IMMERSE IN THE SONIC CREATIVITY OF
NICHOLAS YOVINA
Dive into a realm where music, theater, and film converge into harmonious audio experiences crafted by a seasoned sound designer.
Welcome to the portfolio of Nicholas Yovina, sound designer, music producer, and educator.
With extensive experience in theatrical sound design, live production, and studio music, this is where creativity meets technical excellence.
Explore selected works that showcase Nicholas’s versatility, from atmospheric stage soundscapes and cinematic audio cues to original music compositions.
Whether designing for theatre, engineering live shows, or producing beats, Nicholas approaches every project with meticulous attention to detail, innovation, and a strong sense of storytelling.
In addition to his professional portfolio, this site features a distinguished example of student work from one of Nicholas’s sound design courses.
This project provides insight into the practical skills and creative techniques students develop through his guidance, illustrating the high level of craftsmanship they are encouraged to achieve.
Skills
Sound Design &
Audio Storytelling
Nicholas Yovina excels in the art of sound design, crafting immersive auditory experiences that elevate storytelling across theatre, film, and multimedia. With a deep understanding of how sound shapes emotion and narrative, his work consistently brings depth and dimension to visual media. Nicholas’s expertise spans the entire design process, from concept development and cue building to system programming and live implementation. Whether designing subtle ambiences or dynamic action sequences, he approaches each project with precision, creativity, and an acute sensitivity to the emotional impact of sound.
Music Production &
Composition
With over a decade of experience in music production, Nicholas has developed a distinctive voice in the hip hop and EDM genres. His productions are known for their crisp mixes, bold arrangements, and emotionally resonant textures. As both a producer and lyricist, he brings a holistic, musical perspective to every track, balancing technical control with artistic expression. His command of DAWs like Logic Pro, Ableton Live, and Pro Tools allows him to create work that is both innovative and commercially viable, making him a versatile collaborator for artists, performers, and media projects alike.
Teaching &
Mentorship
As an educator, Nicholas is deeply committed to student growth, inclusive learning, and real-world skill development. In his role as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Sound Design at Shenandoah University, he combines hands-on training with conceptual frameworks that prepare students for professional success. He designs curriculum that is accessible to learners of all levels, demystifying complex audio tools while fostering critical thinking and creative problem-solving. His mentorship extends beyond the classroom, supporting emerging artists and technicians as they develop confidence, technical fluency, and a personal voice in the field of sound.
MUSIC
Nicholas Yovina is a distinguished music producer whose work exemplifies a refined balance of technical expertise and creative artistry.
With 15 years of experience specializing in Hip-Hop and EDM, Nicholas brings a dynamic fusion of musicality, innovation, and production savvy to every project he undertakes.
His sound is characterized by crisp, well-balanced mixes, impactful arrangements, and a masterful command of rhythm, texture, and spatial depth, creating immersive listening experiences that resonate both emotionally and sonically.
Nicholas’s production style embraces both the precision of modern digital tools and the organic feel of live instrumentation and vocal performances.
This blend allows him to craft tracks that feel polished yet vibrant, leveraging advanced techniques in beat programming, sound design, vocal processing, and mixing to achieve clarity and power without sacrificing musicality.
As both a professional artist and dedicated educator, Nicholas consistently upholds the highest standards of excellence.
He approaches each project with intentionality and passion, delivering music that not only meets rigorous technical criteria but also connects with listeners on a deep emotional level.
His work reflects an understanding that great production serves the song and amplifies the artist’s voice rather than overshadowing it.
His deep knowledge of industry-standard software, including Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, as well as other digital audio workstations, combined with an artist’s vision for storytelling through sound, positions Nicholas as a standout figure in today’s competitive music production landscape.
He also incorporates niche, cutting-edge, and avant-garde software and technology not yet widely adopted in today’s music scene, enabling him to craft a unique style of musical instrumentals that maintain a modern feel while pushing creative boundaries.
Presented below are three recent examples of his work in the hip hop genre, each reflecting his distinctive approach to modern music production: meticulous arrangement, innovative soundscapes, and a commitment to
pushing creative boundaries while maintaining accessibility and groove.
Sonic Worldbuilding with Wwise & Unreal Engine
This project showcases Nicholas Yovina’s work redesigning the audio landscape for Lyra, a third-person shooter demo built in Unreal Engine.
Using Wwise for real-time sound integration, Nicholas replaced and implemented custom sound effects across the game's environment.
Each sound element, ranging from ambient textures to object interactions and character animations, was carefully designed and mapped to in-game assets, creating a fully immersive sonic environment.
Through this process, Nicholas not only demonstrated advanced technical skills in middleware and engine integration, but also a nuanced understanding of how interactive sound supports player experience and gameplay flow.
This project reflects his ability to build dynamic, responsive soundscapes that elevate both narrative and immersion in real-time media.
The Art of Voice: Mixed-Genre Commercials
Commercial Series: Everyday Products, Elevated Sound
This project features a series of distinct promotional spots produced by Nicholas Yovina, each tailored to highlight the unique qualities of brands like Aveno Baby Lotion, Domino’s, AG1 by Athletic Greens, and Wendy’s Four for Four. The Aveno spot evokes gentle, nurturing textures suited to baby care, with soft vocal treatment and warm soundscapes. Domino’s and Wendy’s ads bring energetic pacing and bold, engaging delivery to capture the fast-food vibe, while the AG1 spot blends wellness-focused clarity with an inviting tone that complements the brand’s health-conscious audience. Through expert vocal editing, layered sound design, and precise pacing, Nicholas transformed natural conversational recordings into fully produced, broadcast-ready commercials that vividly bring each product’s story to life.
Personality Driven Ads: Real Estate, Rum,
and 7-Eleven
This voiceover series features four distinct commercial spots produced by Nicholas Yovina, each highlighting a different brand while showcasing his versatility in voice-driven sound design. The Realtor.com ad offers a heartfelt tribute to the value of local real estate expertise, enhanced through warm vocal treatment and intentional pacing. For Kraken Rum, Nicholas leaned into bold humor and mythic flair, transforming an exaggerated performance into a gritty, character-rich piece with dramatic energy. The 7-Eleven spot captures the relatable urgency of late-night cravings with a casual, humorous delivery, supported by crisp editing and ambient cues. Finally, the Panasonic ad presents a more refined and immersive tone, emphasizing clarity and precision to reflect the brand’s commitment to high-end audio. Together, these spots demonstrate Nicholas’s ability to take unscripted voice performances and elevate them into fully produced, emotionally resonant commercial work tailored to each brand’s unique identity.
Branded Storytelling:
From Pet Food to
Public Advocacy
This audio series combines humor, warmth, and social awareness, brought to life through Nicholas Yovina’s nuanced sound design and vocal production. The spots promote Freshpet’s fresh pet food, Dawn Power Dish Spray’s cleaning power, Brownberry’s wholesome bread, and itsonus.org’s impactful message on preventing sexual assault. Each piece carries a unique sonic identity, from the fresh and comforting textures of pet care to the crisp, energizing tones of cleaning products, culminating in a heartfelt and powerful PSA. Nicholas expertly enhanced vocal clarity, pacing, and emotional nuance, while integrating subtle music and ambient layers to create an engaging and cohesive series that balances personality with purpose.
Classwork Example
Sound Design and Effects
In this final project from my Sound Design course, students were challenged to fully recreate the audio for a video clip of their choosing.
This assignment focused on building a complete sonic world using original Foley recordings, layered sound effects, action music, and ambient background elements, excluding dialogue, which was not required for the project.
Throughout the semester, students were introduced to these core sound design techniques through a structured and accessible curriculum designed to support learners at all experience levels.
By the time they reached this final project, they had built the technical and creative skills necessary to execute a complete audio redesign from the ground up.
The featured video showcases the work of Mikayla White, a recent graduate and exceptionally talented sound designer.
While Mikayla had prior experience in post-production audio for music and theatre, this project marked her first foray into film sound, demonstrating both her adaptability and creative range.
Her ability to translate those skills into a cohesive and emotionally engaging sound design for visual media highlights not only her growth as an artist, but also the effectiveness of the course in preparing students for cross-disciplinary work.
The final product is a testament to the student’s creativity, attention to detail, and growth as a sound designer over the course of the semester.
Underscoring & Sonic Beds
Nicholas Yovina’s work in underscoring and sonic bed design reflects a nuanced understanding of how ambient texture and music support narrative, mood, and emotional depth.
With a background that spans theatrical sound design, live performance, and cinematic audio, Nicholas has developed original underscoring and atmospheric layers for a wide range of productions, from stylized stage dramas to experimental film projects.
Each composition is crafted with intention, blending traditional scoring techniques with immersive sound design and emotional sensitivity to elevate storytelling without overpowering it.
Whether subtly supporting a monologue or dynamically scoring a montage, his approach is rooted in narrative awareness, tonal clarity, and seamless integration with dialogue and visuals.
A central thread in Nicholas’s work is the exploration of contrast, how light and dark sonic elements can mirror the internal push and pull of human experience.
His compositions often reflect the constant battle between hope and doubt, clarity and chaos, stillness and momentum.
By layering tension against release, dissonance against harmony, he captures the fleeting nature of our emotional states.
These quick shifts in tone and energy mirror the way thoughts and feelings emerge and recede within us.
Through careful dynamic shaping and tonal juxtaposition, Nicholas seeks to express the emotional duality of existence, creating soundscapes that feel not only immersive, but deeply human.
Nicholas’s sonic beds draw from a diverse palette of synthesized textures, acoustic elements, field recordings, and rhythmic motifs.
These soundscapes serve as an invisible but vital thread, shaping pacing, guiding emotion, and enhancing atmosphere.
The selections included here represent only partial clips of larger compositions, offering a glimpse into his broader sonic landscapes and narrative instincts.
These pieces not only highlight his musical sensibility, but also his collaborative spirit, working closely with directors, designers, and editors to realize a unified creative vision.
Cinematic Audio Reconstruction & SFX Redesign of Doom Eternal
This sound redesign project features a meticulously reconstructed scene from the video game Doom Eternal, showcasing Nicholas Yovina’s detailed approach to action-driven sound design.
Working from a completely silent gameplay clip, Nicholas recreated every sonic element, from ambient environmental textures like fire, electrical sparks, and emergency alarms, to high-impact action sounds including weapon effects, creature vocalizations, and nuanced footfalls.
Each sound was carefully selected, designed, and layered to ensure seamless integration and precise synchronization with on-screen events.
The result is a fully immersive audio experience that highlights Nicholas’s technical precision, creative agility, and commitment to building cohesive, emotionally resonant soundscapes in high-intensity visual media.
About Me
Nicholas Yovina is a sound designer, music producer, lyricist, and educator whose work spans theatre, live performance, film, television, and studio music production.
With over a decade of professional experience, he is known for shaping immersive sonic environments that bridge technical precision with emotional storytelling.
Nicholas currently serves as the Sound Supervisor for Theatre Facilities and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Sound Design at Shenandoah University, where he mentors the next generation of sound artists while overseeing audio production for university theatrical programming.
His teaching philosophy centers on technical fluency, interdisciplinary collaboration, and cultivating students’ creative voices through hands-on engagement with industry-standard tools such as QLab, Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, and a broad range of digital mixing consoles.
He is proficient in operating systems from Avid, Behringer, Midas, Yamaha, and DiGiCo, among others, adapting easily to different workflows and optimizing each console’s capabilities in both live and studio environments.
In the world of theatre, Nicholas has sound designed and mixed a wide array of productions across genres, including Waitress, Antigone, Legally Blonde, The Royale, Le Nozze Di Figaro, Falstaff, Little Women, Million Dollar Quartet, Spamalot, and The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, among many others.
His extensive experience also includes a plethora of live mixes for jazz bands, guitar festivals, and other live music events, showcasing his versatility and ability to adapt to diverse sonic environments.
Nicholas’s soundscapes are lauded for their attention to detail, textural layering, and intuitive responsiveness to actors and narrative beats.
Whether building immersive worlds through subtle ambience or driving dramatic moments with underscoring and effects, his work consistently heightens emotional depth without overshadowing the story.
Nicholas has also created a range of demo reels and commercial voiceover showcases for aspiring voice actors, recording scripted content inspired by branded companies to help clients break into the industry.
These projects highlight his expertise in vocal editing, pacing, and production, transforming raw performances into polished audio portfolios.
In his underscoring and ambient composition work, Nicholas explores the interplay between light and dark, capturing the emotional push and pull of existence through carefully sculpted sound. His sonic beds blend synthesized textures, acoustic recordings, rhythmic motifs, and environmental field elements, designed to act as an invisible yet vital emotional thread beneath dialogue or action.
These compositions often reflect the fast-changing states of human thought and feeling, hope and anxiety, joy and grief, shifting in real time to underscore the narrative’s emotional truth.
Nicholas also produced a cinematic sound redesign demo of a silent scene from Doom Eternal, meticulously reconstructing environmental and action sound effects such as weaponry, creature noises, electrical sparks, and emergency alarms.
This project was created to showcase his keen eye for detail and ability to synchronize sound precisely with visuals, demonstrating his skill in immersive audio storytelling outside of commercial or client work.
As a music producer, Nicholas specializes in Hip-Hop and EDM, fusing hard-hitting drum design with emotional, atmospheric textures.
His production style is dynamic and detail-oriented, often incorporating a songwriter’s sensibility honed over years as a lyricist.
From beat-making and arranging to vocal engineering and mixing, he brings both technical control and emotional depth to every track.
Whether designing a theatrical moment, producing a studio track, or mentoring aspiring artists, Nicholas approaches every project with narrative focus, collaborative openness, and a passion for sonic exploration.
His work continues to push creative boundaries while empowering others to discover and express their own voice through sound.