| Future
Music
- What has been the most significant technological development of your career? |
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Ralf Hutter - I think this must be the
availability of the first monophonic synthesizers because before that it
used to be these big machines from Bell Laboratories or government radio
stations. Being able, as an individual musician and an independent musician,
to get your hands on some of this electronic gear. "I remember the first
monophonic synthesizer I bought was the same price as a Volkswagen, and
that was the choice to make. I think that's a very good comparison, because
synthesizers were giving freedom of movement to musicians. |
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Future
Music
- Do these machines offer more freedom than today's in that they are free
from presets?
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Ralf Hutter - Yes. You would be given
just a three-page, typewritten guide saying 'this is the oscillator, this
is the filter' and that was it. Then you would go home and fiddle and turn
knobs. There were no pre-programmed sounds in it because it was analogue
the whole range. I don't use today's pre-programmed sounds so much; if we
use them at all we always work on them. We never really find anything that
comes from other people's ears that we keep. We always turn knobs that has
been our continuing priority. We used to design our own synthesizers as
well and in those days we had sequencers built as well because they were
so rare. Only the very big Moog systems had sequencers. And then we would
take drum boxes and redesign them with our engineers and electricians into
a playable form, and adjust these with the sequencers, and those to tape
so everything was synchronised. |
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Future
Music
- How do Kraftwerk manage to transfer their music to a live set-up?
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| Ralf
Hutter - It's not pre-recorded, it's in digital storage. There's
no tapes, it's all run from computer. Effectively we can change as much
as we like, cut off tracks, mute, double... That's what we do complete access.
We can make any track longer, according to the gig. Certain things are written,
but certain compo- sitions can have a start point and be totally open-ended,
with the programming running into a loop function. It can be however we
want it. All the compositions [with the exception of The Robots] are just
written as basic sequences. |
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Future
Music
- Are you surprised at how much of an influence you were on American dance
music? |
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Ralf Hutter - Yes, but we always had
a strongly favourable reaction from black audiences in America, even before
house and techno. I remember somebody took us to a club in about 1976 or
77 when Trans-Europe Express was out. It was in a loft club in New York,
after hours, just as the DJ culture was starting when DJs began making their
own records and their own grooves. This DJ was taking sections from Metal
On Metal on Trans-Europe Express so I thought, 'Oh they're playing the new
album'. But it went on for 10 minutes! And I thought, 'What's happening?!'
The track is only something like two or three minutes! Later I asked the
DJ and he had two copies of the record and he was mixing the two, and of
course it could go on as long as people were dancing."This was a real development
because, in those days, you fixed a certain time on the record, under 20
minutes a side in order to get the print into vinyl. It was a technological
decision to say how long the song would last. We always used to play different
timings live, but there we were in this after hours club and it was 10 minutes,
20 minutes of the recording and the vibe was there. |
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