Author: John Chivers via YouTube
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*** Note: Original German language version of my cover version available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40PwM7IcrDM ***
A bit of a Christmas 2023 labour of love, this one. Having created a cover version of Kometenmelodie 2 from the Kraftwerk album Autobahn, I decided to see whether I could challenge myself to recreate the whole eponymous title track of the album – all 22+ minutes of it!
Again, I’ve re-imagined the arrangement to one including acoustic drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, and bass guitar,and of course, plenty of synthesiser, but have stayed faithful to the original in key places.
I’ve also created English lyrics based around the original German lyrics, though there’s poetic licence involved to make them scan and rhyme. They convey essentially the same sentiments as the original German.
A couple of points to note otherwise…
I wanted ideally to modernise the type of vehicles and as an EV advocate, I was keen to have the sound of EVs included, rather than just the internal combustion engine sounds of the original. In the event, I’ve used recordings of both electric motorcycles I’ve owned passing by, so that explains the high-pitched motor noise – it’s not a passing jet.
For those familiar on a musically intimate level with the original by Kraftwerk, there’s a mistake (a "bum note") on the original. I won’t spoil it for anyone else, but I’ve retained it in my version, because to me it’s become part of the piece’s charm.
Technical Details
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Software:
Steinberg Cubase Artist 11
Native Instruments Kontakt 6 Full Version
VSTi Virtual Instruments:
Drums: Toontrack Superior Drummer 3
Keyboards: Cherry Audio Memorymode, Cherry Audio Polymode, GForce M-Tron Pro, Steinberg Halion Sonic SE
Guitars: Native Instruments Session Guitarist Electric Sunburst Deluxe, Native Instruments Session Guitarist Picked Acoustic
Bass Guitar: Scarbee Rickenbacker Bass
Bass Pedals Synth: Smartelectronix Taurus
Vocoder: TAL-Vocoder 2
Hardware:
PC running Windows 10
Alesis Crimson 2 electric drum kit
MIDI Keyboard: Korg microKEY 37
Microphone: Shure SM58