“It revealed what went on behind the doors of Kling Klang, and for once the truth is almost up there with the fiction”: What we’ve learned about the inner workings of Kraftwerk’s mythical studio via a recent auction

Kraftwerk Models.

When it comes to the machines used to make their music, there are few who compare to Kraftwerk in the secrecy stakes. The iconic German synth masters' almost complete lack of studio interviews on the subject during the most creative phase of their career made their methods all the more mystifying. Rumours of DIY gear, equipment patents and crazy processing only fuelled the intrigue.

Now, thanks to the recent auction of Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider's gear held by Julien's Auctions (which we eagerly entered), we can fill in some of those Kling Klang gaps.

While we all knew that Kraftwerk used then-cutting-edge technology and that, of course, synths and drum machines were at the heart of their setup, there were few clues as to what the band actually employed bar the odd Minimoog and ARP Odyssey.