Auction for Florian Schneider's instruments

Nope, curation and restoration are entire hobbies / occupations themselves, and I don’t have any desire to own the particular objects that famous people that I like have owned.

One of the things that drives a lot of my synth purchasing is having access to the kinds of tools that were used to create the music that I appreciate. I don’t need to buy an original Roland TB-303 to understand the sequencer, a TD-3 does the job and is arguably experientially closer to a used 303 in the '80s. It’s a lightly built toy that’s hard to use but can sound amazing if you do things right.

Similarly, if I want to get inside Brian Eno’s head then literally any field recorder made in this millennium, two or more Zoom MS-70CDRs, a Syntrx and a Volca FM will do the job nicely. The Syntrx won’t sound at all like Eno’s Synthi did, but the UX is substantially similar, and I personally prefer the sound of the Syntrx to the Synthi.

I’ve been buying some relatively expensive stuff over the last few years, but my core interest is really the cheap stuff that punches well above its weight.

I did actually restore an old fiberglass racing sailboat a few years back and ran into the same problem: restoring boats and sailing boats are two different activities with their own set of skills. I want to be out on the water sailing, and get to do more of that if I crew on other people’s boats than if I restore old boats myself.

I expect someone from the hip hop world will want to pick up most of this gear. Kraftwerk was hugely influential to hip hop and techno, but there is a lot more money in the hip hop world, and that world seems to value cultural trophies far more than the techno world (which is more about the music and less about the lifestyle).

It would be cool if a wealthy Krautrock enthusiast from Shenzhen gets the gear since it would be much easier for them to source and fabricate replacement parts that are as authentic as possible. If you play around with the recent Chinese camera lenses, you can see a real love of photography that goes well beyond being a low cost supplier. I look forward to a world where people from all over the place are playing around with experimental music and the resonances it has with their local culture.

I’m unclear whether a sample from Ruckzuck or a cover was used, but something very similar was used as the opening music to the kid’s science show 3-2-1 Contact Newton’s Apple. So I can say with confidence that early Kraftwerk was the first band I liked.

But I’m still not nostalgic for their gear.

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Studio Bell in Calgary is really good for this — they have the “general interest” memorabilia behind glass like any museum or Hard Rock Cafe would, but they also maintain a huge collection of vintage gear that you can use under supervision if you book studio time.

Optimistically speaking, some ultra-wealthy Kraftwerk fanatic will buy the whole lot and put it on permanent loan to a similar institution.

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I thought it actually used ruckzuck.

LOL what? :upside_down_face:

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How many techno albums have you seen with the creator’s face plastered on it?

I’m not saying that there is no lifestyle to techno, there absolutely is. Just that defining and projecting a lifestyle is a much bigger point in the Hip Hop world. Arguably, Hip Hop is a cultural phenomenon that happens to include music, while Techno is a style of music that happens to have a lifestyle associated with it. There are Hip Hop artists who maintain as much anonymity as possible, and ego-driven Techno producers, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule.

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Totally fair, and probably what is showing is my US bias. Hip Hop culture is much more visible here than techno culture.

Regardless, I would be delighted if a wealthy musician picks this gear up and takes good care of it. If they make it into a museum that enthusiasts can visit that would be amazing but just preserving the gear for future generations is good enough for me.

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kind of sad to think about how much great music you’re missing out on thinking techno = edm

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Never underestimate the joys of tribalism. :upside_down_face:

Just think though, if he had kept the original box, there wouldn’t have been any need to use the synth in a culturally iconic band and then auction it off as memorabilia, just to get back to where he started in its resale value.

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Hmm, what is electronic music then for you? I dont like EDM, and i dont like most hip hop, but i acknowledge that there are good artists that create original music in these areas.

If this had been Brian Eno’s Synthi from Roxy Music it would make more sense. Bit of weird auction this one.

Alright Nauts, time to pool our money together. Ive got $10.53 on it. We can work out who gets what weekend later.

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Well, yes, but museums pay for things to add to collections all the time. Makes sense for me for the family to sell stuff, and estates pillage the legacy of the dead for money all the time.

I’m curious, did Schneider mod his EMS Synthi in interesting ways that made it unique?

Otherwise, it seems like its an auction of a rare and already expensive instrument, with the added value (to some) of having been owned by a famous musician. If that’s the case, I’m totally fine with the idea of it ending up in a private collection. It’s not some totemic object which carries a part of his soul or spirit.

If there were unique modifications made that really were key to how he used it, his sound, etc. and those are considered historically significant than it would be nice if it ended up housed in a museum or a university collection where others could benefit from studying it.

Regardless, I’m all for his family benefiting financially from his legacy.

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Me too. It even has more features than the original Synthi (e.g. the output filters).

Doesn’t stop me daydreaming about owning a storied one, tho’.

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If you are writing fan fiction about Elektronauts, my fantasy is to have a reasonably large apartment in Tokyo and a single floor office-studio in a building within an easy walk. That’s pretty easy to accomplish since the typical office building is actually a small tower built on the footprint of what was once probably a home.

So if my character is bidding against you in the auction, then he is probably in cahoots with a nefarious synth collector who is either trying to keep the Synthi out of your hands or make you spend your entire budget on the Synthi so you can’t bid against what they really want.

I would do no such thing IRL though. :innocent:

Geeta Dayal might know, even if it didn’t make it into any of her articles.

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“Power cable not included.” PFFFFT, thats a pass from me then.

https://www.juliensauctions.com/en/items/2078271/florian-schneider-stage-played-ems-synthi-aks-suitcase-synthesizer

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So much cool stuff there. That Robovox rack? The Sennheiser vocoder. Two PS3200s and a 3100? Surprised by how many guitars and basses he has and his wind instrument collection is crazy.

Honestly seeing all of his clothes and shoes and sunglasses is pretty cool. And the industrial grey VW.

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I like this one from the paintings section of the auction!

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This is next level collector scheming. I have nothing. My daydream was so much more modest: buy synthi, play synthi in my drone project, feel smug. :joy:

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The cohesiveness of his whole aesthetic is inspiring. Like one of the PS3200s and the 3100 are rehoused in industrial grey and this custom midi controller from 2007

It says the auction is located at the Musicians Hall of Fame Museum in Nashville so I wonder if they acquired the whole estate and are keeping some things to display and selling the rest.