Hi, Welcome to my site. I'm Nichal Aracchande. I know. My name is a bit of a mouthful. But it's led to the creation of new and interesting variations of my name every time someone has pronounced it incorrectly. But I didn't make this website, portfolio and blog to talk about my name.
I want to talk about sound, music and audio production. I am a freelance sound designer, music producer and composer and just love working on sound and music production work.
I've taken a long journey, with lots of ups and down to get the skills I have now. And I will always continue to learn, grow and expand on my skills. And this blog will help document that process, show of my creative vision, and hopefully help to inspire and educate others.
Once a upon a time, I was a teenage boy, who fell in love with sounds. It started with my passion for playing the guitar. But then it evolved in to more as I learnt how to produce music, and even ended up in a teenage metal/grunge band for a few years.
Flash forward a few years, and I'm at university studying Computer Games Design. You must be wondering, how did someone who was passionate about music and sound, end up studying something else. Well sometimes it takes a bit of a detour to learn for yourself what you're truly passionate about.
For me it was in the second year of university, when I choose the Games Audio module as an optional module. I honestly chose it cause, well I like sounds and music, and I thought it would be a bit of a breeze. But during the module, I realised I like to producing sounds and music, and creating a world with my sounds. Layering different sounds to create an interactive world seemed so appealing to me.
And that's when I started freelancing my skills online, using sites like Fiverr. To sell my skills as a music composer, producer and sound designer. In hindsight, I was terrible back then. My mix was all over the place. My instrument choices were terrible. I didn't understand compression so I didn't even use compressors - so I probably shouldn't have been selling my services. But I did. I earned a bit of pocket money every month or so, doing odd audio production work and in the process I learnt more and more.
After graduation from my computer games design degree, I struggled to find a job.
You see, some of us creatives, come with a bit of a curse. The "I am not good enough" curse. It's a fear that holds a lot of creatives back. It held me back. And it makes you less confident in what you make, and makes you question a lot of creative decisions. And for me, it honestly held me back for a year.
But thanks to this curse, I decided I really wanted to make sure my knowledge on Audio production was better. That my my mixes, didn't sound like sh*t. So I ended up back at university, doing a Masters in Audio Production. And it was probably the best thing I did for myself.
I learnt so many things, learnt to perfect my mixes and even became good at mixing in 5.1 surround sound. Learnt about radio production, learnt more about games audio, audio for film, post production and more. My time during my Masters taught me a lot and was definitely my favourite time in academic education.
And it was only after that degree, that I figured out how to get round to introducing myself to the world.
I needed a portfolio. I needed a website. I need to be on Social media. I needed to build my brand. I needed to show the world that I existed and what I had to offer.
And well.
Long story short - Hi, Welcome to my site. I'm Nichal Aracchande.