Dude with Computer

Hey, I'm Ryan.

My path wasn't exactly traditional. I started out in the computer music products industry, helping get gear into music stores. Many of our dealers weren't stores at all. They were people running businesses from spare bedrooms and small warehouses. A coworker coined a term for them: "Dude with Computer." Tongue-in-cheek, but it stuck.

From roughly 2005 to 2011, I was recording local Bellingham bands out of whatever apartment I happened to be living in. Strait A Students, Our Fallen Heroes, Haf-Sac, Muppet Fetish, Dead Hookers, Notroiba, Umbilical Paracide, among others. Singer/songwriter sessions too: Thimble vs. Needle (Kat Bula), and some tracks for the WWU Acapella club around 2010. It was a good run.

The web side started creeping in around 2003. I was writing HTML email promotions at work because nobody else wanted to learn how, and teaching myself CSS by pulling apart MySpace layouts for fun. That was more tinkering than anything else. It wasn't until 2012 that I decided to take programming seriously, which led to a SQL job, then front-end work at a local tech company, then a decade in full-stack Ruby and Rails building applications that were meant to last.

Somewhere in there I realized I'd become one of them. Not the person selling music gear out of a garage, but the person helping small businesses build something real.

The audio side never really stopped either. During COVID I ran a Twitch collaboration called Sonic Guys, working with musicians on video game chip tunes. A little ahead of its time. After that: Dig Shallow Graves, a Cramps-inspired covers project, then Bardscamp, a couple years of earnest, silly music with close friends. Throughout all of it I kept the gear current. I'm now on Cubase Pro with a solid plugin setup and the lower level of our home available for a full band with some advance notice.

So here we are. Websites and audio production, both built the same way: do good work, keep it affordable, and give people more than they expected.