Timbre Sonic identity — est. 2017

Sonic identitySince 2017Lisbon

Every brand already makes a sound.

No signal Output · 48 kHz

Most of it is accident — a notification someone picked from a list, a door, a hold tone. We decide it on purpose, and write it down so it survives the next agency.

02 — Practice

A sonic identity is not a jingle. It is the shortest sound a brand can make and still be recognised — and then every other sound it makes agreeing with that one.

Identity

A signature, its variations, and the rules for where each one is allowed to appear.

Interface

The hundred small sounds a product makes. Designed as a set, at the volume people actually run their phones.

Environment

Retail beds, hold music, and the tone of the room a customer is standing in without noticing they are.

03 — The room

Make something.

Sixteen steps, five voices, and no audio files anywhere — every sound below is built from oscillators and noise the moment it is struck. Switch boxes on. Change the tempo. It is the same rig we sketch on.

Sketches

The sketch a brand mark is built from — sparse, and it resolves.

04 — Signatures

Four seconds of work

Most of a sonic identity is spent on sounds under two seconds long. These are four, written for the same fictional client, each doing a different job. Press one.

05 — Work

Rooms we have been in

06 — Questions

Asked in the first meeting

What is a sonic identity?

Not a jingle. It is the shortest sound a brand can make and still be recognised — and then every other sound it makes agreeing with that one. In practice: a signature, a set of variations on it, and written rules for where each variation is allowed to appear.

How is that different from a jingle?

A jingle is music used in advertising; it ends when the campaign ends. A sonic identity is infrastructure — the signature, the interface sounds, the hold tone and the retail bed all derive from one decision, and it is documented so it outlasts the agency that made it.

What do you actually deliver?

Three kinds of work. Identity — a signature, its variations, and the rules governing them. Interface — the hundred small sounds a product makes, designed as a set and mixed at the volume people actually run their phones. Environment — retail beds, hold music, and the tone of the room a customer is standing in without noticing.

How long should a signature be?

Most of a sonic identity is spent on sounds under two seconds, and a signature is usually well under four. The constraint is the point: a sound that needs eight seconds to be recognised will be cut off by every real context it appears in.

Samples or synthesis?

Synthesis, wherever the sound has to be owned. A sound built from oscillators and noise can be re-rendered at any length, any pitch and any bit depth, and it carries no licensing history. Everything you can hear on this page is synthesised live in your browser — no audio files are loaded.

Why does it need a document?

Because the brand will change hands. Without written rules — which variation goes on the app launch, which on the ATM, what the maximum loudness is, what is never allowed — the identity decays into whatever the next team happens to like. The document is the part that survives.

How do I brief a project?

Write to studio@webstoree.com or call +91 89815 64862. Send the list of places your brand currently makes a sound — app, phone line, retail, hardware, announcements — and say which one you are most tired of. That is usually the right place to start.

07 — Contact

Let us hear it.