Continuing in our series of ’20 Questions’ interviews with makers here we have NANO Industries. I’ve had the pleasure of working with NANO Industries (back then NANO Modules, more on that in a moment) since their first Eurorack module release MAR which offered a nicely designed take of mixing utilities. Since then we’ve had filters, hyper flexible function generators, unique ways to work with performance mixers and plenty more. This year NANO Modules turned to NANO Industries, to mark a widening of their designs outside of the Eurorack world. Not that Eurorack modules are going anywhere, but it’s great to see them explore the DJ world with the ISO-F1 and I’m curious where that takes them too. Enough from me, on with the interview!
01 How would you introduce yourself to someone who has no idea who you are and no idea of the modular, synth, & music tech spaces?
I’m Jorge, a guy who really enjoys creating things and doing engineering. As a child I wanted to be an inventor. I don’t think I actually am one, but I do have a lot of fun designing products and making them manufacturable.
I’ve always been into electronics, but I’ve been interested in pretty much every field of engineering. I started building small audio projects at university, and that’s what led me here: running my own brand of audio products with Claudia, my partner in life and in business.
02 How would you introduce yourself to someone who is aware of modular, synth & music tech worlds?
I’m Jorge, a guy who’s been hooked on sound and synthesizers for a long time. I always liked electronics, and at university I started building DIY audio projects. I was having a lot of fun discovering this world, because I was learning about music production at the same time. Everything felt like a discovery back then, and it was very rewarding.
I’ve always felt that a good balance between analog and digital would give me the best tools for the kind of devices I want to make. After a few of those DIY projects at university, I realised I hated building power supplies for them, so Eurorack got my attention, because that part of the design was already solved.
I started NANO in 2018 with my partner Claudia, who’s an industrial design engineer. We had no idea how to develop products or run a business, but somehow we’ve been doing it for eight years, and here we are. We’re very happy about that.
With eight years of Eurorack products behind us, we noticed our focus starting to shift towards other things, mainly DJing and live performance. So we began designing products for that, and we released the ISO-F1, an analog isolator and DJ filter, a few weeks ago.
We’ll keep making products for both the Eurorack and DJ communities in the years to come.
03 What were your early influences for getting into what you do now?
I was an electronics student who just wanted to have fun, and everything to do with sound and the ways of generating it really resonated with me. I’ve always been an electronic music fan, but when I understood how close my electronics classes were to sound production, something clicked.
I was always trying to make something useful for people other than myself, and Eurorack modules felt like the most straightforward way to do that.
04 What was the first thing you created either as NANO or something for yourself?
The first thing I built was a very basic synthesizer: two granular oscillators running on an Arduino Nano board. The project is called Auduino, originally designed by Peter Knight. I built it following the Notes and Volts tutorial.
It was fun to play with. I spent a few weeks iterating on the code and prototyping hardware around that digital synth core. I think it was the most ambitious project I built before I started making Eurorack modules.
05 What was the first product you brought to market and how was that received?
The MAR mixer was our first product. We made a simple mixer because, honestly, I didn’t know how to make anything more complex. I had just finished my degree in electronics and my knowledge was limited, so we started with the simplest module we could come up with.
We’ve always moved step by step, learning about engineering and business while we were building the company.
The reception was slow but steady. Some distributors trusted us, and that was the best thing that could have happened to us. We’ll always be grateful to the first people and shops that believed in us.
Surprisingly, eight years later the MAR design hasn’t changed at all, it has worked correctly since the very first revision.
06 How did making that first product influence the next one? Any lessons learned to pass onto others?
We learned quickly that design matters. When we started making modules for the Eurorack community, we felt that most of them were very “engineer-minded”, and we thought maybe we could do something more focused on intuitive design.
When we released the MAR, people noticed that its interface was simple yet well thought out. And we didn’t want to make just a simple mixer, we wanted to add a bit of extra functionality to make it unique.
So I think these are the two rules we’ve followed since that first product:
1. Intuitive design really matters.
2. Try to add unique functionality that sets the product apart.
07 Would you say you make things for yourself? How much community influence comes into play with new ideas?
I made things for myself when I started, but that has faded over time. As I said, I was really hooked on music production and synthesizers during the first years of building the brand, so I was designing every module for myself, but that interest has slowly decayed.
I think it’s something that has always happened to me: I spend years going deep into an obsession, and then I slowly move on to the next one.
The community helps, but people also want you to build exactly what they want, so you have to listen carefully and choose where to put your energy and resources. I try to make the kind of product I really want to make, because making products is hard and burns through a lot of resources, so I’m focused on being efficient and not wasting any energy on things I don’t want to do. I don’t care about the money a product could make; I care about my daily motivation.
08 How do you decide on the value ranges for the controls or CV inputs on your modules?
We like to stick to the classic −5 V to +5 V range for CV inputs: simple, and easy for everyone to understand.
09 Generally speaking, what do your products offer that others don’t?
Design, and a good set of features at a very fair price. As I mentioned, we try to add unique functionality that sets each product apart.
On the NANO Performance side, the ISO-F1 (analog isolator and DJ filter) lets you choose the crossover frequencies of the isolator bands, as well as the maximum gain. That’s something you won’t find on other isolators.
On the modules, ONA (our oscillator) has two complex waveforms you won’t find anywhere else. ST OUT has two different circuits for driving the output. The Performance Mixer has motion recording. Those are just a few examples, but we try to do it with every product.
10 What are some of the challenges in manufacturing, any tips to share?
The hard part of manufacturing is almost never the circuit, it’s manufacturing and making it work in every condition correctly.
A single component going out of stock can freeze an entire production run. We’ve had to redesign around parts that simply disappeared from the market.
Then there’s shipping and customs: getting the paperwork, deciding between sea, rail and air when each option changes both your cost and your launch date by weeks. And underneath all of it, planning or the lack of it. Almost every problem we’ve had traces back to planning something later than we should have.
A few things I’d pass on:
Design with sourcing in mind from day one. Check availability and lead times while you’re designing, not when you’re ready to order. And wherever you can, choose parts with a second source, so one shortage doesn’t stop your line.
Plan the money as carefully as the electronics. Building to stock means spending a lot of cash months before any of it comes back. That’s a design constraint just like power consumption or panel space, and it’s the one that catches small companies out.
And accept that something will go wrong on some runs.
11 How do classic instruments and designs influence your own work?
What I take most from classic designs is their simplicity, and sometimes that’s more inspiring than complexity.
Limitations force creativity: you have to find ways of getting the most out of a restricted system. A lot of the classic machines had very few controls, there was nothing hidden in a menu.
That’s the part I try to carry over. When we design a module or a unit, the question isn’t “what else could this do”, it’s “what does this need to do, and how do we make that immediate”. Classic designs are a constant reminder that restraint is a design decision, not a limitation you settle for.
I also love the aesthetics of the classic Buchla and Serge designs. The layout, the typography, the way the panel looks like an instrument rather than a consumer product. And on the DJ side, the old Vestax gear, which had a character that I don’t think has been matched since.
12 Do you find inspiration in areas outside of the one you work within?
Nature. It’s the most inspiring thing there is, and I think it can teach us just about anything if we pay attention. It has been solving problems for a very long time, and its solutions are always efficient and never over-designed. Nothing in nature has a feature it doesn’t need.
Being alone also matters a lot to me. Reducing the external noise (not just literally, but all the input we’re constantly exposed to) is when I actually get ideas.
And then there’s the creativity of other artists and other manufacturers. I don’t think we appreciate enough how lucky we are: the level of design and craft around us right now is extraordinary, and there’s more of it, more accessible, than at any other point in history. That’s inspiring in itself and it also keeps you honest about the standard you’re working to.
13 What would you do if you weren’t designing and making gear?
I’d probably be making electronic devices for another niche hobby. Most likely motorsport, that’s something I might actually do in the future.
I’ve always loved cars and motorsport. I’m into sim racing, I’ve started doing real track days, and I spend a fair amount of time working on my own car. It’s the same itch as designing instruments, honestly: you’re chasing performance, you make a small change, you measure it, you feel the difference (or you don’t) and you go again.
So electronics is something I really enjoy doing, and I think I’d stick to the business side of things, just with a different purpose. I suspect I’d end up building physical things for people to use with their hands, whatever the field.
14 Whose equipment besides your own inspires you and why?
I really like Teenage Engineering, because I feel like they build whatever they want, no matter how strange the product might be. The design is top-notch, and what they manage to manufacture is impressive.
I’m also a big fan of Elektron. They’ve been making great gear for a long time, and everything about it is solid: the design, the features and the workflow.
And beyond that, Buchla and Serge, in terms of product design and focus.
15 What was the last product you created?
The ISO-F1: an analog isolator and DJ filter, and the first product in our NANO Performance line.
It’s a fully analog signal path built for hands-on use: the isolator lets you cut or boost the frequency bands, and we added two things you don’t usually get at this level: You can choose the crossover frequencies between the bands, and you can set the maximum gain. That means the same unit can behave like a subtle corrective tool or like an aggressive performance instrument, depending on how you set it up. The DJ filter sits alongside it for the more obvious performance moves.
It’s also our first real step outside Eurorack: after eight years of building modules, moving into DJ gear meant rethinking a lot of our decisions. It’s in production right now and should be in stores in September.
16 Rather than ask “what’s next?” Where is your current inspiration and thinking for your future?
I always try to build things that keep me motivated while I’m developing them, so I follow wherever my focus goes. If at some point my motivation moves away from audio electronics, I’ll stop.
My biggest inspiration is taking something that already exists and finding a way to improve it significantly.
There will be new eurorack modules and DJ / Performance devices coming out in the following months.
17 What’s a piece of music you’d like us to check out?
Honestly what I listen to most is R&B, and two albums I’d put on my favourites ever list are Eliza’s “A Sky Without Stars” and Ojerime’s “Bad Influence”. I keep coming back to both of them constantly. If you only check out two things from this whole list, make it those. Erika de Casier is another artist I always return to.
Outside of R&B, I’m big on dub, electro, house, breakbeats and low-poly drum and bass. And I’ve got a soft spot for Masayoshi Takanaka, the Japanese jazz-fusion guitarist.
18 What is something unrelated you’d like to mention for people to check out or be aware of?
I’d like to talk about the benefits of a balanced lifestyle. I’ve learned over the years that rest is just as important as the hours you put into work. If you work too much, you’ll pay for it in the end as stress, low mood, or even illness.
Work has to be just one part of our lives, and it has to be balanced with other things: sport, a social life, other hobbies. I think you’re more focused and sharper when your life is healthy and balanced.
19 What’s a question you wish I had asked?
“What’s your favourite beer?” To be honest I don’t have a favourite, I enjoy them all.
20 To end the questions here’s one from the previous guest –
Ed from Circuit Happy asks – “In the early days of demonstrating The Missing Link I had bouts of “Imposter Syndrome.” It took me a few years really to get over it. Have you ever had this feeling during your time running your business? What has helped you remedy the feeling?”
I still have imposter syndrome, and I think I’ll live with it, but I feel it in a good way. When you’re trying to make something new, you have to learn a lot, and that means being outside your comfort zone. If I never felt it, it would probably mean I’d stopped taking risks.
Working with testers helps a lot. Having people outside the company tell me whether what we’re building is good enough for the general public makes me a lot less anxious about releasing a product. But as long as you’re innovating, there will always be some fear and doubt about the product, and about yourself.
and what’s a question you’d like me to ask the next guest?
Why did you start your business, and what made you feel you had something worth showing to the world?
Thanks to Jorge and Claudia for their time providing us with pictures and answering questions, I’m excited to see how the DJ world influences their non-Eurorack designs and how those designs might also influences the Eurorack modules they bring to market in the future too. Check out all the 20 Questions series interviews HERE and watch out for the next one coming soon.
