Meet the Creators: Dreadbox
The Greek Synth Gods!
Living in Athens, Greece, I would never expect to have one of my favorite synth companies being a 10’ drive from where I live. So I had to take advantage of it and meet Yiannis Diakoumakos, the Co-Founder of Dreadbox, and have a chat with him to learn all about the company’s history and his perspective on making music gear for more than 10 years.
Dreadbox was founded in 2012 by Yiannis and Dimitra in Athens and their philosophy from day one was to design devices they would love to use themselves in the first place. They are still building and assembling everything in their workshop and despite being a rather small company they have managed to gain worldwide recognition and success.
Question: So let’s go back to the early days of Dreadbox. How did you start making gear?
Yiannis: Well, back in 2012 when we started, we, as musicians, wanted music gear but we didn’t have the funds to acquire the stuff we needed. So, we thought we could create a few pedal clones ourselves. The very first one was a Rat clone called Ratatat and it was essentially the first thing I made and actually worked! The whole process was something I really enjoyed and had fun doing and since I didn’t have an electronics background, I learned everything online. Forums, Technical specs, Schematics, and everything I could find. Combined with my good knowledge of physics & and mathematics my ability to do silkscreen printing and Dimitra’s graphic design skills we decided to start Dreadbox.
First Dreadbox pedal - Ratatat!
Q: What was your musical background that influenced the first days of Dreabox?
Y: I was a bass player and the genres I always loved were Shoegaze, Goth, and Post-Punk so at first, I only did pedals. Then I remember I watched a video ( Cold performed live) where the bass player from “The Cure”, Simon, was playing a Moog Taurus using his feet and I thought “That is cool!” But when I looked at the price for a new Taurus I realized that it was way too expensive for my budget. But still, since it was a really great idea, I started figuring out how I could make my own version of it! I found a few synth schematics so I cloned a very basic synthesizer and created a very weird enclosure that just fell apart after a month or so.
At this point, I was still making pedals only by order and mainly for friends so when one of them came by to get a pedal he saw my failed attempt to create a Taurus and told me he was a carpenter so he volunteered to help me make an actual Moog Taurus clone! And that’s what we did! We made a few pedal synths and we also made a synth version of it called the Murmux. And that’s the story of how I got into the synthesizer world! So in 2014, we went to NAMM with our products and the rest is history…
One of the very first Murmux synths!
Q: Dreadbox has a quite big product line with synthesizers, pedals, and Eurorack modules. How did that unfold throughout the years?
Y: Yes, after our very first designs, we released the first version of Erebus in 2015 followed by Hades which is a very similar design, and Nyx. At that point we decided to stop making pedals and focused more on making synths! Eurorack modules came right after that and lately, we started making pedals again but I think we’re not going to make any more pedals in the near future…
Q: But you’ve made a lot of pedals lately and they’re quite successful. So why do you want to stop making more?
Y: To be honest, I prefer making synths rather than pedals. I just find it more exciting. Also, the pedal market is over-saturated with unlimited options so I don’t feel I need to add more to it. The same goes for the module market. It’s also an over-saturated market that we’ll slowly start to narrow down our product line. We’ve made modules for quite a long time so far. At first, we had a complete system, and a few other basic modules like Alpha, Gamma, Drips, etc. Then we decided to make them smaller in size and we released the White line and after that the Chromatic Modules that had a few more complex concepts and designs while still being small and easy to use. Now the plan is to just keep the modules that have some more distinct characteristics like our last modules Telepathy & Psychosis and a new module we’ll release in a few months.
Erebus, Hades, and Hypnosis
Q: So the synth that made Dreadbox world-famous, was the Erebus! What was the story and the concept behind the first Erebus that was initially released in 2014?
Y: No concept at all haha! It was just something I could build and I did it. I think that the thing that made the Erebus stand out so much was its size which was quite small and it was semi-modular which was not that common back then. It was all about the little details. For example, our choice to have the patch connections to the right side was something that wasn’t used back then and after the Erebus, a lot of companies like Moog, Arturia, and Behringer started using it for their semi-modular synthesizers. It was also very affordable to get and that’s why it became so popular.
The only thing I didn’t see with the first Erebus is that it could also be a module for Eurorack. It just needed to be 2cm shorter and it could fit in a case. That’s why in the next versions, we decided to make it Eurorack compatible too!
But the most successful synth we’ve ever made is the Typhon by far! Another compact mono-synth we released in 2021 and it’s going strong.
Q: The synth market has changed a lot since 2014. Less mono synths are produced, it’s much more affordable to buy synths, and there are so many new brands every single year. It’s also a time when companies are competing a lot over features. What’s your take on this and how does it influence Dreadbox as a company?
Y: To be honest, I’m not sure that people care too much about features over what they listen to from an instrument. If it was all about features, synths like the OB-6 or the Prophet would not sell a single piece. The market is divided into a lot of groups - professional musicians, studios, producers with home studios, and a lot of hobbyists. Before making Typhon, I didn’t really think of a specific audience to target. I just made what I wanted to make and that’s all. Now we think a bit more about our audience and, whether we like it or not, we have to also think the commercial side of things. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you know beforehand who you are targeting, you can actually make a better product for that person and cover his needs even better. For example, Typhon was made for two audiences. The home studio hobbyist who wants to have fun with an instrument and the musicians who want to travel light without sacrificing their sound. It also happens that hobbyists nowadays are the biggest portion of the synth market right now. They are probably around 70% of the whole market!
Now, when I’m about to design a new product I first try to find something that’s not widely available in the market and also does not exist in our product line. For example that was the thought process behind Nymphes (we have a full review of it here!). We didn’t have a Dreadbox poly-synth and there wasn’t such a portable poly synth in the market.
Q: Over the years, Dreadbox has become a big name in the synth industry and people keep talking about the “Dreadbox sound“. What do you think of that? Do you really have some kind of secret that goes into your synths?
Y: I honestly have no idea how they can distinguish that. For example, I’ve used around 10 different filters in our synths so we don’t have a unique Dreadbox filter. However, there are a few things that make a big difference in sound. One of them is how you feed the signal into the filter. You can take the exact same filter and if you change the amplitude of the oscillators going in, if you then change the filter’s amplitude that goes into the VCA, play around with Envelope curves, and knob responsiveness you will have completely different results! Those are some of the few things that we really experiment with and take extra care of during the prototyping process. Another thing I always do is to not have the volume decrease as you increase the resonance of the filter mainly because it’s something I don’t like at all. Also, as we tune our oscillators we always allow them to drift and embrace their analog nature. On a new synth we are working on right now we deliberately let the envelopes drift so they have different times on each gate just a little bit to add a bit more randomness to the sound.
If you add all those little details and stay consistent to them throughout your products, you will eventually create some sort of authentic sound! But yeah, there is not a secret sauce behind our products!
Dreadbox Typhon
Q: Do you have any other synth manufacturers or specific synths that you love and take inspiration from?
Y: The first that comes to mind is definitely Roland. Their old, vintage stuff though - not their new ones. Every single vintage Roland synth that I’ve played, is simply top-notch! From the newer synths, I absolutely loved the PolyBrute by Arturia - to my ears, it’s one of the best synths I’ve ever heard. I’ve also recently seen the new Korg PS-3100 which is simply remarkable, but honestly, there is so much good stuff out there…
Q: Let’s talk about Dreadbox’s pedals. You now have 8 pedals available that cover a lot of effects. How do you approach the process of making your pedals?
Y: Our pedals - and the overall philosophy of Dreadbox - are taking simple ideas, having attention to all the small details, and letting thing be more open. Our pedals’ settings are very open and have a full range. For example, Komorebi our Chorus/ Flanger pedal, has a really big range for its parameters and can go from mild to wild. What I do to most pedals, is not to limit the “bad“ settings. The range is always very open which of course can lead to some unusable sounds if you go crazy with them. But when you just take one setting and push it further, it can lead to some unexpectedly beautiful results! I leave room for the players to push them to their own taste.
Q: What are some other companies’ pedals that you really like?
Y: I really love Death by Audio pedals which are simple designs but sound amazing. Chase Bliss is also an incredible company that is just out of this world. They make really inspiring stuff for sure! Also, I got to give an honorable mention to our fellow Greeks, Crazy Tube Circuits, and JAM Pedals who make beautiful analog pedals.
Q: Dreadbox is also known for its analog nature. Have you considered leaning more toward the digital side of things? Maybe making a digital synth in the future?
Y: So far, we’ve only had a few digital effects on Typhon and on Nymphes, and we collaborated with PolyEnd to make Medusa which was a hybrid analog/ digital synth. But I don’t really see a reason to make a digital synth to be honest. Analog technology still has a lot of room to make interesting voices and synth parts. Maybe if we wanted to make a drum machine, I would consider adding sample-based voices but for a synthesizer, I don’t think there is going to be a digital Dreadbox synthesizer in the near future. Hybrid, on the other hand, is of course something to consider.
Q: Any hints on a new Dreadbox release? Can you reveal what you are working on right now?
Y: We are currently working on a new synth that is probably going to be released in 2024. And for the first time, it will have keys and it’s not going to be a desktop synth. So far we haven’t used keys mostly because of the manufacturing process and secondly, because it’s not that easy to find actually good keys. We’re now planning to use a Fatar keybed which has probably the best keybed you can find. But they do make a ton of difference when you play them so I decided to have the best possible keybed for our first synth with keys.
Q: So to wrap things up, where do you see Dreadbox in the next 5 or 10 years?
Y: Honestly, I have absolutely no idea. As long as we make synths everything is just fine! We are still a small, independent company so we are not really forced to make a lot of compromises to survive. The power of Dreadbox is their people working for the company, not only because they need to, but because they love what they do.
Thank you Yiannis & Jelina for making this happen! Dreadbox is another story of a few people coming together with a shared passion and just going for it. They are an example of trusting your own ears and making the things you want to make without worrying too much about the “business“ side of things in the first place. They have created so many amazing instruments and effects so far and I know that they will continue doing so! Go Dreadbox!!
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