We had the pleasure of speaking to Bjorn Isheden of Sweden's Surfy Industries to talk vintage effects, analog reverb, and a love for musical imperfections!
Give us a brief history on how Surfy Industries came about.
Surfy Industries is a small guitar effects manufacturer based in Sweden, Italy and USA. It all started in Sweden where Bjorn Isheden created a DIY kit replica of the legendary Fender 6G15 reverb unit - using JFETs instead of tubes - and promoted it on the web forum surfguitar101.com among the surf music community. The product had a great and immediate success since surf musicians were looking for a more portable and reliable version of the Fender reverb which was become very expensive and not so easy to find. The talk around the SurfyBear DIY kit got bigger and bigger and during the Surfer Joe Summer Festival 2016 in Italy (the largest surf music event) Lorenzo Valdambrini proposed Bjorn to start a proper business together to market the kits but also finished products based on the classic effects that they both loved and knew well, reverb and tremolo. After about one year from the foundation of Surfy Industries AB in Sweden, still headquarters of the development, Ted and Lynsey Miller in Memphis opened Surfy Industries USA to work as exclusive distributors and representative for the US market while the main logistics moved to Livorno, Italy.
What do you think is the core motivating factor behind Surfy?
We all come from surf music and we love the reverb. We are fans of the "drippy sound" and we are involved in various activities related to the surf community. So what really move us is this passion and our interest to create something new, efficient and reliable, but without any compromises regarding the sound. We like music, we like to listen to music and this is the glue that keeps us together.
Who is the team behind Surfy Industries?
The main persons are:
Bjorn Isheden - President of Surfy Industries Sweden and Italy and head of the development dept.
Lorenzo Valdambrini - CEO of Surfy Industries Sweden and Italy and head of global sales and logistics
Ted Miller - CEO of Surfy Industries US
Can you take us through a day in the life at the company?
Sure. We wake up, we get dressed and have breakfast, either in Sweden, Italy or USA.
After that we check the orders to ship and organize and we look through the emails.
We congratulate with the happy customers and we try to help the complaining ones :)
We pay the bills. We look at what's the manufacturing status, check the suppliers, verify the parts orders.
Bjorn send us emails with new ideas and developments (and this is the exciting part of the day!)
That's about it.
Surfy is a company in love with analog effects of the past – can you explain where this comes from?
It surely comes from the music we like and the love for the "imperfections", those little details that make the old music great and that are a fundamental part of any live show. It is very difficult to recreate certain sounds and vibrations, but still the most important thing is to know well the effect we try to reproduce in order make products that are dynamic in the hands of the musician, that shape the sound in a very personal way depending on the musician's skills.
Similarly, what challenges do you face bringing these historic analog designs back to life?
The vintage effects and amps that we love were designed back in the 50 or 60s. These analog tube circuits were quite simple and have their own imperfections and limitations that affect the sound in a good way. When solid-state technology was introduced in the 60-70s, it was a revolution that changed the way electronic circuits were designed, simply because solid state technology works differently.
The more recent development of JFET and MOSFET components makes it possible to accurately recreate the old circuits using the old schematics. It's a challenge, but at Surfy Industries we always use this philosophy whenever its possible.
Tell us something that isn’t widely known about Surfy Industries.
We owe a lot to the surf community and the surfguitar101.com forum in particular for our success.
The first version of the SurfyBear reverb was a kit that took the forum by storm and generated 133 forum pages. The feedback we got was invaluable and we learnt a lot. The name "SurfyBear" came from the name of the electronic designer Björn, which means bear in Swedish.
Can you tell us what you enjoy most about the building process?
Usually the development phase takes more than a year before we start manufacturing of a new product. The best moment is when assembling the first pedal, all the parts fit nicely and the sound is just perfect!
What do you enjoy most about the design process?
Two things.
First the cooperation and brainstorming around new ideas with Lorenzo, Ted and Lynsey. We are a great team.
Then the circuit design with experiments, simulations and pcb design.
What’s the most important tool in your shop. The one you won’t let the new guy borrow?
My stainless steel, anti static tweezers. My favourite for soldering the surface mount, miniature components and for moving the suspension springs of reverb pans!
What does 2021 look like for Surfy Industries? And Beyond?
New products, but also... more new products!!!!!
Well we have been working hard to increase our dealers network and finally we are seeing the results of such work and organization. The brand has certainly gained a reputation as one of the most reliable makers of analog reverbs. The feedback we are getting for the tremolo pedals has also been humbling. The SurfyTrem is a top selling product and very highly considered in the market. So we are going to present some new fun projects very soon, updates or upgrades to what we already do along with some completely new toys...
What is one thing you'd want people to know about Surfy or yourself?
That we are coming into this as musicians and players who actually have and still play a lot all over the world. We hope to be helpful to all of our customers and a resource that they can trust. We also strive to make our communication with customers precise and fast.
We are also having a blast while we are doing it!
