Splendid and insightful doc! Yiannis and Dimitra are such an incredible design team with the combination of their idiosyncratic ideas. Thanks for making this!
Thanks Gaz. It was fun and more challenging than I realized it would be to put it all together, but it captures what I wanted it to capture, so I’m happy. Glad to help put the spotlight on some good people who just happen to make some great synths.
ProckGnosis I was a bit sad to learn of them stopping the pedal line as I was planning on getting the set! But yes great people and great synths indeed!
Well, there is the new Dreadbox Epsilon Limited, if you can snag one. But you would have to go used for the other ones, and based on some of the prices I've seen, they appear to be holding their value fairly well.
This was a very nice and very rare interview because most creators or companies don't usually show or reveal much as to how they work to develop a unit. So very nice of Yiannis and Dimitra for letting us all in into their world. They were very warm and really gave us lots of insight as to how they create beautiful synthesizers from none other than Athens, Greece. It's hard to believe how far they've come and I can only wish them continued success and prosperity. :)
Yeah, the amazing thing being that they built this company in the middle of the Greek financial crisis. There was some fortunate timing with analog synths becoming popular (as they mentioned), but they also had some really good products that were cool looking and great sounding as well.
ProckGnosis exactly and they survived the crisis because they are clever and talented! Greetings from Patras and electronic composer Thaneco. I love your channel and your reviews!
I am the proud owner of Nyx #990 and I can't wait to get Abyss next and then Erebus and then probably a DIY kit or fx pedal. Thanks to Dreadbox for allowing us a peek into their world and interview and thanks ProckGnosis for sharing it with us. I love their design and sound!
Thank you for taking the time to shoot this. What a lovely couple. I'm now even more of a Dreadbox fanboy than before! Hoping to add the Erebus V3 to the collection (Nyx, Epsilon and Drive module) if/when funds allow and really looking forward to seeing what comes next.
Lol...maybe you can win another one. If not, it's still worth saving up the money for. Yeah, they are some good people. Met them initially in April 2014 in Athens when I bought the first Murmux, and that was what struck me back then...just really good people. It's so great to see them grow and make even cooler products, and better yet, get some recognition for it.
Yeah, it is a great story. I knew parts of it (which is why I wanted to do the video), but there were even more cool nuggets and tidbits than I suspected. It came out even better than I had hoped, which is always good.
Very cool documentary. It's great getting a glimpse into the inner-workings of the innovative Dreadbox world. Thanks for taking the time to put this together!
Eep... Don’t know how I missed this video! Thanks for the tour and interview! Cool to see the place where my dreadbox eurorack modules were actually designed and made!
Graag gedaan Marc. Hopefully you were just deeply distracted by making cool synth music to accompany some cool videos, because that's always a good reason...although not always for my wife. Speaking of Dreadbox modules, this evening I was just playing with my KB37 that's mostly stuffed with them now (I took out the Model D). I have 3 osc's (2 from the Omikron, and 1 White Line) and I was running them through a Pittsburgh filter that seems fairly easily overdriven with all 3 of the oscillators, and it growls quite nicely. : )
ProckGnosis : sounds awesome... Hope we’ll get a demo of that soon! I recently did another video with my 87PM bandmate on my other channel, but will probably do something myself again soon, too. Thing is, I am kind of playing around with my recording setup to get better and more simultaneous angles in the next video, so there's some setup issues to solve as well.
love this guy; love his stuff. long live dreadbox, thanks for sharing the video LE: quite a good example of a small company who can produce" good quality gear @ good price.
@@mentafountakaiwu4525 I've had quite a few actually, and they make a fairly good variety of styles. Unfortunately Mythos is about the only Greek beer I can find here in the states. I used to get Fix dark when I was still in Germany, which I like quite a bit, but no luck finding it here.
Thanks! Yeah, it's a cool story...we had talked about doing this back in 2016 when we were in Greece a previous time, but the timing never worked out. Very glad it did this time.
Thanks for the interview! Interesting to hear that Yannis wants to pursue the hybrid route.. I'm fine with that, as long as they don't stop making more straightforward, "purely" analog synths like their Erebus. Also, thumbs up for more diy kits.
Yeah, I agree. The Medusa is cool as hell to be able to create some fairly complicated patches and then save them (and I seriously love the paraphonic modes), but as I've said the last year or so, I've really enjoyed NOT having to menu dive so much playing with the Abyss, the Nyx, the KARP Odyssey, etc. Dreadbox is awesome for capitalizing on what they've learned, so I expect the next hybrid they make will have even a few tricks past the Medusa.
I also want to give you a Thanks for this video of your interview. I agree they seem like a very cool, laid back team. Curtis included :-). I have the NYX, Erebus v2, and DIY Hades and have learned quite a bit about how to use them from your videos. I kicked around getting the DIY lil Erebus but since I already have the V2 and really want the V3 (I don't need it at all but looks like it has a few new neat bells and whistles) I didn't think I needed an extra Erebus. Thank you again and I look forward to see what else comes out of Greece with Dreadbox.
After hearing so many great things about Dreadbox, and doing a great deal of listening, I just ordered an Erebus v3. Thanks for making this video (and from the home country of Vangelis, too!).
You're welcome. I think you'll enjoy the Erebus v3. It really has a lot of potential, especially with the sound-sculpting options you can get from patching it. Having checked out some of your tunes (quite nice), I think you'll be able to make good use of it. Cheers!
@@ProckGnosis Hated dogs all my life. I was bit as a small child. Hated em all my life. My wife brought home a rescue westie about 16 years ago. Regis. I immediately told her “he’s going back tomorrow!” - needless to say, 2 weeks later him and I were inseparable. He didn’t care for the Mrs at all. And now I love all dogs. Because a westie melted my cold black heart. We’re on westie #2 now (Wally Walter Wallingford, the First). Couldn’t imagine life, or music, without him.
Awesome, Yannis make this woman happy she is the real force ...I see Dimitra's face in this interview and oh man ...with your electronic skills and her lush for success your are on top of the game. BTW Medusa is coming today so will post some vids soon
Wow !!!!, what a great tour/interview. Props to yourself for getting over to greece and putting this video together. Dreadbox is a very inspirational manufacturing crew . Maybe one day ill have my own little outfit like this, designing and making great sounding sound tools for the people 😆😆
Hey AA. Yeah, isn't it cool to see folks who started out in kind of the same way? You've also got some great sounding ideas already...hopefully you get the chance to run with them in the future too...
Really fascinating seeing the inside of Dreadbox! they seem like great people! I'm still really new to synths but really drawn to how theirs sound and look! Hopefully at some point I'll be able to get one of theirs!
They're definitely worth saving up some money for. Should be able to find some used ones (Erebus v1 or v2) for even less, but after just checking used prices online, they do appear to retain their value fairly well.
Norwegian here, who just go interested in Dreadbox synths. I stumbled on them by accident. Until today I only really knew about Moog, Behringer, Arturia and Korg. Those where the companies I considered buying my first analog synth from. It is super cool that Dreadbox is not only European but also Greek. I don't often see Greek tech companies. And I know what it is like being from a relatively small country. We got a speaker manufacturers named Seas in my home town Moss, Norway. They are a bigger than this outfit but they still hand assemble. What they talked about is that to compete with large mass production in Asia you need to make unique specialized quality stuff. That is what it seems like these guys are doing. Anyway rooting for you. Hoping this company goes places. I love the design choices. That you can use these as standalone and in a Eurorack (or some of them). And that the interface is clean simply and very aesthetically pleasing. I am a sucker for nice looking stuff. Dreadbox really checks all the boxes in terms of ease of use, flexibility and aesthetics.
Thanks for the comments. Pretty much everything you've mentioned is why I think they've done fairly well in the synth market. I did a follow-up visit/interview in 2021 ("Dreadbox Revisited"). You can see how they continued to grow and expand a bit into digital/analog with the Nymphes and Typhon. And though small, I would say Norway is a pretty cool country. Haven't been in a while, but my day job took me up there a couple times (Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim), and I always really enjoyed it. Both Norway and Greece definitely have their own flavor that I really like. And if you're from Moss, you might have heard of heard of the band "Magic Pie". They're out of Fredrikstad, and I met them on the Cruise to the Edge 2019. Really good guys. Tusen takk and cheers!
haha, 1:20 min....don´t drink until the cheer has started. thank you for this excellent and interesting insight view. i definitly love dreadbox and the dreadbox people.
Ja das stimmt (man muss Geduld haben, noch wenn er Durst hat). I was more than happy to put the spotlight on the Dreadboxers...they're really good people who make really good synths.
@@ProckGnosis hallo prockgnosis, ja, wenn ich durst habe, bin ich auch sehr ungeduldig ;-) so one day my american friend said to me: "ey, herb. don´t drink until the cheer hast started."- in this moment i am thinking about spending my rare euros on a medusa V3. on the other hand i have the NYX and i am not sure wether a medus v3 or a korg minilogue xd will expand my sonic and creative territories. i am tending to the erebeus because of the deep and soft sound and the direct operation and: because i love the dreadboxers!
Yeah, it was in a minor key to match the small clips from the Freaqbox demo videos I imported (which fortunately both of them were rooted in G). I was going to change it (the music) to something lighter, but then I started to like the contrast between the cute, barking puppy and the impending horror-movie doom soundtrack. : )
Very interesting behind-the-scenes look! I cannot completely make out what he says about the soldering process at 6:40. Is it a soldering bath, or some kind of oven?
It's a solder bath, though it sounds like he said "graph" in the video. I wasn't aware how that worked until he gave the tour...only knew that they had moved away from hand-soldering the boards.
How great! I got the nyx and Im waiting for the erebus v3. I would totally dig having a hybrid polysynth with dreadbox involved. Although I like the Medusa Id want something a tad more traditional.
Thanks much. Took about a month longer than expected to make, but I'm happy with how it turned out and what it communicates about Dreadbox. And I foresee a fun future for you!
I believe the only way to purchase the diy kits is to order them directly through the Dreadbox website. Hoping they won't charge much to ship to where you live 🤞
Yeah, it's a good story, and I was glad to get to tell a little bit of it. I think Alaska is right...it's a direct order from them for the Lil Erebus. I picked one up from them, but haven't had any time to dive into constructing it yet. Really want to throw it in the KB37 when I get done. I haven't soldered anything in almost 25 years, so it ought to be an interesting exercise for me.
I'm just getting into DIY myself, I'm lucky enough to have a Weller soldering Iron, which I strongly endorse. I started with some thonk kits, and I think it's less stressful building something like a music thing modular mikrophonie. That way the stakes for failure were low. One last thing, make sure you have a solder sucker and some solder wick handy in case you need to unsolder that was my only major hurdle.
Yeah, I think you're right. Last week I was listening to a piece I did with the original Dreadbox Murmux. Just like the original Erebus it sounds sooooo BIG and has such defining character.
I almost bought a Hades last year basically just on how good it looks. I have no need of one, as I have an Erebus v2, and plenty of other stuff... anyway, great to get some insight into the the people behind the design.
Hey KJ. I'm just happy to see that Greece has some of their own brews now. When I first started visiting more than 20 years ago, it was mostly just Amstel and Heineken.
The Bug posted a tantalising glimpse of a one-off Dreadbox product on his Instagram (bugmanldn) a couple of months back. Not sure if it was a synth or drum machine.
Glad you finally snagged one...it will be a classic for sure (and I've probably said that before, but it bears repeating). In fact I think it's already a classic.
No, I don't think so. Maybe because it was a limited run, and it was kind of "in the middle" of what they've done so far. So we talked about the really old stuff (the first pedal synth, etc), and then the newer stuff (the Medusa). BUT...that would be a cool idea for a later interview...to run through each of the synths and discuss what the thoughts behind the designs were.
