Bogdan Gevko

A 25 years old self-taught producer, Former Marine Corps, Currently living in Kansa, @Bogdan Gevko is this month SoundGym Hero.

So how long have you been on SoundGym?

My name is Bogdan, I'm 25 years old and I currently live in Kansas.  I discovered SoundGym in February and have been a member ever since.  

What was your first connection to music?

I joined the middle school band when I was 10 years old. I played the trumpet for 5 years and ended up quitting my Sophomore year in high school.  At the time, I quit because most of my friends quit and I didn't want to be 'lame' in front of my friends. I graduated high school and joined the Marine Corps and a couple years at later at 19 years old I realized how shallow my reasoning was and how playing an instrument was actually extremely fulfilling. After this realization, I bought a guitar and started teaching myself through online tutorials on how to play.  This eventually lead to me wanting to record myself playing, which allowed me to discover my first DAW, FL Studio, and the wonderful world of music production.  Although I never did become very good at playing, I discovered a new-found passion for music production and decided to make it my primary purpose in life. 

You're currently going to school for music production and sound design, tell us about that?

I started learning music production around 2013 after acquiring FL Studio.  I wouldn't really call it music production, I mostly learned how to use Nexus presets for every one of my early tracks.  For the next couple of years, I made attempts at creating music in motivated 1-2 month bursts and would completely stop for 3-6 months at a time.  Needless to say, progress was extremely slow.  Eventually, I realized that I wanted to take music production a little bit more seriously and that my learning approach has not been effective.  I decided to join Berklee's degree program for Electronic Music Production and Sound Design so that I could a focused and direct approach to learning.  

I've been taking classes with Berklee since March of 2016 and so far, it has been fantastic.  The classes took me back to the basics, but I realized that I didn't even know the basics.  Tuition is quite expensive, but it's been manageable because I was fortunate enough to receive a veteran discount and many of my classes were only a fraction of the cost due to tuition assistance that I received from the Marine Corps while I was active duty.  It's important to note that I may not have gone the formal schooling option if I didn't receive as much help as I did from Uncle Sam, but I'm really glad I did and I have been very satisfied with my progress.  I have uploaded most of the tracks that I've ever finished to Soundcloud; not so much as to build a fan base, (although it has helped), but more of a progress measuring tool for myself. Check out the link below and my page bio if you would like more info: https://soundcloud.com/bgevko 

Who have been your biggest musical influences?

I listen to a lot of electronic music these days, but I'd say that the music that has impacted me the most have come from video game composers.  I grew up listening to video game compositions from games such as Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and a lot of stuff from Nintendo.  Some of my favorite composers include Nobuo Uematsu, Koji Kondo, Hiroki Kikuta, and Hans Zimmer.  The late 90s and early 2000s had an amazing selection of video games that were a huge part of my childhood and the soundtracks in most of the games of this time fill me with nostalgia.  

Tell us about Tips & Tricks space, why you open it and how did you come up with all the cool Tricks?

Around the time I opened the space, a lot of people were asking for advice on the compressor game.  I figured that it was such a common theme that I should create a space in which the strategy for that specific game or any other games could be discussed.  I opened the space and posted some of my own strategies that worked for me. I discovered my strategies mainly through playing the games repeatedly and trying different things. 

What have you been working on lately?

I just finished a 3-minute track that I created with Logic Pro X using stock plugins and techniques that I recently learned in a Logic Pro X class that I just completed.  It was my final for the class and I got a lot of good criticism on it from the teach.  Also, this week I've started a class on Mixing and Mastering; I'll be learning about it and completing mixing projects for the next 12 weeks.  

Tell us a bit about your workflow in the studio?  

I switch it up all the time, but at the moment, I start with a custom Logic Pro X template.  In the template, I have a few instruments loaded and synths loaded; the instruments change too from time to time, but these are the sounds that I like to start with to create melodies and harmonies.  After opening my template, I'll start some sort of an idea-generating process.  I have quite a few processes for generating ideas. To name a few:

Listening to music on Youtube for inspiration before recording

Playing around on my keyboard for a while before I come up with a chord progression or melody that I like and then recording that

Just hit record and play anything for 2-3 minutes.  This is sloppy and requires a lot of editing because I'm not a keyboard player, but I come up with nice results sometimes

Pull ideas from daily melodies.  Daily melodies is a system that I have implemented into my daily routine.  On most days, at a minimum, I will create an 8 bar melody and harmony and I will save the project file into my Daily Melody folder.  Some of them turn out really nice, others, not so much.  The goal is not to create full projects or even finishing projects daily, it's more of a warmup and to practice creativity.  This has worked well because when I do need to finish a project and for whatever reason I cannot come up with any ideas, I have the option to build upon dozens of previous ideas.

These processes will give me enough ideas to build an arrangement; I mostly work with MIDI because I'm not that great of a musician.  After I'm satisfied with the arrangement, I'll mix the project using Logic Pro X. After mixing, I attempt to master the file to the best of my ability and then bounce the final project. 

Which 3 plugins you can't live without?

Waves NX, which emulates studio monitors in a controlled space on headphones.  I'm on the road a lot and I can't always have access to monitors, so I use the NX plugin to check my mixes, especially for the stereo image.  

Native Instruments Kontakt.  Since I work mostly with MIDI, I use a lot of sample libraries.  

Valhalla Room, my go-to reverb.  

What is one of your favorite production techniques?  

Nothing extreme, I use overdub recording majority of the time.  I'll play a loop and keep recording something over the top of it until I come up with an idea that I like. 

One free plugin that you recommend?

MFreeFXBundle by Melda Productions.  I got the set just for the spectral analyzer, which is fantastic, but the other plugins in the bundle are good as well.  

What is your secret plugin that no one knows about? 

I love iZotope Vinyl that I recently downloaded for free after seeing it featured on SoundGym.  Can't answer if it's really a 'secret', but just I know that I didn't know about it and it was an awesome find. 

Have you made music today?

Nothing crazy just messed around in my DAW for a bit and created a loop for my daily melodies.

What does the future hold for Bogdan Gevko in the music industry?

I'd plan to finish my degree and eventually decide between scoring soundtracks, sound design for media/games, or mixing engineer.  My options are still open and I'll be exploring all of them in the next 5 years.  

Last question, what is your favorite SoundGym feature and why? 

My favorite game is the EQ Cheetah.  I think it's great for developing instinctive frequency recognition.  I hope to see more games in that style.