The Man
Robert Nevico is a unique example of late-bloomer. Born in 1978 to presumably human parents in a small New England town, Rob was always into wacky shenanigans. Also, he typically goes by Bobby. As a child, he frequently found himself the host of radio shows where he put his wide range of vocal impressions to work entertaining long time listeners… like Rob Nevico. Combining his love for music composition, he even scored his own shows!
The Hero Pose
It’s a shame they were so terrible. Except his original script for a radio version of Terminator 3, done over a decade before it was a “thing”, and probably far superior. He also wrote, produced and starred in an audio broadcast of Star Wars re-imagined as a comedy hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The dude is pretty creative, despite being an obviously lonely child. As fate would have it, during his tenure as a middle school student, he came across an elective course dedicated to art through video. It was here he made his first stop motion animation film. You’d like it if you could see it, but you can’t because the tape is now twenty-five years old and was probably taped over by later students, a tragedy that still consumes Rob to this very day. Also, even if it was still around, the chances of anyone these days having a working VCR are slim.
During high school, Rob took on a few new challenges to test his creative nature. He played the role of editor for the high school morning news, photographer and graphic designer for the school’s quarterly newspaper and dabbled in creative writing. In his free time, he connected the video of his Super Nintendo and the audio from a stereo into the back of a VCR and using nothing but Mario Paint, some cassettes featuring either music, his voice or both, made a series of cartoons. His thumb still has a callous where the pause button once rubbed into his skin.
After high school, Rob spent the majority of his twenties working under the cruel tutelage of his Uncle Sam, never truly locking himself into a specific career choice as he felt his desires were highly unrealistic, due mainly to growing up in a place where people died in the town they were raised in. From 2005 until 2009, Rob was a freelance voice-over talent, lending his arsenal of voices to a variety of, sadly, low budget productions and the occasional radio stinger or commercial. In 2009, he found himself in New York City, where by chance, he was brought in for sound recording and audio production for a series of film shoots. This eventually led to using his musical scoring prowess to compose several original tracks to the soundtrack of the very series he was now working as a boom operator for.
While this was an amazing experience for Rob, he found that audio production was a gateway to other aspects of the production process and soon found himself picking up community college courses in multimedia studies. Rob soon discovered that he was adept at film editing, cinematography and equally important to musical composition, creative writing for film. In 2012, Rob finally took the advice of a friend and with the support of his amazing wife, enrolled at Full Sail University where he graduated in the top of his class with a Bachelor of Science in Digital Cinematography and has worked in the freelance market ever since. As fate would have it, however… the past has a way of sneaking up on a person to remind them, “Hey! Did you think you could just walk away?” No, not the Mob. We’re square. This is about audio production. Funny thing, life. The thing that got Rob into the field and let him get his feet wet playing in puddles of neat, flashy stuff, has called him back to roost as currently, he is doing certification programs in audio production and music. Cool, right?
The Plan
So now that you’ve read a little about Rob- maybe got a feel for who he is, you’re probably asking yourself, what does he want? The guy does a little of everything. Well, you’re not alone. Rob asked himself this question a few times and got stuck on answering it until he was asked who his inspirations were. Names on that list included Nobuo Uematsu, Dave Wise, Koji Kondo, Hip Tanaka, Yoko Shimomura, Akira Yamaoka and Mirichu Yamane. Considering how much time he put into getting a film degree, it came as a shock to him that literally every person on that short list did one specific thing; wrote the soundtracks to your childhoods. Those inspirations are the composers from video games like Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Silent Hill, Kingdom Hearts and Donkey Kong Country. When Rob was still in the single digits, he had a Casio keyboard and while he had no idea at the time what perfect pitch or play-by-ear meant, he knew that it took him about five minutes to master the theme to Beverly Hills Cop, something he suspects you’re a better person for knowing. On those radio shows mentioned earlier? Rob replicated soundtracks from films and video games and found creative ways to make sound in an environment where most would see it as a lost cause. Try to multi-track record with nothing but two ancient tape recorders. Rob loves film and he loves working on film projects, but in the process of doing his own projects, he realized something interesting. He had composed an entire soundtrack for a short film two years before he had written the script. For a while, he was apprehensive about sharing his musical works to the public because they fell into genres and categories way off the beaten path. He has composed classical scores, dub-step and hip-hop, but mostly his compositions didn’t quite fit into what most would consider to be mainstream. Of course, all it really takes for someone too close to something to get it, is for someone outside of the situation to hear it and say, “hey, is that from World of Warcraft?” No. It wasn’t, but the simple fact that they heard it and assumed it was made Rob realize two things:
- Thank you for mistaking my music for something found in the most successful MMORPG in history, and
- That out of place fit? Video Game Soundtracks.
Upon going back and listening to unfinished compositions, Rob realized that the vast majority of what he had written sounded like it belonged in a video game. So the plan? Rob wants to write music, influenced by his formative years listening to the Mozart’s and Beethoven’s of game scores, and use the incredible knowledge of film that helped him understand tone, themes and where emotion would be best used through sound, to create memorable soundtracks. Perhaps that film degree served a purpose after all.
Why You Should Hire Rob
Simply put, if you made it this far, you’re already interested. Or bored, trying to kill a few minutes. Rob is willing to start on the bottom rung of a ladder, but even if his career in this field begins with fetching coffee, it will end with him in his own studio. Even if that studio was once a spare bedroom in his house. Don’t worry. He knows a guy that can deck the halls. In the beginning, he will come to you, but eventually, you will come to him because you’ll remember him for his humor, integrity and willingness to go the extra ten miles and together, you will make something amazing.
Someone might even offer to fetch him some coffee by that time, but he’s the type of person who will go with them to pick it up because sometimes, the person on the bottom needs a reminder that the top is a good place to aim for.
Rob understands things in a way that’s hard to explain in words. Fun fact: he can read a book and by the end of the first chapter, in his head, he has cast the roles, placed a setting and scored a functional soundtrack. In his head. In like, five minutes. Imagine what could be done when detailed information is given to him. He listens, is not afraid to think outside the box and his passion, to be blunt, will help your passion and create something wonderful. But why should you hire him? Because you want someone on your team who has heart and even when he eventually gets that fancy studio, he will still make time for you.
Things That Might Matter
Rob wrote this website. Yeah. He’s been speaking this whole time in the third person. What’s fun is when he switches things up to a format I’m more comfortable with. See how I did that? As we’ve come along this journey together through my bio, I figured maybe a little more intimacy might be relevant. Clearly I’m not afraid to write. As you can see with this website, I’ve done a little of everything. Literally everything you see here is something I did; photos, design layouts, coding, etc. That, on top of the featured photos, videos and music tracks. And to be fair, I’m comfortable and happy in doing these things. I have well over a decade of experience using all kinds of video editing software, including Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro. I have 25 years experience in Photoshop (yes, I was using it before Windows 95 was a thing), 15 years experience in Audition (which was once Cool Edit Pro, which should be an indication as to how long I’ve been using that software too). In summary; I’m old. Not really, but I felt I should end this paragraph with a joke before hopping into preferences.
I prefer Final Cut Pro for film editing and I prefer Motion for motion graphics and effects. I prefer Logic Pro as my go-to DAW. I have about a decade of experience using it. Longer with its free counterpart, Garageband. I’ve been playing the piano since I was eight. That’s thirty-three years, but I already used the old joke. I’m not afraid of new software or technology. My wife is in IT, so there is added pressure there.
I once Frankensteined a functional surround sound set-up much in the same ways that ET made a functional telephone to call home back in a time when surround sound was not really a thing for people on budgets where ketchup packets and warm tap water equaled tomato soup. Sound is important to me. I’ll be the first to admit I’m still learning how to master digital audio, and I mean that in industry terms. Things like dynamics and compression and equalization are all things I understand and can do, but I have been limited to what resources I have had available. Music and audio editing in general brings me joy. Film editing does this as well, but I’ve found over the last few years that sound was a driving factor in my film journey. I’m 41 years old. I know there are probably people out there half my age that have a better understanding of the tools that are now more widely available to the consumer market, but I don’t do music with the intention of one day calling myself a producer or beat maker or artist. Yes, I can do those things too, but I’m all about emotion through sound.
Additionally, I don’t do generic or mundane in the path to a creation. I once made an instrument out of one of those over-sized plastic microphone toys with the springs in them to make your voice sound funny and turned it into a drum with an extra layer of ambiance suited for something creepy by placing it inside a metal coffee tin and striking it with a paintbrush while it was suspended from a piece of sheet metal because the built-in drum kits didn’t have a sound I wanted. I’ve used paper, silverware and carpentry tools, among other things, to make instrumental percussion sounds. I have multi-layered music, once upon a time, with nothing but a consumer grade keyboard and two tape recorders. I think creatively and want to be the person who takes, for example, your idea, and enhances it and how I do that is by working with you to find a way to put music to an idea, theme or event that resonates and explore every possible avenue in order to make that happen. I can do chiptune music in the vein of old Nintendo Classics. I can do music in the vein of Super Nintendo in which I manipulated software instruments and plug-ins to mimic the sounds of the SPC700 chip. In fact, I’m working on an album right now which showcases a few examples of this. I can do symphonic music, like those big classical scores, or electronic music, or that cool Gothic rock style from games like Symphony of the Night.
So if you’re still here reading this, just know that I love what I do, I love the creative freedom in which I do it and I have decades of inspiration stemming from people I don’t see as composers, but as mentors, who if given the chance to meet, I would personally thank for being instrumental (see, I did it again) in my journey.
Robert Nevico 