When it comes to the machines used to make their music, there are few who compare to Kraftwerk in the secrecy stakes. The iconic German synth masters' almost complete lack of studio interviews on the subject during the most creative phase of their career made their methods all the more mystifying. Rumours of DIY gear, equipment patents and crazy processing only fuelled the intrigue.
Now, thanks to the recent auction of Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider's gear held by Julien's Auctions (which we eagerly entered), we can fill in some of those Kling Klang gaps.
While we all knew that Kraftwerk used then-cutting-edge technology and that, of course, synths and drum machines were at the heart of their setup, there were few clues as to what the band actually employed bar the odd Minimoog and ARP Odyssey.
Add in the fact that they created their music in the equally secretive Kling Klang studios, and you have a gear story - or non story - that can probably only be equalled in the 'WTF do they use?’ stakes by Aphex Twin.
However, the Florian Schneider auction at the end of 2025 revealed an awful lot (over an awful lot of lots) about what went on behind the doors of Kling Klang, and for once the truth is almost up there with the fiction.
Leaving aside the huge number of Florian’s suits and flutes, the actual studio gear was a fascinating array of items from the best signal processors to more unexpected and frankly bizarre hand-built projects.
As a successful bidder at the auction – more by luck than judgement, it has to be said - I’ve combed through the list of sale items to find out exactly what went on behind the Kling Klang curtain. It’s not just synths, although there was an incredible array up for sale.
So, let’s dig in and highlight exactly what we’ve found about Kling Klang’s operation…
1. Lots of synthesizers (sold for lots of cash)
Owning a Kraftwerk synthesiser could be seen as, maybe, owning a Beatles guitar - or even the original TB-303 owned by Phuture that kick-started acid house. Or at least this is what appeared to be going through the minds of the auction bidders as they paid up to six times the estimated value for some Kraftwerk synths.
The earliest example in the auction was a 1930s Telefunken Volks-Trautonium Pre-Synthesizer that went for an astonishing $38,400 (over an original estimate of $7,000). It’s not even clear what, if any, Kraftwerk tracks this could have appeared on.
An EMS Synthi A, though, that was played on Autobahn and claimed to be the first synth that the band bought, is a certifiable piece of history and it went with a price tag to match, $115,200, way over its admittedly modest estimate of $20,000.
Some might disagree with the 'first' claim, though, as we're pretty convinced by the Kraftwerk & The Electronic Revolution documentary that claims Schneider's first synth was an early Moog Modular. While this is probably the case, maybe the argument is that the EMS was the first jointly owned Kraftwerk synth.
Anyway, elsewhere a trio of Korg PS synths were another auction highlight, three models from a range of very early and very rare polysynths that hit the shops in 1977 but were discontinued just four years later.
Again it's not clear which of these appeared on record, but the 3100 did make an appearance on the 1981 Computer World tour, as played by Karl Bartos.
Korg announced an all-new PS3300 in 2024, built to order for $13k, but because of the rarity of the originals (only a few hundred of the 3100 were made, and as few as 50 of the 3300) they still command a high price secondhand.
This was reflected in their estimated values at the auction of between $8k and $25k, yet all three didn't exceed these estimates by as much as some synths in the collection, selling for an average of $20k each, not unreasonable in this particular scenario.
Elsewhere we had plenty of other synths, from Akai modules for wind controllers, to several classics including the MKS-80 rack (essentially a Jupiter 8) and an ARP 2600 which I wish I'd had the funds for.
This early analogue monster was more synonymous with early Depeche Mode than Kraftwerk, but still managed to almost double its estimate with a sale price of $22,400 (even though it was shown without its main control panel in the auction photo!)
Even with all of these classics, though, there weren't the legendary Moog and ARPs that I expected to see, which leads me to think that when Florian left Kraftwerk in 2008, maybe he and Ralf split the contents of Kling Klang. We'll discuss this and some other missing items below.
2. Let's talk about vocoders
If such a 'divorce' style agreement was reached, we might assume that Florian won the rights to the vocoders, Kraftwerk's other signature studio tool aside from the synths. That's because there were so many at the auction that it was difficult as a bidder to decide which, if any, were worth going for, but that turned out to be pretty much none of them, as they all sold for crazy cash.
Star of the show was the rare grey-face Sennheiser VSM-201 which sold for a quite incredible £256,000, five times its estimate. This for a machine whose auction description didn't actually confirm any solid usage on a Kraftwerk record stating that the band, "used a VSM-201 like this on their albums The Man Machine (1978) and Computer World (1981)".
A few lots later and a less rare (but still rare, if you get my drift) black VSM sold for a mere $76,800; loose change compared to its greyer sister. Another vocoder rarity, but not quite as attractive, was a Russian Elektronika EM-26 that sold for $3,840 - again not unreasonable, but that was against a low estimate of just $400.
Other more common keyboard vocoders included a Roland VP-330 (sold for $11k) and a complete rack containing a Roland VP-70 processor, Roland SVC-350 vocoder, and a Korg DVP-1 voice processor; robot heaven and 'fairly cheap' at $5,120.
Possibly the most interesting voice processor (or part of one) was an unfinished Mayer-Eppler Vocoder, housed in a large green rack which included a pair of U73b compressors and a Wandel-Goltermann Bandpass filter. It sold for around £10k which could be a bargain as Florian purchased it from its creator Dr. Werner Meyer-Eppler.
Of course, eBay wasn't around when Kraftwerk created their most famous recordings so this hasn't been used in true anger, but does remain one of the most intriguing devices from the auction.
Finally, a vocoder that Kraftwerk definitely used was a large Robovox and Votrax housed in a silver rack complete with classic computer-style keyboard.
This vocoder introduced the band on their 1981 tour, a life-changing event for yours truly, and I certainly recall its use at the Hammersmith Odeon gig. It would have been a great personal buy, then, had I had the $76,800 needed to secure it. (I didn't.)
3. A bit of a laugh
Kraftwerk had a lot of humour, and never took themselves as seriously as perhaps we all did, and a lot of this was down to Schneider's dry wit and quirky sense of style and fun. We’ll never forget seeing Sonicstate chasing him across the exhibition hall at NAMM after they'd spotted him in one of his sharp suits and hats, after which he literally played hide-and-seek with them.
Similarly, I also tracked him down at a gear show (Superbooth in Berlin), and was so surprised to meet him that he had to do most of the talking, all the time smiling at my idiocy.
Both his senses of 'mode' and humour were on show at the auction, with everything from glitter green shoes to a rainbow of suits, to a giant plastic fly (yes, really) and scissors (ditto).
There wasn't really much of an explanation for the fly, just, “a large, realistic model of a house fly, from the home studio of Kraftwerk multi-instrumentalist Florian Schneider. There is a metal rod for mounting on the underside.”
Same with the scissors, other than the picture revealing they were 36” long.
By now, some kind of fever was clearly sweeping the hall as the fly sold for nearly $10k and Florian’s scissors $2.5k.
Then there was a huge variety of art deco style furniture and, yes, a dentist's chair. That's a real dentist chair, and it ended up being one of the few items not to reach even the low end of its estimated value, falling short at $1600. Rumours that Schneider practiced dentistry so far appear unfounded.
Another side to Florian was his passion for playing flute and other instruments, and some of the better auction bargains included a vast list of saxophones and flutes which apparently went pretty cheaply, so were worth picking up, especially if, unlike me, you can actually play them.
4. They really did build their own instruments
And now we get to one of the most interesting aspects of the Kraftwerk mythology, the DIY gear.
If you've seen the band live at any point over the last 50 years, you'll have seen them perform with hand-built drum pads, play mobile devices while dancing like your dad, and generally interact with an assortment of gear from Kling Klang that looks like it's been fashioned from a 1960s'-era Star Trek set.
The truth is that much of this gear is simply well-known gear housed in smoother aluminium cases, and we revealed what those mobile devices were in this feature (spoiler: all commercially available gadgets and a set of toy Bee Gees drums!).
However, the band did create their own instruments - namely things like a Rhythmusmaschine and Synthanorma Sequenzer - even patenting some according to Activität. A 1975 patent, for example, features both Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter as the inventors of a set of drum pads.
The auction didn't feature these, but did include some strange devices. Chief among the oddities were two hand-built MIDI devices 'with Matrix switches' which sold for $16k.
These two controllers were specifically designed to control the Robovox vocoder (above) and certainly have that DIY aesthetic. We just hope that the successful bidder was lucky enough to get the Robovox too. It's said that Florian built these himself, and with MIDI connectivity, they must have been employed for some years after the vocoders were used on the 1981 tour.
Finally this object might look like one of Florian's hand-built projects, but is actually a Maihak E-W49 passive hi- and low-pass filter.
Hainbach describes this as a distortion filter in his excellent pre-auction video, revealing that a similar filter was used by Stockhausen live. It's extremely rare too, and sold for $5k, around three times its estimate.
5. What wasn't in there
As we said above some classic synths - notably original Minimoogs, ARP Odysseys and other famous synths look to have been dibbed to Ralf, or are (perhaps wisely) being held onto by the Schneider estate.
Other absentees include much in the way of Eurorack modules (even though Florian was a fan of these), although some gear from companies like Doepfer, Moon Modular and Tiptop could be found in some of the newer studio racks (that sold for big money).
Conspicuous by their absence were any DIY drum pads that we mentioned earlier. These were a mainstay of early Kraftwerk performances. Basically, these were drum triggers before MIDI was invented, and could be an incredibly rare and important buy for someone one day.
Finally, the auction didn't feature as many music 'toys' as we wished, bar a 1980s Yamaha DD-10 (kind of a toy drum machine).
We discuss the ones Kraftwerk used live while playing Pocket Calculator here, which included a Mattel Bee Gees Rhythm Machine, a Texas Instruments Language Translator and Dubreq Stylophone. If these had come up, they surely would have fetched enormous sums of money.
So we got the synths, many of them, anyway, we got the vocoders, we got some hand-built gear and a lot of personality. So yes, we now know what went on at Kling Klang (well half the story anyway) but there's still a lot more to be revealed…
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