i met @dan_derks years ago when he dropped by the farm— it was an easy visit to accept— sound and process (his lines-dedicated podcast) really enriched the community (and continues to) along with his warm presence and seemingly infinite patience. you of course already know about his numerous super-powered software endeavors shared here!
fast-forward and dan randomly volunteered to fly out and help build the first edition of norns, which (in the nicest words) was a hilarious mess (the norns, not dan)— so he got to witness the full range of kelli and my joy and frustration then and there— and he’s super good at building stuff.
later later on he then got himself into a position to take on some part-time remote work for monome— helping with support and documentation, whereupon both improved by bounds.
now, i’m very happy to announce that dan is now our first full-time employee. he’s relocated from chicago and it’s a joy to experience this new in-person energy at the monome workshop. (ohhhh also kelli and i built a new workshop (and renovated a huge 1800’s building, but that’s another story)).
i wanted to thank everyone for supporting our work this year— we’ve been busy building machines and working on the ecosystem— it’s exciting to get to grow this tiny bit. (and i’m very much not about growth— staying small has afforded us a lot of flexibility and we intend to stay tiny.)
No finer human being than mr. @dan_derks! Thank you, Dan, for everything that you do and the way you choose to do it. I’m better for knowing you, dude.
Truly incredible news. I’ll echo everything @mattlowery wrote above + say that, musically, I simply wouldn’t be where I’m at without dan’s encouragement, inspiration and support over the last couple of years.
Yay @dan_derks ! It was a joy to work with you on my LC port and briefly be at c74 together. While we might not meet in Chicago, once I’m in Boston I’ll second the I-hope-one-day-we-can-meet-up sentiment!
Congrats! Thank you @dan_derks for all the encouragement and excitement of both stuff I’ve worked on as well as stuff from others. I’ve definitely kept going on projects because of that encouragement, and discovered lots of cool things (and friends) because of it too!
no waaaay!! such great news and very deserving- the world could really use more people with dan’s enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, and kindness. you got a good one, brian, but you know that already.
)