Bob-omb wrote:I've been listening to Kraftwerk a lot lately, especially the Man Machine and Computer World. Today, me and my friend started to re-create some of the drum sounds from these albums on my Moog. Really love those "zap" sounds! :)
Most of the sounds that they used are AFAIK from synthesizers but the drums on some of the songs such as Europe Endless & the Model really sounds like old rhythmboxes. So, does anyone know if Kraftwerk ever used drummachines instead of synthesizers for drums? The custom made triggerpads probably trigged a drummachine rather than different synthesizers?
...and as a bonus question...
My friend claim that Kraftwerk didn't use sequencers before Computer World. Anyone who knows anything about this?
Thanks!
Howdy,
Your friend is all wrong. Kraftwerk did use custom-built Synthanorma sequencers on both TEE and MM.
Afaik, the drum sounds on those two albums were
mostly done on a Maestro Rhythm-king. They'd modified it with trigger inputs for each of its drum sounds so it could be triggered from either the Synthanorma sequencer (built by Matten & Wiechers, see below) or the custom electronic drum pads.
The heavily modified Synthanorma sequencers and the Maestro Rhythm-King drum box.
For 1981's "Computer world"** Wolfgang Flür used a contraption called the "Intervallomat with Triggersumme" in combination with the analog Synthanorma sequencers. This was apparently sort of a a Simmons SDS-6-like trigger generator used to trigger Simmons SDS-V racks and Syndrums.

Kraftwerk live in concert, 1981 with Wolfgang Flür manouvering the Intervallomat/triggersumme (drum-trigger unit). The Syndrum unit can be seen in the rack behind him.
** Kraftwerk might have had this by the time of recording "The Man Machine" back in early 1978 but I'm not sure about that.
"The (Yamaha) CS-80 is a step ahead in keyboard control, and a generation behind in digital control" -- Dan Wyman, Jan 1979