Award-winning audio and technology entrepreneur Larry Ryckman is the CEO of AfterMaster Audio Labs, headquartered in Hollywood, California. Larry Ryckman cofounded the company with legendary audio engineer Shelly Yakus, who serves as the company’s chief engineer.
Shelly Yakus’ exposure to recording came at a very early age – his father and uncle co-owned Ace Recording in Boston. He moved to New York in the mid-1960s and gained more recording experience. Yakus went on to co-design, equip, and operate A&M Records’ industry-leading music-recording studios in Los Angeles. He previously served as vice president of Record Plant and also was vice president of engineering at QSound Labs, Inc. Yakus has mixed and engineered recordings for some of the music industry’s best-known artists, including John Lennon, Tom Petty, Alice Cooper, Dire Straits, Meat Loaf, Amy Grant, Madonna, U2, B.B. King, Patti Smith, Peter Paul & Mary, Stevie Nicks, Cher, Aretha Franklin, and more. He was nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.
Accomplished entrepreneur Larry Ryckman serves as the president and CEO of AfterMaster Audio in Hollywood, California. Although he established the company over a decade ago, it was far from his first successful business. Larry Ryckman previously served as the president and CEO of Calgary Stampeder Football Club, American Artists, Inc., and QSound Audio Labs, Inc. Becoming an entrepreneur can be an exciting experience, but not everyone is cut out for success. Below are just a few of the common traits that successful entrepreneurs share:- Self-motivated – Rather than sitting and waiting for a solution, successful entrepreneurs go out and find solutions themselves. They are constantly seeking out the next new thing and are driven by their own need to experience new challenges. As a result of their ability to self-motivate, successful entrepreneurs are usually skilled at motivating others.- Passionate – Many individuals assume it is a desire for money that drives successful entrepreneurs. In reality, they are fueled by their passion for solving a problem or creating new products. This passion is normally based on a company’s mission and often results in entrepreneurs putting more time, money, and effort into an idea that may not seem fruitful.- Versatile – When entrepreneurs first start a company, they are often working either alone or with a small group of people. Due to this, they must be able to adapt to varying roles and responsibilities to accommodate their growing company’s needs. Further, entrepreneurs must be capable of changing their path when a particular product or solution is not working out.
Experienced audio professional Larry Ryckman serves as the president and CEO of AfterMaster Audio in California. Throughout his more than 30-year career, Larry Ryckman has mastered and produced numerous hit songs and albums, including Lady Gaga’s Telephone, Alice Cooper’s Madhouse Rock Tour, and Aerosmith’s We All Fall Down.Compact discs, or CDs, have become a standard for storing music and audio. They have been in use for more than 30 years, but the path to their creation started in the 1950s, and Italian- born Antonio Rubbiani created an extremely rudimentary video disc system in 1957. Although this system was far from what is recognized today, it inspired industry-wide research into the video disc starting in 1969. This research eventually culminated in the Philips ALP, an audio disc system that used laser technology. Through the 1970s, the company worked on developing an audio format that was smaller than a vinyl record and could hold at least one hour of music.By 1979 Philips reached success in this endeavor, and they made an agreement with Sony to create an audio disc that could hold at least 74 minutes of music – the entire length of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Despite its existence, the CD did not go out to market right away. Sony and Philips produced a Red Book that laid out all compact disc standards for the industry in 1980, and Philips created the first CD player by 1982. This same year, CDs hit the market with 150 available titles and soon began gaining traction around the world.
