We recently cornered Red Panda's Curt Malouin for the latest edition of our Hi-Fives feature where we accost the folks behind the brands we carry with a series of inane top 5 questions. Check out Curt's take:
Top five things about running your own company
1. Hearing people use our products in ways I never imagined
2. Working on hard problems
3. Choosing interesting projects over money
4. Working with great people
5. No conference calls or PowerPoints
Top five things that get in the way of running your company
1. Vacation
2. I hate talking on the phone
3. Disappearing into the lab for days and ignoring email
4. Day-to-day stuff like payroll taxes and ordering parts
5. Waking up at 1:00 AM with a great idea, then brain dead all afternoon
Top five things we don’t know about Red Panda
1. We love EPMD
2. P-Funk recorded down the street from our workshop
3. First product was a bitcrusher module for Line 6 ToneCore pedals
4. I wrote a modular software synth for BeOS
5. I don't play guitar.
Top five all time favorite circuits
1. TR-909 bass drum
2. Moog ladder filter
3. Lab Series L5 preamp
4. Apple II disk controller
5. E-mu SP-1200
Top five Detroit musicians of all time
1. Derrick May
2. Jeff Mills
3. George Clinton
4. James Jamerson
5. Stevie Wonder
Top five unreleased experiments
1. Reverse reverb mode from Context prototype
2. Modular synth for Mac/Windows
3. 16-channel mixer
4. Overdrive pedal
5. Something coming next year
Top five jobs you’ve worked
1. A startup with lots of smart, experienced engineers
2. Writing modeling and simulation software for an auto company
3. Writing software to test car engines
4. Writing factory production optimization software
5. Stock boy at a KMart - we used an abandoned Chuck E. Cheese next door for storage
Top five embarrassing songs in your music collection
- Those are test songs for trying out new algorithms.
Top five people named Curt
- Not aware of any; most are Kurt or Curtis.
Top five things you've wasted money
1. Coffee (in terms of total dollars)
2. Nice furniture for the cat to destroy
3. Roomba with a long hair cat
4. A television that I don't watch
5. Farm-to-table potato chips
