When they formed in 1980, German group Die Krupps broke new ground with their electro‑industrial metal hybrid. Led by vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Jürgen Engler, the group’s blending of electronica with heavy guitars went on to influence numerous other bands, including Depeche Mode and Rammstein. Sonic experimentation has always been key to the Die Krupps sound, and Engler is particularly fond of the groundbreaking synthesizer sound heard on the 12‑inch single version of ‘Wahre Arbeit Wahrer Lohn’, which was named Single of the Week by NME magazine on its release in 1981.
In Sequence
“Back in the day, because we didn’t have much money, we couldn’t just go to whatever store and pick from 20 different keyboards. We were kind of stuck with what was available, so on this particular track I used a synth that the studio we were recording in — Studio Lambertz Brahm in Düsseldorf, Germany — had, which was a Yamaha CS15. And the owner had built this big sequencer that was the size of a telephone switchboard, and he had it directly hooked up to the Yamaha synth’s interior wiring.
“Basically, the sound for the song was created by running the sequenced Yamaha through an Electro‑Harmonix Big Muff distortion pedal and an MXR Model 126 Flanger/Doubler. We plugged the Big Muff into the synth, out of the headphone output and then back into the input of the synth. We then cranked up the Big Muff pedal to give us this really nice distorted and fat analogue sound. Then we heavily sequenced it. Though I had originally written the song on a Casio VL‑Tone, when we went into the studio to record it, I basically programmed the big 12‑step sequencer by using patch cables for each note.
Jürgen Engler: The individual sounds like snare, bass drum, hi‑hats etc could be patched to a rhythm of your needs, overwriting the pre‑programmed rhythms of the CR‑78.
“Also, we used a real drummer on this track, compared to the rest the material on the album we released earlier that year, Stahlwerksynfonie, which had programmed drums, and were programmed in a similar way to the synth sequence: a Roland CompuRhythm CR‑78, which was directly connected to the big sequencer that also functioned as a drum programming machine, so that the individual sounds like snare, bass drum, hi‑hats etc could be patched to a rhythm of your needs, overwriting the pre‑programmed rhythms of the CR‑78.”