Kraftwerk on Mitternacht 1975 (Full Ver)

Published on Jul 27, 2013

The album cover has a Buchla. I'm guessing it's not the original.  I don't believe I've ever seen Kraftwerk with a Buchla before and Discogs has a different cover for the tape.   Regardless, I thought it was kind of interesting.  Did Kraftwerk ever try a Buchla?  Click here for a 1975 video of Kraftwerk performing Autobahn.

"Concert Live 1975.09.21 Croydon, UK
1- Kling klang
2- Tongebirge
3- Tanzmusik
4- Ruckzuck
5- Kometenmelodie 1
6- Die Sonne, Der Mond, Die Sterne
7- Kometenmelodie 2
8- Mitternacht
9- Autobahn"

Panoptigon Plays KRAFTWERK's "Franz Schubert" on Vintage Vako Orchestron VIOLIN Disc

Published on Jan 19, 2019 optigandotcom

"This is a demo of the PANOPTIGON- the new Optigan/Orchestron disc playing instrument by Quilter Labs, developed in association with optigan.com.

Kraftwerk is undoubtedly the most famous user of the original Vako Orchestron, which can be heard on all their albums from the late 1970s. Most notable is their use of the VOCAL CHOIR disc, but they also made good use of the VIOLIN disc, heard on such tracks as 1977's "Franz Schubert." We painstakingly transcribed the two Orchestron tracks from the original recording and created a sequence in Cubase, which then played back the parts via MIDI into a Panoptigon loaded with a vintage VIOLIN disc just like Kraftwerk had. The left/right channel parts were then recorded in two seperate passes as audio back into cubase, and mixed with a soft synth plug-in recreating the repeating arpeggio pattern. A bit of reverb was added, but otherwise what you're hearing is the direct signal from the Panoptigon.

Please visit http://www.optigan.com for more information about the availability of the Panoptigon, as well as remastered editions of all the original Orchestron disc titles that Kraftwerk used on their albums!"

Afrika Bambaataa-Planet Rock Kraftwerk Original Video

YouTube via hades4o. Roland TR-808 and Kraftwerk Samples.
"Afrika Bambaataa-Planet Rock Kraftwerk Original Video"

Update: new video:

Afrika Bambaataa - Planet Rock - HQ Video

Uploaded by PlanetRockVideo on Aug 10, 2009

"http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov08/articles/classictracks_1108.htm
Music By - Arthur Baker & John Robie , Soul Sonic Force
1982 , Tommy Boy Music"

Electronic Sound Issue 56 Magazine & CD Bundle Featuring EMS

via Electronic Sound

"We have a superb issue for you this month. And that’s not only because we have an exclusive interview with Kraftwerk main man Ralf Hütter, although since Hütter rarely talks to the press that is clearly something a bit special.

Our cover feature details the history of EMS, the legendary UK synthesiser company founded by Peter Zinovieff, Tristram Cary and David Cockerell in 1969. What started out as a vehicle to fund Zinovieff’s studio became a decade-long adventure in synthesis with a very British sense of innovation about it. EMS machines like the VCS 3 and the Synthi AKS were responsible for some of the best known electronic music of the 1970s – from the Radiophonic Workshop to Brian Eno to Pink Floyd.

We also have a weighty report on the recent Bluedot Festival, featuring Kraftwerk, New Order, Jon Hopkins, John Grant and more. Our interview with Ralf Hütter took place backstage after the Kraftwerk set, with Hütter radiating urbane charm and wry humour as he chatted about music and science and sampling and cycling. “We are not a museum, so let’s play what we do,” he declares. “My art is music.”

Other interviews this issue include Haiku Salut, Eric Random, Jah Wobble & Bill Laswell, Paranoid London, Rolo McGinty from The Woodentops. Plus, of course, we have our packed front section, our ace regular columnists, and our usual exotic feast of new album reviews. Hit the link to order your copy straight away!



Limited Edition CD Album: ‘The Sounds of EMS’

This month’s audio accompaniment is ‘The Sounds Of EMS’, a fascinating 45-minute CD of music made either by the people responsible for EMS, or by the machines they built. You can almost smell the dust burning as the old circuits start warming up! The CD has two pieces by Peter Zinovieff and another from Tristram Cary, the latter with a spoken explanation of what he wanted to achieve with the piece. There are also tracks by David Vorhaus (who founded the cult electronic group White Noise with Delia Derbyshire), Mike Hankinson (another early adopter of the VCS 3), Benge from Wrangler and Jack Dangers from Meat Beat Manifesto.


01. PETER ZINOVIEFF – ‘A LOLLIPOP FOR PAPA’
02. TRISTRAM CARY – ‘ 3, 4, 5 – A STUDY IN LIMITED RESOURCES’
03. BENGE – ‘1969 EMS VCS3’
04. DAVID VORHAUS – ‘THING FOR TWO VCS3S’
05. JACK DANGERS @ TAPE LAB – ‘SYNTHI 100-PIECE 1’
06. MIKE HANKINSON – ‘JS BACH’S FUGUE AND TOCCATA IN D MINOR’
07. PETER ZINOVIEFF – ‘JANUARY TENSIONS’ (EXCERPT)
08. TRISTRAM CARY – ‘3, 4 , 5 – A STUDY IN LIMITED RESOURCES’ (TALK)"

Radioland: Kraftwerk's Radio-Activity Revisited- 'Radioland' Live

Radioland: Kraftwerk's Radio-Activity Revisited- 'Radioland' Live from sounduk on Vimeo.

"Marking its 40th anniversary, Matthew Bourne on analogue synths, Franck Vigroux on electronics and video artist Antoine Schmitt radically re-work Kraftwerk’s seminal 1975 album, Radio-Activity."

Synth spotting: memory moog, mini moog...

Blade runner, kraftwerk radioactivity & Enjoy The Silence (Alesis micron)

YouTube Uploaded by bountykiller91 on Feb 21, 2011

"Enjoy The Silence (my version with Alesis micron) By Depeche Mode"

kraftwerk radioactivity

Uploaded by bountykiller91 on Oct 13, 2011

"This is my own version of kraftwerk's radioactivity. for do it I use:
Alesis micron: bass, drum, lead and effect.
Roland exr-3: string
Yamaha mg102c: mixer"

Kraftwerk - The Man Machine - Recreation

video upload by Luke Million

"Friday Funk Jams are back and today I'm recreating 'The Man Machine' by Kraftwerk. Often referred to as the Godfathers of Electronic Music, Kraftwerk are a huge inspiration to me. 🤖🎹🤖"

Kraftwerk's Live Consoles Up Close

Kraftwerk Trans Europe Express.Amsterdam Paradiso 2015

Published on Jan 24, 2015 Willy Billiams

"3-D The Mix Show 22nd January 2015"

This one in via Jürgen. A rare look at some of the various controllers Kraftwerk uses live. You can see a Keith McMillan QuNeo, Native Instruments Maschine, an iPad running TouchOSC (I forget the white box to the left but I recognize it), a Novation Zero SL and I believe a Numark Orbit.

Kraftwerk Pocket Calculator on Bee Gees Rhythm Machine

YouTube via peahix.

"Further adventures in extreme music geekdom. This is me playing Kraftwerk's "Pocket Calculator" on a Mattel Bee Gees Rhythm Machine keyboard, followed by Kraftwerk's Ralf Hutter playing the song live one their Mattel Bee Gees Rhythm Machine. Except theirs is all painted black to hide the "Bee Gees" bit. Clever. You can also see this keyboard on the "Computer World" LP jacket. The other hand-held noisemakers are a Stylophone, TI Language Translator (same sound chip as the Speak & Spell), and a home-made electronic percussion trigger." Sent my way via J Lesser.



And the original. YouTube via technik.

Quasimidi Cyber-6 Listed for A Quarter of a Million Dollars

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

via this auction

Listed for US $248,500.00

The reason?

According to the listing it belonged to Kraftwerk:

"The highest offer that exceeds the starting price may be accepted as sufficient to win the auction and end the auction with the offer maker as the winning auction

Quasimidi Cyber-6 Synthesizer ; Belonged to Kraftwerk

If you look at the Invoice of the German Ministry of Finance, or Quasimidi Brand Manufacturer's Files or you know or ask the member who still maintains the band and who maintains all of their Files, you can see that the Quasimidi Cyber-6 serial number: 821-25378, this same Quasimidi Cyber-6, belonged to the German group Kraftwerk and they used it in their live performances and studio"

This one was spotted and sent in via gridsleep.

CLICK FOR MORE »

Kraftwerk on Meeting Bob Moog

This one in via Brian Kehew.

I thought the following was pretty great. It's at the end of a rare interview with Kraftwerk's Ralf Hütter on the Miami New Times.

"Before you leave, may I ask you what influence Moog has had on your music?

We met him when we were recording a TV show in Los Angeles back in '75 and Mr. Moog was there. We used a monophonic Minimoog -- we didn't have the budget for the larger one -- but he, of course, knew that already. What he didn't know was that meeting the machine's inventor was one of the true highlights of our lives."

Update: below is an image of Kraftwerk from 1976 via Wikipedia's page for Trans Europe Express.  You can see the Minimoog as well as a couple of ARP Odysseys.  Curios what that is in the background left.

Update2 via Steven in the comments: "It's a Synthanorma sequencer (by Matten & Wiechers).
http://a-u-t-o-b-a-h-n.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/elektromusik-u-t-o-b-h-n-der-besten-das.html

I guess it's an earlier model than this one.
http://www.matrixsynth.com/2007/02/synthanorma-sequenzer.html"

And via Brian: "Under the Minimoog is an Orchestron, Model A or B..."

Red Martian Covers Kraftwerk at the Living Computer Museum Seattle

Uploaded on Aug 15, 2015 matrixsynth

[1st track in the set is actually Isi by NEU]

Red Martian covers Kraftwerk at the Free Play event at the Living Computer Museum in Seattle Washington, Saturday, Aug 15, 2015.
The Seattle Retro Gaming Expo was going on and Red Martian played.

http://redmartian.com
http://www.kraftwerk.com
http://www.seattleretro.org
http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org

Gear:
Realistic Moog MG-1
Roland GAIA
ARP AXXE
Sequential Circuits Prophet-600
acidlab MIAMI
Roland SVC-350
Texas Instruments Language Translator with German & English

BTW, if you do not recognize the name Red Martian, do a quick search for them on the top right here on MATRIXSYNTH.

A few pics before the show:

CLICK FOR MORE »

Synth Sounds of "Autobahn" by Kraftwerk (1978 Minimoog)

Published on Mar 18, 2020 Valmont / Mooggy

"Song starts at 2:35
0:12 - Major Lead
1:20 - Delay Bass
1:46 - Swing Plucks
2:04 - Car FX

Analog drums on Arturia Modular V3, Kraftwerk Tribute design
Thickkk phaser: Audiothing Phase Motion 2

Kraftwerk - Autobahn, ℗ 1974 Phonogram GmbH"

Moog Minimoog (1st gen. VCO)

Published on Mar 16, 2020 Valmont / Mooggy

"Just every sound from this icon is a marvel of the analog dream
I can't stress this enough :D"

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]

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 The Robots Lego Style!

Dj Timo - We are the Robots (Kraftwerk Cover)

YouTube via svattrov. via HaJo via Robot toy club.
"A cover of the Kraftwerk hit 'the Robots' prod by Hard act 2 Follow and dj timo, sweden"
Don't miss the Princess Leia pole dancer.

72 ARP Odyssey Whiteface Vintage Analog Synth

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

via this auction

"If you're here, you know the Odyssey is like a mini-ARP 2600, but with added VCO sync capabilities, dual-voicing, and dedicated LFO. Kraftwerk used this exact model of Odyssey on all their early tracks, and can be heard especially on Autobahn. YouTube videos of this synth abound. It was also used by bands like Alphaville, YMO, Ultravox, ABBA, Jean Michelle-Jarre, John Foxx (Metamatic), Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schultze, Devo, and many more. It is one of the top 10 classic analog synths ever made, and rarely found in this condition. In my opinion, the whiteface ARP blows away the Minimoog. You can duplicate the Minimoog sound with an Odyssey, but can't duplicate an Odyssey with a Minimoog. This is a must-have synth for any vintage synth aficionado...

PHYSICAL CONDITION:

The synth is near mint. Face of synth is a matte cream, as when new. Most old Odysseys show wear marks to the black print or have a shiny white surface from fingers rubbing against the paint. This one looks nearly brand new. Sliders move easily and smoothly and are not glitchy. The octave switch works perfectly and is not yellowed like on most old Odysseys. All knobs and switches function as they ought to. Power switch light actually works, a rarity on this synth. The synth is perfectly in tune (but adjustments can move during shipping so tuning is not guaranteed) and works great from external CV/GATE. Keys trigger perfectly. All keys had bushings replaced, keybed aligned, keys polished and leveled, springs and bus bar cleaned. It now plays like butter and triggers perfectly on every key.

FULLY REFURBISHED AND CALIBRATED:

No expense has been spared to bring this synth to fully-functioning, near mint, fully-calibrated, original condition:

1) Every key bushing was replaced and lubricated. The keys now play like butter.
2) Every key spring was cleaned and for perfect key triggering. Busbars were cleaned.
3) Every key was disassembled and hand-polished to a mirror-like finish
4) The keybed was painstakingly levelled so that every key lines up vertically with the next, with equal spacing between keys. The keyboard maintenance alone took over 6 hours to accomplish.
5) Original slider caps were sourced and are very clean. The synth also includes the rare original pink caps.
6) All sliders were hand-cleaned (not using any spray) and now slide perfectly without much effort. Do a search for "kraftwerk world of tomorrow" on YouTube to see Kraftwerk using a whitefaced Odyssey on Autobahn. You will notice the sliders move easily with one finger in the video. That's how the sliders should work on an ARP Odyssey.
7) A new old stock tuning knob was sourced and is in mint, shiny condition
8) Synth was gone over with a fine-toothed comb by my synth tech and calibrated. All features are working perfectly and the synth is in tune, including the dual-voice feature.
9) To make the synth even easier to control, a Kenton CV/GATE kit was added with 4 jacks (top-bottom, CV, GATE, TRIG, FILTER). The kit works perfectly and the synth can be controlled from most CV/GATE converters.

MINOR ISSUES:

1) Two rubber feet are missing from the bottom. These can be sourced online. I probably have a couple similar type rubber feet in my junk drawer that are non-original ARP feet that I could include if the new owner wants them.
2) A couple light scratches along the back of the synth
3) A couple small nicks on the face of the synth
4) Small mark on black plastic along top right edge of synth"

CLICK FOR MORE »

Toa Mata Band - Episode#5 [The man & the machines]

Published on Jan 21, 2017 Opificio Sonico

Some gear/synth spotting: Soundmachines NS1nanosynth, EHX MINI-SYNTHESIZER, Moog Animoog (not sure what the second app is), Boss Hand Clapper, and Novation Launchpad.

"I was 11 when during a Sunday afternoon of 1978 Kraftwerk appeared for the first time in an Italian TV show. For me it was a dazzling discovery, one that has changed my life , so I went into my room , took a tape and recorded the audio from the tv speaker!! I still keep that precious recording and I've played it again and again for a long time.

Since that day I was waiting the time when the robots make a real functioning band and play music live, and nowdays a lot of music robots around the world are growing up, giving new ideas and creative communication to the music.
This is my inspiration to this Kraftwerk 's tribute, regarding their vision of the future and to their brilliant approaching to the music with a touch of irony that even now is still influencing a thousand of music producers around the world.

My video contribution from Toa Mata Band (a tiny orchestra of Lego® robots driven by Arduino®) represents a version of the iconic tune 'The robots' using nowdays open-source technologies, microcontrollers, 3D printer, robot arm, music DAW, smarthphones, pocket synthesizers* and more... trying to give a new way to read the message we got from them 40 years ago.

Hoping you'll enjoy it, I want thank you for watching!

Giuseppe Acito (Opificio Sonico)

*Also see the 5 prologues already uploaded on this channel [above]

:: Credits:
Artwork: Giuseppe Acito
Camera: Mattia P. Acito
Music: Hutter\Schneider\Bottos [Kraftwerk]
Performed: Toa Mata Band
Wear: DilIborio

The performance was recorded in December 2016.

:: Booking: http://www.fpartists.com/artisti/toa-..."

Previous videos by Opificio Sonico.

Kraftwerk - Die Roboter

YouTube via technik. Note this is the live German version.
"Kraftwerk - Die Roboter
(Rockpop, German TV ZDF, 1978)"

You can find the English video here. Embedding disabled unfortunately.
Note the white ARP Odyssey in the English version and what appears to be a black and gold ARP Axxe in the German. Correction [via ralf in the comments]: it's not an Axxe as there are switches under the slider, so it must be an Odyssey - it just looks narrower in the video. The other synth in the embedded video appears to be a Moog. Anyone know which one? The drums are custom. You can find a good image of them and a list of the instruments used by Kraftwerk over the years here. Note the site does not list the Axxe and the only Moog listed during the 70s is the Minimoog, yet the performance above from 1978, the other synth is clearly not a Mini.

Update via micke in the comments: "It's a Micromoog. Afaik they used it on The Man Machine album. And yes, that's indeed the Synthanorma sequencer." click on the Synthanorma label below for prior posts featuring the sequencer.

Kraftwerk Documentary

YouTube via Plotteny | February 10, 2009

"Made by Malik Bendjelloul for Swedish TV:s Pop i fokus in 2001. Interviews with Karl Bartos, Wolfgang Flur, Bjork, Moby, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Peter Saville."

Also see:
Trailer Kraftwerk.mov
Kraftwerk on the BBC