Tech
This Video Reveals Kraftwerk's Special Synthesizer Secret
This proto-sampler beast was one of the group’s secret sonic weapons.
Have you ever wondered why Kraftwerk’s early recordings sounded so unique and amazing? One piece of the puzzle is the Vako “Orchestron”, a unique early sampler-style keyboard that stored sounds on discs.
It was of a wave of devices intended to compete with the more widely known Mellotron keyboard—which was famously used on The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever”, King Crimson’s “In The Court Of The Crimson King” and countless other dad rock FM radio prog classics.
The Orchestron never really caught on, but that didn’t stop Kraftwerk from using it to form a part of their specific synthetic sound. Listen to one of these beasts in action below. Scroll further to watch a rather insane commercial for the device from the ’70s.
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