NEWS

This weekend we were down in London for the premiere of the film Mad Lord: Samurai of 1000 Deaths, directed by Samuel Smith. We supervised the entire Post Sound and completed all sound effects, design, and mixing. This project was tons of fun to work on, as it combined a historical setting with intense action and psychological elements.

Synopsis: When a great samurai Lord's mind becomes infected by devils his loving Sokushitsu comes to his aid. Knowing that their weakness will soon be taken advantage of by the neighbouring rebel army. Sokushitsu demands that General Ekei travels to the borders of the Shoguns palace to collect some illegally acquired medicine. The General returns from his mission with more than a cure to the Lord's madness, he brings evidence of treachery, witchcraft, and rebellion.

The premiere screening took place at House of Vans London. Upon arrival, we were greeted by a welcome party of 2 Samurai in full armour!

As the Lord's mental state slowly begins to unravel throughout the film, we used sound design to give the audience a taste of his fractured psyche. We used a blend of natural sounds and field recordings from Asia and Japan with hyper-real effects that hinted at the Lord’s madness.

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Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do here at 344 Audio, so we attend premieres and screenings wherever possible to support the amazing filmmakers that we work with.It was incredible to see the film in its completed state and to network with many of the London based production crew. The response to the film was extremely positive, and Samuel the director discussed the potential developing Mad Lord into a feature-length project in the future.

2 Samurai warriors engage in single combat during one of the film's battle scenes.

To top the whole experience off, we were treated to a live performance of the score from London based rock-n-roll band Steak. They played the score live over the film as it was running which really added to the atmosphere of the film!

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We really enjoyed attending this premiere and supporting Mad Lord. If you want to find out more info about the film and the people involved please follow the following links:

https://www.samuelsmithdirector.com/mad-lord-samurai-of-1000-deaths

https://www.samuelsmithdirector.com/about

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9689694/

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We are pleased to share with you all our latest Update!

As you may have noticed in recent weeks, something very interesting has been going on with our social media posts. We have been steadily working on a secret project and releasing little bits of information bit by bit to build some excitement for the big reveal, and that moment is finally here!

We are delighted to share with you our new company branding and visual identity for 344 Audio. This new aesthetic marks an evolution from the 344 Audio you are used to seeing, and reflects our company values and ethos whilst maintaining  a link to the visual legacy that we have already established.

As well as sharing our updated branding with you in this post, we would also like to breakdown the process we have undergone to help you if you are branding/rebranding your business, social media pages and more.

Should you rebrand?

The first step when undergoing a rebrand, is to make sure it is the right move for you and your company. When it comes to rebranding, it can be the wrong move for some companies, whether the timing of the re-brand isn't quite right, or the rebrand causes confusion or potential alienation of a firmly established core audience. With 344 Audio, we wanted to make sure that going through the rebranding process was in the best interest of the company. We assessed the growth over recent years and realised that five years ago, we were a skeleton of what we are now. Our skills, expertise, efficiency and breadth of knowledge had all vastly increased, and so it felt right that our company branding be updated to reflect our growth.

Ask yourself -

• What are you trying to achieve with your branding/rebrand?
• What is your visual identity and what are your brand values?
• Do you need to work with an agency/graphic designer or can you handle the task in-house?

Timing is everything

Rebranding is an enormous step for any company, so it's crucial to make sure the timing is right before you launch forward with it. For ourselves, that time is now.

We collectively came to this conclusion as the company has broken through several key milestones and every area of the business has been levelled up. We have invested significantly in new avenues of business such as providing Foley work and loop group sessions for other companies, and putting more focus on the courses we provide. We have also purchased a building and are currently undergoing a full refurbishment to create a more comfortable working environment and have space to cater for clients and the extra courses we wish to provide. These efforts and many others that we have been making in recent years need to be adequately reflected in our brand identity.

Once our plan had been established it was time to make our move. We needed to find a branding agency to bring our vision to life. Luckily for us, we already knew the company we were going to entrust with this project, Ventur Agency. We chose Ventur as it was founded by someone who has worked in collaboration with 344 Audio many times before. This gave us an advantage as they already understood our company and how our identity had changed over recent years.

Ask yourself -

• Is the timing right, should you rebrand now or does it make more sense to wait until next year?
• What is the culture of your industry like?
• How do these decisions relate to your customer and audience?

Our branding process

We started with a brief description of 344 Audio, where it will be in the future and how we wanted it to translate over to the branding. We had compiled a few "buzz words" to give to the design team, these were words we wanted to reflect in the final product. We also discussed what type of branding we needed. For example; letterheads, business cards, social media presence, etc. It is very important to have a list of deliverables you would like so that everyone is on the same page.

We wanted the new look to feel fresh and modern while still retaining a human element. If 344 Audio was a person, it would be a fatherly figure; a guide that makes you feel like you’re always in safe hands. This is where authority meets our work ethic. It also has a sense of strength and heritage which comes from the company’s branding vision and influence by the Industrial Revolution. The industrial revolution is significant as it was the turning point for the population in the UK, particularly those within Manchester - the home of 344 Audio.

Once the original groundwork had been made, Ventur Agency went away and created the first mock designs. They then presented us with three different logo design variations to choose from. We were off to a great start as we had a difficult choice of choosing one of the designs as two of them met our brief perfectly.

Here are two examples of the mock logo designs. With design one, We believed this reflected the design commonly found above an industrial mill entrance. This correlated with the image we wanted to illustrate, however, we did not like the curvature of the text and believed it was not giving enough of a bold statement.

After a little deliberation, we came to a decision and chose our preferred logo (Design Two). We preferred this rendition as it retained the industrial feel while still being a bold statement piece. There were some changes we wanted to make; like refining the cog and changing the font of the tagline but this was a great first mock. Ventur Agency then went away to cultivate the design and create multiple variants in the form of social media profile pictures, taglines, etc. We did add a few additional requests for things that we hadn't considered prior, which Ventur Agency was happy to add onto the brief. After a little back and forth between ourselves and them, and some minor tweaks, we had a good base for all the deliverables.

The final mark is a presentation of the design as a whole, from custom fonts and colour schemes, to the formats they will be used in; Letterheads, social presence, business cards , etc. Ready for final tweaks.

The brand presentation was the most exciting part of the whole process because it gave us an insight into what the final product could be. We had signed off on the work they had completed so they then went away to create the final deliverables, to ensure everything was ready to release to the public. On completion, we decided to release it in increments over a few weeks to get our audience as excited for the final release as we were.

We have been reborn! Everything from our logo to our colour scheme has been revamped. The colours we have created to represent our brand are Vintage Green, Aged Paper and Charcoal. We initially had very minimalistic branding which we considered to be fresh and clean. However, the green we have chosen has a more traditional feel to reflect our values. The off white colour shows thought and consideration for the finer details while the dark grey gives a bold statement which portrays confidence.

Additionally, with 344 Audio having a strong social media presence, we took this into consideration when discussing the list of deliverables. From this we decided to add highlights on our Instagram. This was to make information about who we are, what we do and examples of our work ready for your viewing pleasure. These will be updated regularly to keep you up to date with the goings-on at 344 Audio. Also, it gives us the ability to show not only our accomplishments and changes to the business but it also gives us the opportunity to showcase the accomplishments of our craftsmen, in and outside of 344 Audio. We have a personal element in the way we work and we wanted that to be depicted proudly on our social media.

The whole process took around three months to complete. It may not seem like a long time, however, the journey was new for us and embarking on a complete rebrand was a much bigger task than we initially anticipated. This project definitely came with some unexpected challenges but we worked hard to reach a result that we are all incredibly proud of.

Finally, we would like to thank Ventur for putting their time and ingenuity into this project. The outcome is impeccable, we are proud to say that they guided us through this process and delivered something that the whole team is absolutely thrilled by.  Once again a big thank you from all of us and we are looking forward to our future collaborations, whatever they may be.

Thanks for checking out this news post!

A wide variety of high profile clients have entrusted us with highly creative and challenging sound design projects over the last year.

We have had the pleasure of working with some amazing clients like; Nike, Reebok, British Army, Warner Bros. and many, many more!

Thanks for checking out this news post!

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Over the past couple of weeks, the team at 344 audio have been editing and releasing some fantastic Cicada libraries, recorded by Brazilian Sound Designers: César Rodriguez Pulido & Guile Martins. A cicada is an insect found primarily in warmer countries. Some species of cicada are only found in Brazil, making these recordings particularly unique. In the mid-west of Brazil, in the heart of Cerrado, is where all of the recordings took place. There are a wide variety of species there, each one with its own tone, pitch and rhythm.

A cicada can live under the ground as a nymph for a very long time until it hatches during the dry season and starts to sing in polyphonic choirs. They can spend over ten years underground before rising to the surface. When they do arise, they often appear in the millions! For local listeners, the Cicadas sing to call the rain at the end of spring and represent the resilience and metamorphosis of the Cerrado itself. Due to the enormous amount of Cicadas, one can feel small and totally immersed inside a Cicada's choir; a truly magnificent experience.

Some cicadas only surface every 13 or 17 years, so to hear their singing is truly rare. It has been hypothesised that this odd cycle of years helps the cicadas avoid predators, as a predator population cycle may range up and down between 1-10 years, so they will never sync up with the irregular, prime numbers of the cicada cycle. While this theory hasn't been proven, it's certainly interesting to think about!

When we received these unique recordings, we knew that we could edit them to produce multiple libraries; perfect for ambiences. The final products will bring you various species captured in different acoustic spaces, such as valleys, forests and even an abandoned pottery kiln. We already have one pack available to purchase in our store and will have the final two packs released this Wednesday!

We hope you enjoyed learning about the rich Brazilian Savannah, and the Cicada's that inhabit it!

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The use of social media has always been paramount for businesses to succeed. Without a robust online presence, potential clients would overlook organisations, reducing their significance in the industry. It's essential to keep up to date with new features on existing social media platforms. However, embracing new ways to provide content online will show a potential customer the businesses' ability to adapt and change to embrace recent trends. The most prominent example of this is TikTok. While many people use TikTok as an entertainment platform for personal use, businesses that use its unique machine learning algorithm could see exponential growth in their following. Never before has it been easier to develop online traction than now.

TikTok is the leading platform in session duration, meaning that once a user has decided to open the app, TikTok is the best for keeping users on the app for a long as possible. Other 'short form' video platforms like Snapchat have had great success in the past, but the artificial intelligence (AI) used in TikTok is proving to be far superior.

So how does the TikTok algorithm work, and how can you use it to your advantage?

When a new video is uploaded, all its features are considered. When a video is analysed, AI is used to identify what can be seen. Then, a natural language processor is used to interpret the audio. Finally, the metadata is also read, which includes the video hashtags and description.

TikTok then pushes the video to a pool of users that it deems suitable for viewings based on the information gathered. The initial 'pool' of users' interactions with the newly uploaded content is closely monitored. It will essentially make or break the video. Different interactions with the content give a score that looks something like this:

• Rewatch: 5
• Full watch: 4
• Share: 3
• Comment: 2
• Like: 1

As you can see in the image on the right, if the content has a high enough score, it will be pushed to a much greater audience. If not, TikTok will deem the content unworthy of continuing in its cycle. The repetition makes it so much easier to produce viral videos than on other platforms. Each time the video cycles round, it is pushed to more and more users.

The more someone uses TikTok, the better its AI is at providing personalised content. To create successful content, one would first need to identify and target an audience. The app is more of a generation Z platform, so uploaded content should have their interests in mind.

For a Sound Design company, I think one of the most powerful ways to utilise the platform will be appealing to young producers. The ability to market large sound FX libraries on TikTok would be a fantastic way to showcase sound design talent. Content must be original, engaging and most importantly, sustainable. Posts on TikTok should be as often as possible. The most successful TikTok pages post daily videos, and it's the consistency on the app that allows their pages to grow exponentially. I would aim to keep viewers watching the video for as long as possible. This would score you the highest 'points', giving you a greater chance of your content being presented to a broader audience.  

I have made a few successful TikTok based videos in the past using creative sound design processes. I wanted to use the platform to convert TikTok following into Spotify & Soundcloud fans. Most of my videos showed me recording lots of samples of a particular product—for example, Party Rings. I would then show all the recorded sounds and manipulate them into drums, bass, and synth leads before creating a finished track. This particular video I made got me some serious publicity on lots of Instagram pages, including Foxes Biscuits! Having a unique approach to content that you haven't seen yourself is the key to success on TikTok. However, I struggled with my profile's consistency aspect, which can slowly bring a TikTok account to a halt. Good content won't get pushed to your audience if you are inconsistent or don't upload frequently.

To conclude, I believe TikTok can be used as a funnelling platform. By this, I mean that 100K followers on Instagram are much more impressive than 100K on TikTok. Companies like Instagram and Facebook will be here for a very long time. Whereas TikTok, like its predecessors: Vine and Muscal.ly, may have a finite lifetime, so it's vital to use the platform while it's still here! Suppose you can create unique and sustainable content. In that case, you'll be able to drive potential customers to your website and Facebook page, where they can truly explore your business.

We hope you enjoyed checking out this article!

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