ABOUT / CONTACT

History

Hello Friends!

My name is Tom and I am one of RYO's co-founders, current product designers and hardware engineers as well as currently the current boss.

Before helping launch RYO, I had a career working in universities and labs doing a variety of scientific research work as well as some desk jobs in a number of fields. I have been involved in genetic engineering, engineering microbiology, environmental/energy sciences and engineering, community environmental work amongst other disciplines.

     i started djing and collecting electronic music vinyls when i was about 14 and quickly realised i wanted to actually control what happenned in the music in detail not just play other peoples music - so i got into producing - around the age of 18 i sold all my games consoles etc and bought a little quasimidi 309 groovebox, a yamaha sy01 sampler and cubase sx3 to control them from the computer as well as do recordings and arrange/process/mix the recordings afterwards. so arrived synthesisers in my world! [i cant play any instruments or sing so i needed something i could control with a computer not my hands feet or voice].

     i become interested in the design of synthsbecause unfortunately [fortunately?] i wanted things i wanted things that didnt exist - had to make em myself. i guess the modular synth community helped greatly because the whole community is very much interested in how the things work and having their own ideas.especially the [former muffwiggler, now mod wiggler] irc chat which developed the offshoot that is now the wiggle room discord server.
RYO was founded in 2013 by me and a couple of swedish guys who were roomates, we met in the [former] muffwiggler irc chat after we were chatting over the course of many weeks and we [me, andreas and ben] came to the realisation that we had very similar ideas about what was important in module design, what was missing from the [then current] world of modular synthesis, saw a niche open in the market and had a number of fundamentally solid seeming concepts for modules we wanted to see in existence that didnt - so we decided to fill that niche and start producing the missing pieces in the modular jigsaw.

Since its nearly 10yrs ago and and my memory is somewhat hazy so i couldnt tell you quite who suggested what when and so on but i remember very much we all seemed to strongly share a philosophy and idea set that gelled very well and we just seemed a natural trio to work together.
Andreas had business knowledge so knew some of the necessary marketing, tax/accounting, required ways to analyse cost vs. price analysis type things etc, ben had the graphic design skills and willingness as passionately as andreas to learn electronics and i was into diy electronics a bit and wanted to learn more and along with the other two had my share of concetpts/ideas - between us we had the time, money, motivation and readiness to start a company so we dived in!
i spent about a year intesely reading everything i could inhale on the topic of electronics and electronic engineering - along with the parallel learnign alongside my co-founders anderas and ben. they developed their skills at the samae time as me, we learned together and helped eachother massively. as well as the syllabuses of universities that publish their courses free, a massive amount of googling wiipedia etc and then the wonders of access to an online university science library so having a full rnage of peer reveiwed papers/journal articles and other research i pretty much learned fulyl online. i didnt really use the art of electronics or sources you would expect - i found them heavy going and full of unnecessary mathematics and detail irrelevant to my specific line of work.

we had great success from launch due to some real solid business understanding on, imho, andreas part - without his background foundations in business, early on we probably would have been nothing really special or done well if survived at all, business was steady for a good few years and if it weren't for ill health causing the retirement of andreas and ben leaving the company in a rough patch at one point a coupla years ago things were pretty solid right through - the company ended up on hiatus for a year or so whilst it adjusted to the loss of andreas and ben and i dealt with some of my own ill health issues and other troubles, but it was not long before the beginning of the whole covid thing. during early lockdowns i found the time, energy and motivation to revive the company and put all my free time made partly available by the lockdowns to restart everything, inherit all the necessaries from andreas and bens end and completely revamp the whole financial aspect/business model.      

Cutting a new exclusive deal with synthcube and thus securing a solid future for RYO, that deal, thanks to synthcube's fantastic personal attention and style of real close supportive business practices, supporting modular manufacturers, particularly diy module kit manufacturers pretty much saved the company from collapse and allowed me to start even growing with new module designs, re-releasing old ones that had proved difficult to sustain and also continue the favourites that were popular and hence in demand still. as a result we are stronger than ever to this day and the niche that was initially spotted in the market for beginner friendly highly, ergonomic and well designed modules that also offered something unique was secured.       

KEY PEOPLE

Me, tom - currently doing near everything i can, but farming out everything possible to freelancers to take the load off. you can pick up what i do from the history above, but i also write all the manuals and other documentation, create website stuff, have created/edited the learning resources, and generally do all the odds n ends that no-one else can or will do. also:
allmylinks.com/waxcide

Snailz, from the USA is also responsible for some current product design/prototyping as well as hardware engineering and software engineering and is the other main driving force.

CONTRIBUTORS
- MagneticGloom design work for RYO's 'visual identity' from logos to faceplates and manuals.
https://allmylinks.com/magneticgloom

- module photos on this site shot by co-founder benjamin ljunggren, further editing and processing by MagneticGloom.

- this website has been greatly helped in its development and design by sevencats - without his advice and hard work it never would even have got this far!

- Module related artworks by  HDIZZLE
https://www.instagram.com/heatheractuallymakesart/
















- Many patch ideas and tips by Avareth Taika
avarethtaika.com

other work done by:
- soren terpen,
- b4rd
- a n tiochcemetery
antiochcemetery.bandcamp.com


- Chookie: 
kill chookie / kc custom artwork on instagram








- thanks especially to  synthCube
- and Jonatan Liljedahl at Kymatica AB/kymatica devices:
get in touch!




henlo and lubs all my frens and lovved ones :)
i'll miss you forever moth <3