The Research & Development team!

Welcome to Freedrum 2021. Words can't describe how excited we are about this year. This year is the year we release Freedrum 2. We’re keeping and improving all the things you love about Freedrum 1 and on top of that we’re adding new features such as the ability to play along to your favourite song, tracking your progress and a whole lot more customisation options .
Let us introduce you to the team who will make the magic happen! Every single one of our team members has been chosen because of their incredible skills and amazing personalities. 
In this post we want to give you a chance to get to know our R&D team a little better.Scroll down to find out more!

I’m Thomas
I grew up in the Netherlands. Creating new things has always been my passion in life. When I discovered programming during my high school years, I was fascinated that you can create just about anything with only code. Later during my computer science studies, I started learning about app development on my own, and I made a couple of small apps on the side. And I’ve been working with app development ever since!

What is your role at Freedrum?
At Freedrum I mainly work on building the new app. On a typical working day, I would make new features together with the rest of the team. I'm not only trying to make it look great, but I'm also trying to make sure it works as we want it to. We propose new ideas for the app and discuss how they would look and work technically. I also help with planning work for our R&D team to work in a structured way and reach our goals.

Which feature in Freedrum 2 are you most excited about developing?
I'm very excited about the Play-Along feature, where you'll be playing along with a song and play the notes that are falling down. Not only is it a very cool feature, but it's also going to be a fun challenge to develop. I'm actually very eager to try it out myself when we're done with development. I think that the gamification aspect will make it easier for beginners like me to get started.

Hi. I'm Voicu.
I grew up in Romania where I studied Computer Science. I moved to Sweden 4 years ago to be with my girlfriend and I've worked at Freedrum for about 4 months now.
I'm very passionate about anything technical, from robots to websites, and for fun I like to play computer games and travel the world. I also "like" to obsess and get anxious about climate change.

What is your role at Freedrum?
I am a backend engineer. I design and implement the server that the Freedrum app will talk to when the user's login or access and modify their data (drum settings, played songs, statistics, etc.). Ironically, if I do my job well, users won't have to care about what I did :D

What made you want to join Freedrum?
I love electronics. I build robots as a hobby and this job gives me the opportunity to learn more about how to create electronic devices. Plus, the product itself is mega fun and useful to many people.

Favourite artists/bands? Why?
Mike Oldfield is my go-to music when I don't know what to listen to. I also like Billie Eilish, Lana del Rey, Lacrimosa, Haggard, and sometimes classical music (Beethoven, Brahms, Grieg). As for why I think the common pattern is "bombastic music" :D

Hello, I’m Devina!
I was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia where I also studied Graphic Design. I moved to Sweden in 2010 and since then have been living in Helsingborg with my husband and 2 kids. I’ve been working within design since 2005 and for the last few years I had a newfound interest within programming and went to study Front-End development for one year.  

What is your role at Freedrum? 
I work as the UX/UI designer at Freedrum which is basically responsible for making sure that the app looks awesome and at the same time gives the user a great experience whilst using it. This work usually involves driving the developers crazy with many design changes.

What are you most excited about this year? 
I can’t wait for the new app to launch and see what people would think about it. It’s both exciting and terrifying at the same time. But we have a great team working on it, so I know it will be awesome!

Hi, I’m Philip

My name is Philip and I am from Cape Town, South Africa, where I studied Industrial Design (the design of products for mass manufacture). I left South Africa over 8 years ago to pursue a career in design in Europe. I have lived in Spain and Sweden where I've worked mostly with consumer electronics such as smartphones and musical instruments. I'm married and have two young boys who both inspire and exhaust me :)

What is your role at Freedrum?
At Freedrum I lead the product development or R&D department. I am responsible for deciding and prioritising which features we develop in our app and physical product. I work closely with engineers, designers, and our users so that we can build really cool things! 

What made you want to join Freedrum?
I originally co-founded Freedrum in 2016. I played the drums when I was a teenager and my story is similar to many other drummers. The drums are a really fulfilling instrument but are not accessible to many because of their size, price and noise! Having lived through these barriers first-hand, I'm determined to help create a new way of playing the drums that is accessible to anyone who wants to learn. 

Who is your favourite drummer?
My favorite drummer is Jared Falk. Jared is an extremely talented musician but his superpower is his ability to inspire so many people to pick up and continue playing the drums. 

I'm Peter
A Swedish guy living in Malmö with three kids, wife and two cats. Originally from the vast woods of Småland, but that was a long time ago. I’ve got a M.Sc in Computer Science, and some stray courses from Malmö Academy of Music. I got my first computer when I was six, 8-bit at the time, and have been hooked ever since. For those who remember, I was chip-musician in my early teens on the Atari ST.

What is your role at Freedrum?
I control tiny computer chips, fiddle with numbers, wield the soldering iron, and make LEDs twinkle.

Favourite artists/bands? Why?
That has always been a moving target, though Depeche Mode has always been there for me. I love electronic music of all different kinds, but also obscure and less obscure classical pieces have a place in my heart. Again, for those who remember, I've wept to the beauty of Mad Max' creations on the Atari ST many times. 

What made you want to join Freedrum?
The combination of tech and music. The people.

 I am Pablo
I come from a small town in the mountains close to Madrid, Collado Mediano. My passion for engineering goes back to playing with LEGO and helping my mum fixing things at home. The ultimate mind-blowing experience was when I realized that I was able to build my own guitar pedals amongst other various DIY projects.

What is your role at Freedrum?
I am doing Embedded Engineering which is all the voodoo-black-magic stuff that goes from the moment we detect that you move your arm to guess that you want to smack that snare, boy.

What made you want to join Freedrum?
As both engineer and musician, Freedrum is the cool job that you dreamed of when coming back home after university. It is a group of nice people with a common passion, music. You cannot imagine how cool it is to be able to talk about guitars during the coffee break.

Who is your favourite drummer?
I would say that Baard Kolstad is without a doubt one of the most talented guys in the current scene, he is mindblowing! If you haven't heard about him, make yourself a favour and listen to Leprous. Other big names are Mike Portnoy, Cozy Powell and Nicko McBrain.

I am Francisco
I was born and raised in Malaga, in the south of Spain, where I also studied software engineering. I wrote my first line of code when I was 15 years old thanks to my uncle who was a developer and big inspiration. I love to play music in my free time, and being able to actually work with music as well is pretty amazing! 

What is your role at Freedrum?
Right now I'm developing the frontend of the new Freedrum app, which means I’m involved in pretty much everything the user can see.

What are you most excited about this year?
The release of our new app! I can't wait to use it myself. It's going to be awesome!

Favourite artists/bands? Why?
Metallica, AC/DC, Rage against the machine... I have an infinite list but I listen mostly to rock from the 70s 80s and 90s.

That’s our team folks!
They will deliver Freedrum 2 and if you want to know when it’s available for purchase make sure to subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll keep you posted.