The mysteriously named Ryk of Karmanauts is a freelance sound engineer in the band’s home town of Sheffield, England.

“I have spent many many hours doing live sound for bands, good and bad. I got to the point where I wanted to be on stage rather than be at the back of the venue and to 'do my thing,' so I took the first tentative steps by writing and recording tracks that I had just initially written for myself.“ says Ryk.

As non-shocking as it may be that a live sound guy might have musical desires, it can also clearly be an advantage when starting a band. As far as an ongoing endeavor, Ryk has kept the Karmanauts a one man band.

“It was just myself until the demand to play live grew then I conscripted a few friends in to play backing synths, bass, and rhythm guitar. It still is, I guess, just me -- though I have a lot of friends who make guest appearances now and then.” he says.

He describes his music as “neurological” in that he wants his music to have an effect on the nervous system, the brain of the listener and wants people to experience it on as many levels as possible.

For me personally, its goth, or what I'd say my influences have guided me to write. I adore meanings within meanings and view musical poetry as the ultimate magickal act. A sense of empathy created by the listener can do so much more than what I can create alone,” he says.

Ryk says the heart of the band is the Korg KARMA, which he says basically plays itself.

"The voice is mine and I use a Digitech VX400 to pedal activate any effects needed during songs. I also play the main guitar which again is not what it seems, as it really is three instruments in one. It's a Godin LGX-SA, so when I play, I'm playing an acoustic guitar and a guitar going into a POD XT Live and also a MIDI trigger into a Terratec AXON AX 100 MK II MIDI controller and from that back into the Korg Karma to play whatever I want to really-- be it a string section, an arpeggiated synth line, or even drums," he says. “The AX 100 is a marvelous piece of technology and features a neural net which allows you to assign either different instruments onto the Godins strings-- say bass for the low end strings and synths for the highs or even to partition along the fret board so I can play a lead part with a choir accompaniment and then pull down the fret board to a low lead synth and distortion for riffs. It can even change the voicing depending on where you pluck the strings.”

Ryk bought the KARMA because of the name and he admits that is very shallow. Equally shallow is that he thought it would look good on stage. But it turned out to work well for him so I suppose that is, well, Karma.

The Line 6 POD XT was chosen because of the sheer ease going straight from it into a DI and into the PA with no other thoughts needed. No worries about amps or mics -- it just worked best.

Karmanauts' live set up and studio set up differ quite a bit. His studio uses Cubase Studio 4, Adobe Audition, a Phase 88 Terratec sound card, and a Line 6 Tone Port UX2 with a ART Studio V3 preamp. Monitoring is done via ALESIS Monitor one's Mk 2.

“Again, however, being principally a guitarist, the Godin and the Axon are invaluable in the writing and recording stage because I can lay down, via MIDI, anything I want to using the guitar. Once the songs are constructed and polished they are then dropped onto disc and put into the KARMA for live use.” he says.

More with Karmanauts soon.