This article was written by Naomi Crocker
Since the start of the pandemic, 20 percent of American workers have changed careers, with some research studies showing figures as high as 30 percent. Scores of individuals changed jobs in search of better working conditions, higher pay and career development opportunities. Given new possibilities for remote work, many found it easier to devote hours of would-be commute time toward the pursuit of other interests. This was the case for one Webber-Camden resident, Jaak Jensen, who managed to translate his portfolio of diverse work experience and personal interests into a recent startup: Kinotone Audio.
Jensen’s goal with Kinotone is to create high-quality electronics for musicians, producers and engineers using state-of-the art DSP’s and microcontrollers. He currently wears many hats, including lead engineer, programmer and designer, and successfully released the business’ first product earlier this September: a custom guitar pedal called Ribbons, whose components are sourced almost entirely from within the U.S. The project is supported by his partner Hannah Aaron who, as she puts it, helps with “the words.” Aaron explains, “Jaak is so in the weeds and has been working on Ribbons literally for years that sometimes explaining how it actually works is difficult. Many of the individuals purchasing the pedal have a base level of gear language, but there are still so many opportunities to make things clearer, to articulate the complicated concepts that are present with this pedal. So my role is to consider how we make it all make sense, for example, in a user manual.”
According to the Kinotone website, “Ribbons is a stereo magnetic tape emulator.” Essentially, it is a musical device that can be used with incoming audio from electric guitars, pianos, voice or synthesizers to produce effects – Jensen uses words like “degrading, mangling, and aging” – that imitate or emulate a reel-to-reel tape deck in real time, albeit with greater control and flexibility. Interestingly, Jensen notes that “recent advances in guitar pedal technologies, and by extension Ribbons, are due in part to the cell phone industry, which caused a boom in semiconductor and microchip production. Companies eventually licensed that tech commercially, so today almost anyone can go online, buy a smart phone chip for $15 and since all the tools needed to write the software are free and online, folks can really get creative.”
In addition to an impressive academic and professional background in electrical engineering, Jensen attributes much of the recent success of Ribbons to his long-standing connections in the Twin Cities music scene. In college, Jensen worked as the lead student engineer for University of Minnesota radio station KUOM, otherwise known as Radio K, where he recorded over 100 studio sessions with local and national musicians. He even performed for several years as a member of the local band Xylophone Jetty and maintains an active creative collaboration as part of the musical project Tine Net. Many of the musicians with whom Jensen formed relationships at Radio K eventually came to him as clients, seeking repair work for their own instruments and equipment, which provided him with valuable hands-on experience. Local connections also became essential during the beta testing for Ribbons in spring 2021, when Jensen offered preliminary models to Twin Cities musicians, studio owners, friends, and friends of friends, asking them for feedback on everything from accessibility to overall user experience: “The chip we ended up using for Ribbons turned out to be a more powerful one than originally planned, which meant it had the capacity for a lot more features. Beta testing really helped us dial in what those features should be. Fun fact, the chip Ribbons uses is twice as powerful as a PlayStation2!”
Although Minneapolis may not have the same hyper-competitive conditions as Silicon Valley, where 70 percent of startups fail during years two through five, attempting to launch a small business like Kintotone is not without its challenges. So far, the project has been entirely self-funded and Jensen even sold his car in 2021 for the initial injection of capital. Successful sales from the preliminary Ribbons launch have helped make back some of his initial investment, but Jensen seems ultimately less interested in profits and more concerned with upholding a business model that supports open source technologies. “One open source invention that people might engage with in their day-to-day is Wikipedia,” he explains.
Jensen was first inspired by the idea of open source applications after encountering the work of Émilie Gillet, designer, engineer and founder of Mutable Instruments. Like Mutable Instruments, all elements of Jensen’s Ribbons product – everything from circuit board schematics and the list of materials to its microchip configurations (firmware) and software – are open source, free to be downloaded and customized by anyone with the interest and skills to do so. Jensen even went so far as to obtain a GPLv3 copyright license for Ribbons, meaning that individuals can take the Ribbons elements, add to them or make major changes, but then must in good faith distribute their modifications as open source as well. Jensen notes, “I made so many of Émilie’s products by hand at a time when I couldn’t have afforded something similar. But, because they were free and open source and I had the skills, I could access them. Émilie also built such a strong community with her forum, a sort of alternative learning space, and when she ended Mutable Instruments a few years ago, I was encouraged to continue that community in my own way.”
In addition to the knowledge gained through Mutable Instruments’ Internet forum, Jensen credits free online learning platforms like Udemy – where he took a couple hundred hours of coding classes at the start of the pandemic – for helping bolster his skillset and putting Kinotone on a path for success. For individuals looking to start down a similar path, Jensen describes that “it might not happen all at once.” He suggests picking up a diverse set of skills in stages: “learn a simple programming language such as Python, investigate how that language works in music applications, then try an additional programming language. There’s also the hardware and firmware side of it all, so honing in a manual skill like soldering or experimenting with different guitar pedal kits can be useful.” Jensen also notes that many companies today are using the same microchips as Ribbons, albeit in different applications such as medical devices or automotive products, so any skills gained could also be attractive to potential employers.
Since Ribbons’ official launch in September 2022, Jensen has sold roughly 125 units. It took just under a month to sell the initial 50 units, but the most recent batches of 50 and 25 both sold out in a matter of hours. The final batch of the initial 150-unit run was released on November 28 and incorporates feedback and requests from the broader customer base, which now includes local, national and international musicians. Jensen isn’t sure what’s next. “We would like to make more Ribbons units and have put in orders for additional parts, but with the current semiconductor shortage, we really have no clue when they might arrive. For now, we have pivoted to developing some new products and are going to try and keep this momentum and creativity going into the next year.” To learn more visit kinotoneaudio.com/about/.