What kind of modular setup would be great for ambient, spacey trance and house sounds like that from Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk? Besides industrial this is a sound that I love.
TD: anything Moog-like. Basically, 5U-type stuff, or Eurorack gear that uses typical 1970s subtractive methods. The fact is that a lot of Tangerine Dream's sound was not due to the modulars...these mainly dealt with the sequencing layers. More typical gear would be devices such as Oberheim SEM polysynths, Elka Rhapsody, and later the initial PPG Wave series, starting with the 340/380 and going on from there. And Edgar's guitar work.
Kraftwerk: none. Much of what they did during their classic period between "Autobahn" and "Computer World" was on off-the-rack devices as well as some custom gear, but none of this was modular. The spacier parts of their work often made use of an instrument that I can guarantee you will NEVER, EVER get your hands on called a Vako Orchestron., which was something like a 'pro-grade' Mattel Optigan. I might be one of the very few users on MG to have ever played one, perhaps, since both Vako and I are products of Nashville, and I got to have a bit of time with one c. 1979. After "Computer World", a lot of what you hear up until "TDF Soundtracks" was Synclavier.
Hmm good to know I did see Nord gear as well at one live concert used by Tangerine Dream as well as Moog gear and Roland synthesizers. So probably an Oberheim SEM would be good for the spacey sounds since I already have a Moog Sub 37.
Kraftwerk also used modular gear starting in the late 1990s, mainly Doepfer stuff. But really, not until then.
If you want to talk about who was the heaviest modular user in the Krautrock scene during its most significant period, that would have to be Klaus Schulze. Klaus's setups during the latter part of the 1970s would find EMS AKS, Korg PS3300, ARP 2600s alongside a huge hybrid Moog/PPG modular plus a bunch of other prebuilds, all in use at the same time, especially live.
Nice! Well if I get a job where I can score deals on modular gear than it will help me piece together my portable setups for space and industrial music. Something that can do industrial, house, techno, deep psy-trance. Bands like Infected Mushroom and Shpongle come to mind. Unfortunately it is hard to find out what actual gear Infected Mushroom and Shpongle actual used!
So here are my thoughts:
Industrial modular rack
House/Trance/Techno/Psy-trance, ambience spacey sounds
My Elektron, Moog, and Make Noise 0-coast do a fairly decent coverage of house/techno/bass ground.
The Oberheim semi modular system looks good as does the Analogue Systems gear.
