Following on from our first 20 Questions interview with Lavendel Kranz of Schreibmaschine, here we have the second instalment this time with Ryan Hume from Acid Rain Technology. It’s coming up to 7 years ago when I first met Ryan at Superbooth 2019 where along with Michael Yenik (his partner in Acid Rain Technology) they had their first range of modules. We then went on to work together with the launch of Chainsaw and more recently with their latest released module Ripsaw. We also had some time together for DivKid’s West Coast Adventure, a fantastic trip to the Pacific Northwest where we made this video together. I’m looking forward to learning more about Ryan, so let’s dive in!
01 How would you introduce yourself to someone who has no idea who you are and no idea of the modular, synth, & music tech spaces?
This is always a challenging one – just ask my parents who can’t figure out how to explain to people what I do. I usually say I work in music technology or that I’m an industrial designer and if they seem interested it’s usually followed by some charades-style pretend patching cables and turning knobs to try and explain eurorack without a visual aid.
02 How would you introduce yourself to someone who is aware of modular, synth & music tech worlds?
Many people have heard of modular synths to some degree – especially if you have a picture to show – Switched on Bach was a major success back in the day and they’re such iconic looking devices. I mostly explain to interested folks that I help run a tiny company that sells music technology products to a niche audience all over the world, and some of the unique details about how our little business runs.
03 What were your early influences for getting into what you do now?
I started playing the guitar around age 7 and am lucky to come from an extremely creative and musical family. I consider myself doubly lucky to have been a teenager right around the turn of the millenium when relatively affordable and good quality home digital recording technology came on the market. This definitely planted the seed for Acid Rain Technology early on – I would record my rock band and other bands in high school and learned a lot about music tech through this process. Garageband also came out around then and was an amazing tool for making computer music for beginners.
04 What was the first thing you created either as Acid Rain Technology or something for yourself?
Acid Rain Technology started when I met my business partner Michael on a city bus in Seattle and we very quickly realized we collectively contained the perfect skillset to make the music tech products we both loved. Our first product was the Switchblade which was a 3 channel switch module that used a microcontroller in it to allow you to change its function between momentary and latching and switching and mixing.
05 How was Switchblade, your first module received as it released?
We released the Switchblade in 2018 – right around the beginning of when eurorack really seemed to pick up momentum in the music tech world. If I recall correctly, digital modules were still a bit of a rarity at the time and also the rate of new products coming out seemed much slower than it is now so it was not particularly hard to get noticed. I believe we posted a thread on muffwiggler.com, set up a quick Shopify page and immediately sold a few!
06 How did making that first product influence the next one? Any lessons learned to pass onto others?
The immediate positive reception of the Switchblade was extremely motivating for the two of us – I always wonder where I’d be now if it hadn’t gone that way. We immediately launched into the development of several products – a few of which like the Chainsaw and Navigator made it to production. We started to devote a lot of time outside our day jobs to Acid Rain and the Chainsaw was a much more ambitious product for us at the time. Both Michael and I can be quite perfectionistic and this combined with the Switchblade launched us forward faster than I would’ve expected.
07 Would you say you make things for yourself? How much community influence comes into play with new ideas?
At first I would say we made things 100% for ourselves – Acid Rain was a hobby for us and we just wanted to make things and see what others thought of them. Now, I would say we still use our own excitement as a measuring tool for product ideas but also we take a much more rigorous philosophical and strategic approach to product development. We ask hard questions about our product ideas like “how does this enable a unique mode of musical expression” or “how does this product address a specific workflow problem in the current landscape of music technology devices.” The bar for new product ideas has risen quite high for us at this point – we start and abandon a lot of concepts because they don’t have the magic we are looking for.
08 How do you decide on the value ranges for the controls or CV inputs on your modules?
Ahh the age old problem in eurorack – the community settled on a power spec, physical size, cable size and pitch voltage spec but the missing piece has always been CV range and what is considered “full range” CV. It’s honestly a somewhat arbitrary decision by specific manufacturers – we chose +-5V for our modules as it seemed common at the time we developed the Chainsaw. There is unfortunately no right answer.
09 Generally speaking, what do your products offer that others don’t?
Our focus at Acid Rain Technology is absolutely first and foremost the user interface design of the product. I joke that our best selling product – the Maestro, is practically nothing BUT a user interface. We think very hard about how to display information in front of the user, and do a ton of meticulous engineering to ensure that many functionalities “just work” without the user needing to reference a manual. For example the ability to press buttons in different order to achieve the same result or press and hold vs press and latch to access a menu etc.
10 What are some of the challenges in manufacturing, any tips to share?
2021 was a brutally challenging and also incredibly exciting year for us. At the same time that the Maestro really hit the scene and started to grow in popularity we were faced with the semiconductor shortage and near inability to acquire the parts we needed to make it. Thankfully we were able to get our hands on the chips we needed but sometimes at a 4-5X cost markup. We decided not to raise prices as we felt our products were fairly priced and we could take the hit until the shortage was over which thankfully now it seems to be. Lately US tariffs have been a big problem to navigate and we’re working on figuring that out alongside other US makers – it’s been great to have a supportive community in our little world to help each other figure out how to navigate all these problems.
11 How do classic instruments and designs influence your own work?
For the current products we’re working on I’m thinking a lot more about the “sensitivity” of instruments like a guitar – how the fingers interact with the tension of the strings and the extreme gain ratio of a magnetic pickup into a tube amplifier creates an instrument with enormous dynamic range. Synthesizers traditionally have a relatively small dynamic range compared to other instruments and this to me is an area of electronic instrument design that is under-explored.
12 Do you find inspiration in areas outside of the one you work within?
Absolutely – my background is in industrial design and I love obsessing over the manufacturing details of all kinds of products, furniture and architecture. I also read a lot of science fiction and love the description of objects and technology in books by authors like William Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson.
13 What would you do if you weren’t designing and making gear?
I would definitely be designing and making something – this has been central to my life since I can remember. Outside of Acid Rain I’m involved in an ongoing major renovation of our home, doing almost everything myself which has been a very intense but gratifying journey.
14 Whose equipment besides your own inspires you and why?
Ah too many to mention! Within synthesizers, I’m a fan of SOMA and Vlad Kreimer’s “organismic” philosophy of instrument design and also ALM Busy Circuits quirky approach to product design. I also love gear that’s very of its time both technologically and sonically like the Roland D-50 and 1990s romplers – they evoke a very specific era of music and the sounds are so unique and usable in an almost accidental way. My favorite eurorack modules are highly idiosyncratic concepts like the Noise Engineering Loquelic Iteritas, Make Noise Erbe Verb, and Qu Bit Aurora. I love that you can immediately understand the maker’s opinions about sound when using these devices. Outside synthesizers, I enjoy building clones of certain vintage audio processing units – there’s something about fully discrete circuits, transformers and inductors I find magical – like an alchemy of some sort. I view these as little works of sound-electronic art I collect.
15 What was the last product you created?
This year we released Ripsaw – our evolution of the Chainsaw oscillator on a new hardware platform that is going to host other firmware concepts as well. We’re also coming out with a quantizer that has some unique features we’re excited about.
16 Rather than ask “what’s next?” Where is your current inspiration and thinking for your future?
I am thinking a lot about “complete musical experiences.” I want to make devices that offer an entire approach to music making that is different from others and most importantly enjoyable for the music maker. We may branch out of eurorack for this next year….
17 What’s a piece of music you’d like us to check out?
– Dream Lobby I-X by Devin Morrison – exquisite instrumental production reminiscent of the late 80s-early 90s rnb / jazz pop (rompler heaven)
– Sunset by Caroline Polachek – one of the best current artists out there and this track is a special one
– Cheetah Bend by Jimmy Edgar – probably my favorite producer and this whole album is amazing
18 What is something unrelated you’d like to mention for people to check out or be aware of?
Try making pizza at home – it’s very cost effective and can be absolutely delicious if you do it right. Ken Forkish makes a great book about it that got me started and it’s become a bit of an obsession for me.
19 What’s a question you wish I had asked?
“Can you share a photo of your cat” Yes no problem this is Hazel – the vice purresident of Acid Rain.
20 To end the questions here’s one from the previous guest, which is – “What is your process for deciding what to make next?” and what’s a question you’d like me to ask the next guest?
That’s a good question! I have to admit we don’t have much of a formal process for new product ideas – as I mentioned above there are some principles we like to keep in mind when evaluating ideas but coming up with them in the first place is fairly random. I try to expose myself to as much interesting music making content online as possible, as well as visiting synthesizer retailers and trade shows when I can. It’s interesting that today we have two distinct ways that physical products are experienced – online through demonstration video and testimonials, and then the actual experience of using them in person. I get different inspiration from both ways of interacting with new products, and it’s especially valuable for learning when there is a distinct disconnect between the two. I also like to talk with people on synthesizer discord servers a lot to get outside my head with product design and hear others opinions and reactions to new products and ideas I have.
Question for the next guest – If you had to make an entire 10 track album with one piece of hardware gear what would it be?
Thanks to Ryan for taking the time to answer our questions. Head to acidraintechnology.com for more, read the first 20 Questions HERE and there’s more coming soon.
If you’d like to suggest future interviewees support on patreon.com/divkid to become part of the community where we take suggestions and recommendations to influence what we’re doing all round.
