Our Team
In early 2016 we opened our store after doing DIY workshops as LeafAudio for a number of years. We had the idea to create a cool shop for the EU-wide DIY community and started out with only ideas, 15 soldering irons and an electric drill. But here we are now with a team, a new shop system and own products that are distributed wordwide. But still it's work in progress and we develop our idea further together with you, our customers. We hope, you like this place here.
Greetings, Manu & Hagen
Hagen Haacker
CEO, Developer
Hagen is a professional engineer and developer. He thinks in 0 and 1, volts and ampere. He likes building weird stuff since his childhood and relaxation means reading data sheets in the bath tub. Hagen is the technical brain behind Exploding Shed. He's a real pro with computers and stuff and automates everything he can find. Hagen likes 3D printers a lot and has a collection of electric machines and apparats you never heard of.
Manuel Richter
CEO, Creative Director
Manuel is a live and studio musician, sound engineer and composer, heavily influenced by early-to-mid-eighties synthesizer sounds (or, really any synth sound on the planet). By the late '90s, he had his first Doepfer modular and dove into experimental music. It was during this time that he came up with the original idea for what would later become the Microphonic Soundbox. Since 1997, Manu has been working on his long-term project Xabec, producing Geräuschmusik, Electronica, and, more recently, primarily Ambient and Drone music. By the end of the 2000s, Manu got into DIY, met Hagen, and the rest is history. He is the creator of LeafAudio, which started as his studio, then evolved into a popular DIY workshop series in Germany during the 2010s, and is now best known as a musical instrument brand.
Aleta Welling
Production, Shipping
Aleta is an American who has been living in Leipzig since 2016. While with one foot in the US, she has spent half of her life in Germany. She has been working with us since very early on, mainly building Microphonic Soundboxes and she is also doing most of the shipping for the webstore. On the side, she is a freelance artist, painting abstract and surreal art. Her art has been featured in galleries worldwide, album covers and she occasionally does commission work too. Her work can be seen on her website.
Andi Friedhelm
Developer, Production Manager
Andi walked into our shop as a customer one day. A young Elektro-Meister and passionate DIY enthusiast, we simply asked him if he wanted to work with us. Now, he's a backbone of our company, developing products and quickly rising to the role of production manager. In addition, Andi builds his own modules and products, creates dub-techno and ambient music, and is generally a huge synth and electronics nerd.