Entropico Partners with triple j for Sonic Refresh

There is more noise than ever before cluttering the paths that audiences use to connect with music and culture, and that connection is happening in many more places than just the FM band of your car stereo.

Ahead of their milestone year, triple j wanted to reinforce their position as Australia’s national youth broadcaster - influencing, reflecting and representing youth culture on-air and across all the platforms where they connect with their audience. 

triple j came to the Entropico sound team with the challenge of building a sonic identity that would: speak to the station’s legacy; represent the diverse and evolving community they have served for nearly half a century; and have longevity to continue to fulfil those objectives into the future.

Entropico’s sound lead, Rowan Dix, brought an extensive history of working with brands to bring their sound to life in ad campaigns, as well as scoring film and TV. He teamed up with his creative collaborator, Raphael Dixon: music producer and brand strategist. Together, Dix and Dixon have worked together in many different capacities for over 10 years, with many of the songs they’ve made together as One Day and The Meeting Tree even premiering on the very station they have just re-scored. 

“The world has never been noisier and it’s bloody hard for brands to stand out, and maintain their own identity when they have the pressure to endlessly create content,” said brand strategist and audio producer Rapheal Dixon. “Working with triple j has been fantastic, because they are a brand that inherently recognises the importance of a sonic brand as being more than just a 2 second jingle, but a cohesive yet flexible sonic suite. This allowed us to explore a pretty cutting edge approach to their sonic identity.”

The new sonic identity of the station is anchored by the new logo, which captures the essence of triple j: music, community and – of course – the iconic drum that has been their visual icon since the beginning. On top of that, it had to cut through.

The Entropico team used the logo to inform all the other music they created for the rebrand, making sure it was modular and malleable, spanning genres and tempos so it would fit with anything that could be played now and in the future. These other touchpoints include sound beds presenters talk over, and branded integrations that lead listeners into the biggest songs of the week. 

What are branded integrations, you ask? They are how triple j will make high rotation songs feel like their own. When new songs are added to high rotation, the new triple j audio branding will be added to the intro of the song, reminding audiences where they have found their new favourite song. 

The integrated intros were composed in five moods, ranging from “electronic” and “hip hop” to “Pitdog” (that’s Rock, Surf and Metal, to you non-musos) and “Tipi Forest” (Think: IDM dub and hard dance), with modular keys and BPMs. Entropico then delivered the suite of sounds to triple j in a user-friendly ‘playbook’ so the in-house audio team would be able to take any of these elements and use a little ear and a little music maths to remix and repurpose them as they see fit, using the audio elements long into the future without burning them out – the possibilities are limitless. 

The end result of the rebrand is a comprehensive suite of sounds (4700 of them!) – the logo, integrated intros, beds, sweepers, stings and sound fx. A complete and cohesive library for any situation – all uniquely triple j.

“On top of being extremely rewarding work, this has been a really nice full circle moment for me,” said composer Rowan Dix. “Listening to triple j as a kid made me fall in love with all types of music, and inspired me to create all types of music – initially as a touring artist and more recently as a composer for film and advertising. Because of the skills developed on the back of that inspiration, we were uniquely positioned to be able to execute this project. It's incredibly gratifying to know that our work is going to be heard across the country/world/universe, and we got to play a role in the advancement of the radio station that played such a big role in our advancement as well.”

“Dixie & Raph nailed the brief from the first note,” said head of triple j Lachlan Macara. “Their innate understanding of the brand from both sides of the fence – as both musicians and long-time listeners – has meant they’ve delivered a sonic suite that is constantly evolving and intrinsically linked to the music we love.”