Guest-Review | Kinotone Audio Ribbons

Author’s note: this is a guest review. The views expressed in this review are those of the author. All links to the author’s products, channels and interests have been approved by the moderators of this blog.

“Wow, what on Earth does that do?”

That’s the main question I get asked about the ‘Ribbons’ by Kinotone Audio.

The answer, is that this is the ultimate, granular tape machine! It can do everything from filtering, chorus, vibrato, wow & flutter, and reverb, to tape-stop, reverse/forward live playback, lo-fi, and bit crushing. There’s even a four-track looper on-board!

Add onto all of that, multiple momentary functions, eight built-in presets, MIDI control, expression/cv input…and it looks insanely cool, too.

‘Ribbons’ manages to strike a perfect balance between complexity, and simple navigation. Yes, there’s a lot to remember and it can be easy to get a little bit lost in all the parameters, however the fact that it has a massive eight preset slots on-board, renders this slight flaw almost completely irrelevant, in my opinion.

The looper mode might just be my favourite thing about the ‘Ribbons’! When you press the white button and the bypass footswitch together, it enters looper mode, and each of the four LEDs represents an individual, Tensor-style looper, each one with the ability to be accelerated or reversed, sped up or down, or faded in or out of the mix. It really is like having four Tensors on your board, all arranged in parallel with each other! This alone is worth the price, I think.

As for all the “non-looper” stuff, it reminds me a lot of the Chase Bliss Audio Mood, which also has filtering, micro-looping, live playback, and reverb effects, plus MIDI and expression control, and the ability to save a preset.

However, the ‘Ribbons’ has all of that stuff, PLUS lo-fi, “generation loss” style effects, a much simpler layout, no dipswitches to think about, and of course, extra presets and that amazing looper mode.

I suspect my Mood’s days are numbered…

This review was written by Reddit user and mod of r/guitarpedals, slap_me_thrice.

You can find his Instagram profile here.

Click here to visit his YouTube channel, ‘Pedal Experiments’.