We had the good fortune of connecting with Kris Kaiser & Stephen McCaul and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
With Noise Engineering, we wanted to build a musical instrument company with a team and culture that motivated us to get up and go to work every day. Now every day, we build on that vision to make an inclusive place where we all try to live by our core values, which include Agility, Challenge, Playfulness, Balance, Consensus, Ownership, Community, and the Oxford comma. We don’t take ourselves seriously, but we work hard to build tools that excite and inspire people and we love to build community and educate people on how to use them. We are also a member of 1% for the Planet, which means we commit to donating a minimum of 1% of revenue to environmental sustainability. In some ways, our path been straightforward because we have such an incredible team, and we have an immense amount of trust within the group. But the past few years have definitely thrown us some curve balls. We keep asking how many years in a row can we say, “wow, what a weird year it’s been.” Some examples: The pandemic virtually halted supply chains in our industry and we spent a couple of years redesigning all of our products to ease manufacturability. In 2022, Kris was diagnosed with breast cancer. We have had prototypes get lost in shipping, shipping delays, and increased costs. But we have also had an extraordinary team who has pulled together and gotten us through it all.
It’s hard when you’ve got your own business to give up trust. But for us, the key to building what we have has been to hire incredibly talented people, and then get out of their way and let them do what we hired them for. We value them and their insights. Everything we do, from our products to our content, is demonstrably better when we have a diversity of opinions and inputs involved. Also, having at least two pairs of eyes on everything has saved us from ourselves a few times!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
For fun, there would be the Museum of Jurassic Technology and the Center for Land Use Interpretation. We have so many great museums in town so we’d probably go to at least a few more, but the Vintage Synth Museum would be high on our list. There would be hiking, most likely in Angeles Forest if the time of year allows, but if not, a simple hike in Griffith Park or Ascot Hills would be great. Kris would take a friend to try out circus at The Aerial House in El Sereno.
And we would eat well, with meals from the Shojin, Dune, Rahel Ethiopian, Ashirwad the Blessings (out in Upland, which is far, but so worth the drive), and the Luggage Room. We’d of course take in a lazy weekend afternoon at Angeleno Wine. Our home bar is well stocked with a bit of help from our friends at Barkeeper Silverlake, so we’d probably finish at least a couple of evenings on our porch watching sunsets and having a cocktail.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
First and foremost, that friend who dared Stephen to make that module deserves credit. His name is Shawn and as of April, he works with us! We couldn’t be happier. But our whole team deserves a shoutout. We have faced some tremendously weird things over the past few years and they have stepped up in ways I have been humbled and blown away by. We have a contract manufacturer without whom we wouldn’t be here. Our retail partners are our lifeblood. While we do direct sales, our retail shops do a tremendous service for us by having gear in showrooms where people can try things out for themselves. Of course, friends and testers who we bounce ideas off of, and most importantly, our customers, whose support let us continue to do what we love.

Website: https://www.noiseengineering.us/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noiseeng/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/noise-engineering

Twitter: https://twitter.com/noiseeng

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noiseeng/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTa3nl2XQR3v_BobASbKPUQ

Other: https://www.instagram.com/noiseengplugins/

Image Credits
Anthony Acosta, Alec Stoddard, Ben Clark

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutLA is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.