Kling Klang

Kling Klang (also spelled as Klingklang) is the private music studio of the band Kraftwerk. The name is taken from the first song on the Kraftwerk 2 album. The studio was originally located at Mintropstrasse 16 in Düsseldorf, Germany, but in mid-2009 moved to Meerbusch-Osterath, around 10 kilometers west of Düsseldorf.

Kling Klang (an onomatopœia; in English: ding dong) began as a studio in 1970; the band marked this as the real beginning of Kraftwerk. The studio began as an empty room in a workshop premises located in an industrial part of Düsseldorf. The building exterior was clad in yellow tiles with a large electric shuttered doorway leading to an enclosed courtyard. On the right was a loading stage used by an electrical installation company that used the upper floor. The studio was accessed through a small anteroom. The main studio room was fitted with sound insulation and measured about sixty square feet. Later on other adjoining rooms were used for things like making instruments such as home made oscillators. The basement of the studio was used to store old instruments and machines. The band never threw anything away, and subsequently used the older equipment to recreate sounds.

When first using the studio, the band recorded with stereo tape machines and cassette recorders. These master tapes were then taken to a commercial recording studio for the final mix down. Part of the reason for this was so the band could self-produce their albums. The PA equipment at this time was self constructed and consisted of plywood bass horns and cast aluminium mid range horns. In 1971 Kraftwerk was still without a drummer, so the group purchased a cheap drum machine. By treating the sounds with echo and filtering they used the drum machine to record rhythm tracks for their second album. During the making of their third album, they purchased their first commercial synthesisers for the studio, the Minimoog and EMS Synthi AKS. Other equipment at this time included an Echolette Tape Echo.Wolfgang Flur had joined the band at this time and was using a custom built electronic drum system. At the time of his first visit, a small acoustic drum kit was in the studio. It was in 1973 that the studio was christened Kling Klang. After Karl Bartos joined the band, more studio equipment was designed by all four band members. A full-time engineer was employed to assist with the designs and new equipment purchases.

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