Ryzoid
The story behind Ryzoid
Hey, I'm Yoeran, the person running Ryzoid. I'm a drummer, a producer and a nerd. This is the longer story of why Ryzoid exists, and how I run it.
RoYo Radio
When I was a teenager, I ran an online radio station with my friend Robbin. Once a week we'd start a stream using Shoutcast and do a show of a few hours, playing music from artists I'd connected with online. Some of them even sent me their CDs, one all the way from the UK to the Netherlands, where I lived.
I made the idents and a pretty extensive website, with fancy functionality for the time. The station was called RoYo Radio, after Robbin and Yoeran, although ironically we called ourselves DJ Rags and DJ Notorious. Our peak was 13 listeners! :') It was a great experience, and a lot of it carries over into Ryzoid now.
Stumbling onto music
I miss the old MTV days: stumbling onto music, with no choice to skip a song or put it on repeat. That constraint forces a different, and I think more beautiful, way of listening.
Before Spotify, Last.fm was the first place where I could stumble onto great new music. In a way it was so much better than what streaming services offer now. They give you everything, instantly, without needing anything from you, which means you don't embody any of the experience. On Last.fm I had to take action: look up my favorite artists and find similar ones, visit a friend's profile to see which artists I didn't know yet, or follow Last.fm's recommendations. Then I had to actually find the music somewhere to hear it, and discover more about the artist.
I can't point to one exact moment or song, but I do remember the feeling. Listening to something new, getting goosebumps, the unrelenting urge to jump around, my skin and chest on fire, eager to absorb more of it. I'd put the track on repeat until that new relationship energy died down to a normal level.
These days I don't use streaming services at all. I buy music directly from artists, mostly on Bandcamp, and stream my own collection from a Navidrome server at home. Ryzoid is me trying to bring a bit of that serendipity back, while actually paying attention to who made the music I'm listening to.
How I review
I watch every submission in full. I want to absorb new music, and even learn from the music and the videos. Some of those lessons might end up as articles here one day.
I try to approach every genre with a beginner's mind, especially the ones I don't know, to see the appeal and the story behind the genre and the music that comes from it, even when it isn't my taste.
My own band, Karvel, will submit videos too, and they go through the same review as everyone else's. The same goes for clients of my production work: they might get a discount or a free credit from me, but never a shortcut. If there are ever too many videos for me to handle, I'll bring in other people, people I vet personally and work closely with. They'll get a face on this site too.
The €50 compilation CD
I once paid €50 to have our music on a compilation CD. I truly believe the organizer had the best intentions, but after a while it went quiet. There was one email about being sick, and after reaching out numerous times, we never heard back. I really hated that, and I don't want it to happen here.
That's why everything on Ryzoid has a simple price, including whatever I add later. It's also why there are no subscriptions. They'd be great for me financially, but I don't want to force artists into corners, and as an artist, a subscription would hold me back. Paying for one specific thing, with a clear set of deliverables, is an honest offer in my eyes. It also shows me which features actually work for artists and which don't.
Where your €5 goes
Your €5 goes to hosting, payment fees and my time. That time goes into watching every submission, reaching out to artists and viewers, and making videos and posts about the artists for YouTube, Instagram and other platforms. I'm not running ads yet: I see Ryzoid as more of a community thing. If artists want to chip in together for ad campaigns later, that's what Collective ads on the roadmap is about.
Ryzoid should at least cover its own costs, including my time. After that, I'll put incoming money back into the platform first, to help it grow with features, outreach or new possibilities. That might mean paying myself for coding hours, paying for a third-party service, or hiring someone to help with reviews.
Where I stand on AI
I use AI for coding. But I want to keep it out of anything creative: there's no AI-generated music or video on Ryzoid.
I'm on the fence about AI in general. I see its harmful effects on us: on our cognition, our brains, our creativity. To me, the beauty of computers is that they let people expand their imagination. It's a kind of magic. But finding the right balance between when to use them and when not to is hard. Computers are a blip in the history of humankind. We've had to adjust a lot in a very short time, and I don't think we can fathom yet what digital life does to us: our bodies, our minds, our genes, our behavior, our soul.
If I ever stop
Ryzoid runs on a simple, stable setup that doesn't need much maintenance, it's the way I build all my projects. As a freelance developer, I've seen my applications keep running for years without heavy work. If I ever can't or don't want to run Ryzoid anymore, I can hand it over to someone else. And if it ever has to stop, I'll announce it at least three months in advance, stop selling credits, and keep reviewing until the end. Nobody gets left waiting the way I was with that compilation CD.
My own music
I started out as a drummer, and I play in Karvel, an alternative band somewhere between grunge and metal. I also produce music, on my own and with others, mostly in electronic territory. On my own it's in the realm of drum and bass, jungle, industrial, trip-hop, and metal and rock with electronic influences. With collaborators and clients it has gone from electro indie-pop, synth rock, techno, new age to breakbeat. My production work lives at Ginger Man Music, and everything I make creatively falls under Edge of the Rivulet.