If Giorgio invented House (sort of), then Kraftwerk invented Techno (definitely). Giorgio hired programmers to get the sounds he wanted, Kraftwerk built their own studio and patented new gear. Giorgio wanted hits, Kraftwerk wanted art. 
If you've ever wondered how an average Music Thing reader appears to the general public, watch this incredible video of Kraftwerk performing 'Autobahn'
So, the Kraftwerk vocoder auction finished yesterday, and 60,000 hits on the auction page, it sold for $12,500 to a bidder from London called mjgooner. Presumably he's an Arsenal fan, and recently bought a nice-looking 1993 Alfa Romeo Spider, and a Bob Moog doll. If you're out there, mjgooner, get in touch and let us know how it feels!
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These are exciting times for people wanting to buy elderly studio gear with fashionable associations*. After Kraftwerk's vocoder and The Radiophonic Workshop's patchbay, comes Conny Plank's Entire Studio. Conny started his career as a sound man for Marlene Dietrich, before producing all the important krautrock albums by Kraftwerk, Neu! and Can. He died in 1987, but his studio continued, until his widow died on 1st June. Now the entire contents are up for sale in this auction, which seems slightly shambolic: "We will collect all the bids and offers over a couple of weeks and after a while the highest bidder will be the lucky one" but there is some great stuff on offer, including the hand-built console, some nice synths, and an instant collection of super-cool rack gear (1 and 2)... (Thanks, Samuel and Zanf) *I guess that's all of us, really.
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Loscha writes: "While not as cool as the Kraftwerk Vocoder, a jackfield from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is still very neat..." Quite right: eBay item #120003732436 is a jackfield/patchbay which was apparently used in the legendary workshop before being shipped to Australia in the luggage of a former BBC engineer. As the vendor rightly says: "I can say, unashamedly, This is the best jackfield in the entire world. Period. You will never see anything like this again in your entire life." Unfortunately, you've just missed the chance to have something to plug it into. eBay item #250001734656 was a AKG BX20 spring reverb unit, "As used in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop", although it's not totally clear if that was this actual unit, or just the model. Either way, it went for a not unreasonable £470.
£2,950 gets you eBay item 300219454269 a 1979 Moog vocoder, apparently used by Monty Python on their 'Contractual Obligation' album. The seller promises 'more collectable audio gear from our Monty Python collection'. Somehow, it's not quite as attractive as Kraftwerk's original vocoder, which sold on eBay for $12,500 in 2006.
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Labels: Instruments Survey, tips
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Last week Google introduced their Patent Search site, which searches patents going back hundreds of years. What could be more fun? Here is Bob Moog's patent for the Moog 'ladder' Filter, filed in 1966 and granted in 1969. This seems to be John M Chowning's patent for FM synthesis, which earned $20m for Stanford when Yamaha licensed it for the DX7. Here is Leon Theremin's 1925 patent for the Theremin. Here is Leo Fender's pickup patent from 1944 (here is Les Paul's). Here is the Synthaxe, here is the Fender
Lots of people say things like 'RARE legendary' in eBay auctions for DX7s and Casio VL-Tones, but eBay item #300001522431 doesn't go for hype, just saying "prototype VOCODER of german 70´s Electronic Pioneers". What's on offer is Ralf & Florian's vocoder, built to order by a local electronics company, and later used on the intro to 'Autobahn'. No bids so far at $3,800, with ten days to go. (Thanks, Kaden)
Late as ever, I've just discovered YouTube (basically Flickr for video). Their slogan is 'Broadcast Yourself', but people mainly seem to be broadcasting cool music videos:
This is absolutely the best thing I've seen for ages (thanks, John). The after-school percussion group at Minnetonka High School, Minneapolis, rehearsed for months and can now play two tracks from DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing' album. The music was arranged by 25 year-old geographer/law student/vibraslap enthusiast Brian Udelhofen, who teaches the group. The Shadow Percussion Project links to this amazing video [65mb WMV] of the group's live performance in May 2005. They play 'Building Steam with a Grain of Salt' and 'Changeling'. What's amazing is how much like the record they sound (given the rather fuzzy audio), at least on 'Building Steam'. The drummers recreate the glitchy MPC-60 loop editing pretty much perfectly. Medals all round. Meanwhile, at the other end of the legal scale, you may find a very cool torrent on your local filesharing network called 'Dj Shadow - Endtroducing Sample Sources', which contains 36 tracks, from Metallica to Billy Cobham, that were used on the album.
It's been linked all over the place, but I only just saw this [wmv] clip of David 'that guy from the VW advert' Bernal dancing (he's the third kid on. You'll know it's him when the crowd go apeshit). There's a great interview with David here at kottke.org. Turns out he's a big Warp Records fan. (from Kingblind)
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Rhetorical rVoice is a professional speech synthesis system - they build voices for artificial call centres and the like. Their demo page is perfect for generating, say, an earnest Spanish gentleman rapping 'Bring The Noise' [100k mp3], or a stoned valley girl doing 'Night of the Living Bassheads' [160k mp3]. If you're hunting for Radiohead/ Kraftwerk/ Hawking robot voices, then you'll have to look elsewhere.
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