is not the first time I’ve written that)
I ended up using a jazzy drum kit, with a double bass, clean electric guitar and a pianet-style keyboard. Playing gently, these instruments blend together in a really cool way. When played harder, they can become chaotic and energetic. Even better, they’re evocative of classic spy shows: Pink Panther, Poirot, even James Bond.
Anarchic – TICK
Sleuthing – TICK
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