Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider Has Passed Away

Some sad news in. Florian Schneider has passed away at the age of 73 due to cancer. As you can see below he was recently active and accessible in the synth community. To say he will be missed is an understatement. It could be said that Florian along with Kraftwerk is directly responsible for bringing the appreciation of synthesizers and electronic music to the masses. His influence is legendary. According to the WhoSampled site, Kraftwerk has been sampled 769 times, covered 180 times, and remixed 56 times.

Via The Guardian

"Florian Schneider, who as one of the founding members of German group Kraftwerk changed the sound of pop music forever, has died aged 73 of cancer.

The news was confirmed to the Guardian by one of his musical collaborators, who said Schneider had died a week ago and had a private burial. It was also confirmed via Sony Berlin.

Born in 1947, Schneider was the son of Paul Schneider-Esbelen, a noted architect who designed Cologne’s airport. Schneider first played music in various groups while studying in Düsseldorf, beginning in a band called Pissoff. Operating in the experimental, open-minded rock scene dubbed “krautrock” in the British press, he formed the group Organisation with Ralf Hutter, the pair later forming Kraftwerk in 1970.

Schneider played the flute, violin and guitar, though often filtered through electronic processing. His interest in electronic music grew. 'I found that the flute was too limiting,' he later said. 'Soon I bought a microphone, then loudspeakers, then an echo, then a synthesiser. Much later I threw the flute away; it was a sort of process.'"

Great tribute video from a djmixsound in 2009:


Electronic legend Florian Schneider Published on Jan 8, 2009 djmixsound

An nterview with Florian Schneider at SUPERBOOTH16 (previously posted here)


Some tributes from various artists in this BBC article, sent my way via Michael Hewel:

My dear Florian
Your Autobahn will never end..
Le Tour de France ne sera plus jamais le même..#FlorianSchneider #kraftwerk #Autobahn pic.twitter.com/07Oks7PV2j

— Jean-Michel Jarre (@jeanmicheljarre) May 6, 2020

We are absolutely devastated to learn that one of our heroes Florian Schneider has passed away. pic.twitter.com/Y2dnYfxkj8

— Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (@OfficialOMD) May 6, 2020

Such an important influence upon so much of the music we know, from Bowie, to electronica, much of the 80s and beyond into modern techno and rap, Florian Schneider was forging a new Metropolis of music for us all to live in. RIP #FlorianSchneider #Kraftwerk pic.twitter.com/y2nXuAY66e

— Gary Kemp (@garyjkemp) May 6, 2020

Take a look back at posts featuring Florian Schneider here.

Update: a nice tribute from CatSynth and couple of tributes from Korg and Moog below:

Florian Schneider (1947-2020)

Published on May 6, 2020 CatSynth TV

"We look back at the life and legacy of Florian Schneider, who passed away today (May 6, 2020).

Schneider was a founding member of Kraftwerk and saw the group’s evolution from experimental rock in the early 1970s to the icons of electronic music that we know today. He began as an accomplished flutist, and many of the Kraftwerk’s early albums feature him on flute and electronics. He later moved to pure electronics including vocoders for the band’s most well known albums and their iconic stage performances.

We at CatSynth send our thoughts to his family, friends and collaborators."

We are absolutely gutted to hear about the passing of @kraftwerk Co-founder, Florian Schneider, due to cancer. He was 73 years old. Florian, while being a part of Kraftwerk, helped shape electronic music & its influence on many genres from synthpop to rock. pic.twitter.com/tSrmnOgMQl

— KORG USA (@KorgUSA) May 6, 2020

Florian Schneider will forever be an inspiration to the world of electronic music. His artistry has been influential to creatives for the last 50 years. Today, we thank and honor him for helping to guide and shape our community through sound, imagination, and innovation. pic.twitter.com/wrq4nB4icz

— Moog Synthesizers (@moogmusicinc) May 6, 2020

Update:
Farewell Florian Schneider - Vintage Synth Lab tribute - The Model - Das Model
Novation Pays Tribute to Florian Schneider
MIKE303 'Tribute to Kraftwerk'
KRAFTWERK tribute to Florian Schneider 1947 - 2020

Honoring Florian Drum Kit Demo

CatSynth TV

"We take a closer look at Honoring Florian, a drum kit by Symplesound that recreates analog-style drum sounds as a tribute to the great Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk, who passed away earlier this year. We explore the sounds, and create beats both manually and with a euclidean-rhythm sequencer.

For more information on this free kit, lease visit https://www.symplesound.com/shop/hono....

Please consider supporting this channel to help us bring you more synthesizer tutorials and other content.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/catsynth
Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/catsynth

"Florian Schneider was a founding member and principal sound designer for the pioneering German electronic music collective, Kraftwerk. One of the most distinctive elements of Kraftwerk’s sound was their drums and percussion, which were entirely synthesized using analog technology and effects.

This free pack is a tribute to the sound of this analog percussion, with 100% original sounds, synthesized and processed using the same design aesthetics as Mr. Schneider’s."

Euclidean sequencer: https://maxforlive.com/library/device...
Max for Cats Stochastic Delay: https://sonicbloom.net/en/products/st...

Our tribute video to Florian Schneider:" [posted here]

SUPERBOOTH16 LIVE SchneidersTalk; Nik Nowak, Herr Schneider and Florian Schneider (Kraftwerk) FULL

Scheduled for Apr 2, 2016 Analogue Zone Showroom / Synths and Studio

"BREAKING! Florian Schneider from Kraftwerk is also attending this event!

This is the full version with Florian Schneider also"

http://www.analoguezone.com/

P.S.: giant size educational KORG MS20 at 5:08.

Farewell Florian Schneider - Vintage Synth Lab tribute - The Model - Das Model

Published on May 6, 2020 Vintage Synthlab

"Farewell tribute to Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk. Dad Model excerpt on Eurorack, by Vintage Synth Lab."

Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider Has Passed Away

Florian Schneider's Roland System 700

"The unit up for action was formerly owned by electronic music legend Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk (proof available). It has recently been fully calibrated, restored, and cleaned by analog synthesizer specialist Sebastian Niessen (SND)." Title link takes you to shots pulled from this auction. Via Moogulator.

Details of auction saved for posterity:
They don't come any nicer or more prestigious:
You are bidding for Roland System 700 Main Unit. The System 700 was Roland's flagship synthesizer in the late 70s and early 80s and is probably the most elaborate modular synthesizer ever made.

The unit up for action was formerly owned by electronic music legend Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk (proof available). It has recently been fully calibrated, restored, and cleaned by analog synthesizer specialist Sebastian Niessen (SND).
All modules are in pristine, near perfect condition and fully original (no modifications). The case and its tolex is also in very good condition (no cuts, only a few very minor scratches).
The red and white toggle switch caps have been removed for purely aesthetic reasons, as has the red envelope trigger button, which was replaced by a black one. The original parts are included and can easily be put back into place.
The system's configuration is fully original and contains the following modules (some of which are grouped together):
3 voltage controlled oscillators (full range)
2 voltage controlled oscillators (low frequency)
1 clock oscillator
1 reference oscillator
1 noise generator

1 voltage controlled low-pass filter (24dB/octave, voltage controllable resonance)
1 voltage controlled multimode filter (12dB/octave, low-, band, and high-pass)

2 voltage controlled amplifiers (for insiders: the good ones using the BA662 chip, not the CA3080)
1 ring modulator

1 voltage controlled phaser w. lfo
1 spring reverb

1 3-channel stereo output-mixer
1 3-channel audio/cv-mixer w. bipolar outputs

1 preamplifier
1 envelope follower
1 lag processor
1 sample & hold
2 multiple jacks

The unit's power supply is currently set to 240 volts. It can internally be switched to 100, 115, 220, and 240 volts. Serial number is 090173. For more information check vintagesynth.com/roland/sys700.shtml.


Shipment worldwide, please ask me for shipment fee BEFORE bidding. Shipping and insurance is not included in the price.

This is a private auction. There´s no warranty and I won´t take it back again! Happy bidding!

Sketch by Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk

Remember this drawing from this post? Turns out the drawing was actually by Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk for Dirk, not the other way around. Pretty cool. Make sure to check out the previous post for a stitch by Herrn Schneider's daughter with a bald Florian. Funny.

Update via Moogulator in the comments: "Dirk sold Florian the ARP as a SHOP, so it was "an ARP of others", not really Dirks but a Synthesizerstudio Bonn [the name of the synth shop] one.. Hope that makes it clearer.. ;) "

"Just got back from a trip to europe, and stayed with my friend Julius, one of my friends who records for Compost. He has done some pretty cool projects [building a VST interface to Kraftwerk pioneer Florian Schneider's most recent vocoder purchase] as well as creating his own VST plugins for Mac / PC called Kammerl Kaske [http://www.kammerl.de/audio] The details of the Florian Schneider project -- About 2 years ago, Florian put the original Kraftwerk vocoder for sale on eBay [quite possibly one of the rarest eBay sales ever, at least for music equipment]. It wasn't that Kraftwerk was getting out of 'vocoding' but rather, he found one of the earliest vocoder projects out there. A professor at a German university in the speech department was building a rather large rack of about 32 drawers of band-pass filters that were aimed to create at one point, a vocoder. As the professor passed away some time ago, the speech department was looking to part ways with the project and Florian had come into contact with the university. He made an offer, and they sold him the remnants. Now there's another friend of Julius' that creates some rather crafty devices known as SND, aka Sebastian Niessen. He's most known for his SAM-16 sequencer, fixed filter banks and other fun stuff. Sebastian engineered the hardware, and Julius designed the software, and the result is this So as some "parting gifts" / compensation, Sebastian received one of the first Kraftwerk speech synths, and Julius received ONE of the FOUR MIDI Robovox units."

Published on Mar 16, 2013 RothHandle·1,500 videos

KRAFTWERK tribute to Florian Schneider 1947 - 2020

Published on May 9, 2020 Redmartian

"These are just a few clips I posted on Mastodon as a tribute to Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider. They feature some elements that brought his personality and humor to the band. His skill as a radio telegrapher featured in Radioactivity. While they repeat the main lyrics "tune into the melody" becomes "tune into the KRAFTWERK" in morse code. His use of the vocoder and mellotron on Radioland and of course the Texas Instruments Language Tutor which was featured on Computerworld.

These are just in the moment posts, mostly 1 minute or less made for social media and are not complete cover versions. All backing music was recreated and sequenced using MIDI or played live on vintage analog synths."

Florian Shneider posts

Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider Studio Sale

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

This one in via Florian Anwander.

"Apparantly Florian Schneider from Kraftwerk is doing some studio sale."

You'll find the full list of items here. I grabbed some of the synth items for the archives.

Pictured:

Computone Wind Synthesizer Driver Midi Controller

Vermona Digital Rhythm Machine

Firstman Sequence Synthesizer Model SQ-01

Roland SH-101 Synthesizer

Russian Vintage Synthesizer

Roland CR-78 CompuRhythm SN 976966

Formanta Electronic Percussion Synthesizer

Korg Programmable Rhythm KPR-77 Drum Machine

Syntovox SPX-216 Vocoder Synton Effects Unit SN 0019

Waldorf Midibay Midi Patchbay

Reverse Keys Korg Poly-800 Synthesizer

Yamaha CS-15 Synthesizer

CLICK FOR MORE »

Novation Pays Tribute to Florian Schneider

via @WeAreNovation

"RIP to the extraordinary Florian Schneider, essential electronic music pioneer and a true innovator. As a great inspiration to so many of us at Novation HQ we look back to some of our favourite Kraftwerk tracks >>>" [Spotify playlist here]

florian

flickr by Analogue Solutions

"Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk, posing with an Analogue Solutions Vostok at the Frankfurt music show.

I can't remember the year, but it was about 2005.

He was cool. He put his glasses on especially for the picture, to look more like a technician. And posed with the headphones on!

He talked a lot about cycling!"

http://analoguesolutions.co.uk/

Kraftwerk Drawing and Stitch

Moogulator of sequencer.de sent me the following drawing by Florian Schneirder of Kraftwerk. Florian drew it for Dirk as a thank you gesture for selling Florian his ARP Odyssey. Title link takes you to the post on sequencer.de which also includes a Kraftwerk stitch by Herrn Schneider's daughter. Cool stuff.

Update, Moogulator gave me the ok to post the stitch shot as well, so here it is. Thanks Moogulator!


Update via Moogulator in the comments:

"ps: note, that on that stitch florian has no hair, so his daugther knows her father ;)"

Too funny.

New Superbooth Live Talk with Nik Nowak, Herr Schneider and Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk

See this post for the new updated video!

DX5 playing Kraftwerk "Computer Love" cover

DX5

In memory of Florian Schneider 1947-2020.
Gear used:
Emu Emax II (SE Synthesis sound).
Backtrack previously recorded (track by track) and sequenced on Pro Tools.
Composed by Karl Bartos, Ralf Hütter, Emil Schult.
Performed here by DX5 Jose María Bara.

1975: KRAFTWERK - Music of the FUTURE? | Tomorrow's World | Classic BBC Music | BBC Archive

video upload by BBC Archive

Click the BBC Archive link above for more.

"Derek Cooper reports on Kraftwerk, a German pop group who are pioneers of a new kind of electronic music. Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Wolfgang Flür and Klaus Röder create and programme sounds at their Dusseldorf laboratory and recreate them on stage using a variety of synthesisers and bespoke electronic instruments.

Here, they perform an excerpt from their most popular track to date, 'Autobahn'.

Originally broadcast 25 September, 1975."

MINISYNTH ANALOG SYNTHESIZER. WORLD'S RAREST SYNTHESIZER. Ben Burtt hasn't got.

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

Anyone know what this is?

via this auction

"Rarest synthesizer in the World, as far as I know. Possibly a prototype, that never went into production?
Analogue / Analog Synthesizer with Line Out Socket and Speaker. Power Supply and voice/patch sheet, included.
Size : 13cm x 21.5cm . Will work with any 4.5Volt or 6Volt power supply, with + centre pin setting.
(Florian Schneider, Ralf Hutter, Graham Massey, Vince Clark, Martin Gore, Jean Micheal Jarre or Aphex Twin, have not got a Mini Synth)
(Even George Lucas and, Star Wars sound engineer friend, Ben Burtt, have not got a Mini Synth)
Reason for selling: Mini Synth needs a proven synth-master, to wield this analogue monophonic powerhouse.
Please, study all 9 photographs of the actual incredible items for sale."

Update via the comments: "based on the 3 switch 'Mixer' and the mixer truth table hand written on the back of the device, it looks to be based around the TI SN76477/SN76488 sound chip"

CLICK FOR MORE »

Il creatore - Ti illudi di guidare

YouTube via iosonoilcreatore.

Be sure to check out previously posted videos here.
"Tu ti illudi di guidare
ma in realtà tu sei una ruota
dentro questo meccanismo
così vasto e complicato
che è impossibile capire...

"Ti illudi di guidare" dal disco "La testa, che pensa?" 2007 pubblicato da Iperuranoaddizioni.
Il creatore ha suonato:
Sidstation, Commodore 64, Vocoders, Talk-box.

http://iperuranoaddizioni.googlepages...

Doris Norton, Bruce Haack, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos, Rob Hubbard,"

Historic Machines - in Memory of Kraftwerks earlier style

Published on May 16, 2020 Andreas Remshagen

"i made this video in gratitude for the electronic-Band Kraftwerk that has
influenced me since i was a little child.

This song is based to the style of Kraftwerks earlier years. At this time The Members were Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos.

All Synthesizers and the drums i used are analog, the Delay and the Vocoder are Digital

The Machines in the Video you can find at Dansk Motor & Maskinsamling https://motorsamlingen.dk/
The Bedini Machine i had built for experimenting. Bedini was influenced by Nikola Tesla-so i would see this as historic"

Circular Keyboard

YouTube Uploaded by organfairy on Aug 23, 2011

"A couple of christmases ago I made a decoration that was inspired by J.M.Jarre's circular keyboard from the 1980's. Now it's time to take it one step further.

In this video I make an actual circular keyboard out of it. But I still need to make some kind of electronics for it. But now that I have made the mechanical part I don't believe that the rest will be that difficult.

The music is something I made in the year 2000 and is a Barbie-like take on Ralph Hütter and Florian Schneider's "Europe Endless" originally recorded by Kraftwerk in 1977. The arpeggio is made using a PC programme called SEQ-303. It is basically a 16 step sequencer on a PC with sliders and MIDI control. The rest is played on Yamaha HE-8 organ, Roland SH-2000 synthesizer, and Kawai MS-20 keyboard."

Kraftwerk "The Model"

YouTube via DX5 — June 07, 2010 —

"They started it all...

Gear:
Upper: Emu EMAX II HD
Mid: Roland JP8000

Tape Machine: ReVox B77 MKII

Backtrack sequenced on Pro Tools at first, then dumped to tape.

Composed by Karl Bartos, Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider"

And the original (don't miss the last video below):

KRAFTWERK - THE MODEL

YouTube via JanaParker — August 12, 2006 — KRAFTWERK - THE MODEL

And the original original...

Kraftwerk: Das Modell

YouTube via Galgo23 — October 02, 2006 — 1978

And "live" - don't miss this one.

Kraftwerk - Das Model

petethemeat99 — December 18, 2007 — Kraftwerk - Das Model