BLOG 15/12/2022
Interview — Glazba.hr on sound branding and Cycle Studio
A long conversation with Iva Hanzen for Glazba.hr, published under the headline “Nova era karijere obilježena sound brandingom” — a new era of the career, marked by sound branding. Recorded at Cycle Studio in Zagreb, it is less about DJing and more about the business Jan Kinčl has built around sound: the studio, the label, teaching, and how a musician prices and defends his own work.
What the interview covers
Jan walks through the roles he juggles — producer, DJ and live performer, audio engineer, lecturer at United POP and founder of Cycle Studio and Cycle Records — and explains what sonic branding actually is, using the T-Mobile sting, the Netflix “tu-dum” and the MGM lion as examples. He describes how the pandemic pushed the studio towards outside clients, the global campaign for Lelo and Diesel, the restoration work on the Zagreb Rap Demo (1985–1992) compilation, transparent pricing, his 6 a.m. studio routine with Lovro Baletić, and the launch of Cycle Records with the For A Minute EP and a Gene Hunt remix.
In his words
“A sound logo is like a haiku, a sonic miniature that lasts a few seconds and whose purpose is to instantly remind you of the brand.”
“You are worth the equivalent of the quality and significance of what you do in the present moment, not folklore that is thirty years old.”
(Quotes translated from Croatian.)
Read the full interview
The full interview, in Croatian, is on Glazba.hr.
Jan Kinčl: Nova era karijere obilježena sound brandingom → glazba.hr