My Father+Son Cover of The Robots by Kraftwerk Goes Viral!
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