Back in 2016, I made this cover version of The Robots by one of my favorite childhood synth bands, Kraftwerk. It ended up going viral in the music nerd circles on the interwebs!
Backstory: I discovered Kraftwerk when I was around 11 years old and became a huge fan. They inspired my love of electronic music–which I now enjoy sharing with my son. When a friend suggested that we should cover a Kraftwerk song, I knew The Robots would be fun to work on…
In addition to teaching my son about the production process and having fun with synths, I wanted to learn more about how Kraftwerk crafted their arrangements. It was also a great opportunity to study sound design and learn how to use some of my new synthesizers.
Almost all of the synths used to make the track were in the video: a Moog Mother-32 for bass, Roland JU-06 for chordal parts, Korg Arp Odyssey for various synth parts and a PO-12 Pocket Operator–a tiny drum machine by Teenage Engineering. Off-screen, we used a Novation MiniNova for Vocoding and I also layered a custom kick and clap to boost the PO-12 beat.
We loosely based our video off of the 1970s original from Kraftwerk. I made our neckties by soldering an led light kit. I used Ableton Live 9 for music production and Final Cut Pro X to edit the video.
Check out some of the press from the web!
VICE Interview!
Electronic Sound article
Electronic Beats article
Moog Music
BBC Essential Mix
Blogged on ElectronicSound! This was the first posting about our cover of The Robots.
Featured on Electronic Beats
Consequence of Sound 200K+ views
Featured on BBC Essential Mix – WOW!
Featured on Synthtopia! Love this site.
Shared by one of the creators of Techno Music: Juan Atkins!!
Andrew and Hudson interview with VICE Magazine! Our first mini-interview… I was a bit nervous and Hudson had a cold but wow, who would have thought our little music video would get so much attention!
Nice article on Pulse Radio.
Nice article on Stoney Roads!