about
an audio engineer specializing in voice
I’m Neph (or Dryo), an audio engineer with a specific focus on voice. I mix, I record, and I write instrumental music. I’ll do any of these for a project. The voice specialization comes from formal study in classical vocal performance and from a deeper interest in how speech actually works at a spectral and semantic level. The meaning of the lyrics is the single most important thing to me in a mix, and I believe that the instruments should follow the voice unless there’s a specific reason otherwise.
On the composition side, I write for piano and other MIDI instruments; either standalone, or to be placed under a voice.
What I do for you
- Mixing — general mixing, with vocal processing as my focus area
- Composition — instrumental music for piano and MIDI instruments, written for your project
You can hear this in practice on weaponized incompetence, a fully produced track, along with my compositional work.
Background
My educational background is in music technology. Alongside that, I worked as a lab engineer and TA in my department from 2024 to 2026. Teaching students through their own technical problems has done as much for my understanding as any class has.
What I care about is what the processing is actually doing to the signal, not just which setting sounds good. That grew out of a childhood immersed in computers and piano, and I’ve never wanted to separate the two.
Interests
I used to want to know everything before I understood how impossible that is. I tried to learn German to understand English, and I tried to learn Latin to understand French to understand English, and I became fascinated by linguistics along the way, even if I haven’t studied it much.
Through my audio work, though, I found that I believe the temporal and spectral markers of speech must be meaningful, and they must be key to how meaning is communicated between languages. Figuring out how to translate those features across languages is something I could spend my life on.
Get in touch
I’m available for mixing and composition commissions, so tell me about your project! A rough scope, your timeline, and a reference track or two is plenty for me to start working from.
If you’re a small team (and especially if you’re on a game jam), email me anyway! I always want to meet new people, and I love working on projects that tell a story. Games and film tell stories, and that’s where I see myself.