Original message:
I was wondering if you have any references of the use of a vocoder by other German groups in the early seventies. As far as I know, it first appears on Ananas Symphonie. But maybe other groups used it before... Basically I am trying to find out who's been "messing around" with vocoders in that period, since Werner Meyer-Eppler, from the NWDR ,also experimented with similar devices in the fifties,but surely someone (in Germany, I mean) must have done something before Kraftwerk....
You can take a visit to: http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/siemens/siemens2.html Read carefully, you'll find there a few names including ...Werner Meyer-Eppler or Kh Stockhausen, amongst others (though there is no mention who experimented on the vocoder...) le 29/01/2003 19:39, DJM replied :
The one Kraftwerk used on Ananas Symphonie wasn't a real vocoder, it was some gear the nazis invented to code speech to voltage during world war II to have a kind of encrypted communication. When you used this voltage connected to a synthesizer, you got a vocoder. That's what I've read somewhere...
??? your (blur) and enigma-tic ;-) description anyway seems to be not far from what ...a vocoder is. I think the early vocoder used on "Ananas Symphonie" (and "Autobahn"...?) could be a Siemens Vocoder ( originally a part of the Siemens Synthesizer - for little info go to *again* ;-): http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/siemens/index.html ) ...because I clearly remember a french interview with Ralf Hütter: Q: "You used vocoders like the Sehnheiser, ems... ?" Ralf: "Yes, and Siemens too..." So... maybe, perhaps, :-) _ /o o\ Filtre4Pole \ ~ / I I - -