Armin Stöwe

Armin Stöwe (* 1950 in Göttingen ; † 2005 near Berlin ; also written: Armin Stoewe ) was a German keyboardist, synthesizer and electronic musician as well as a versatile electronics developer .

In 1972 Armin Stöwe released the first album of his band SIXTY NINE, founded in 1969, under the title Circle of the Crayfish . In the same year SIXTY NINE performed at the Giant Pop Festival in Würzburg, the Hard Rock Night in Saarbrücken and the Höxter Festival and in 1973 they had around 100 more concerts, with Stöwe and his partner Roland Schupp u. a. performed with Golden Earring and West, Bruce & Laing . For the 1974 double album Sixty Nine Live , recordings from Mainz and Hamburg were used and edited by Conny Plank as a sound engineer . In 1976 Stöwe got to know the musicians Reinhard Karwatky and Ingo Werner, with whom he formed the music trio AIR.

Developed since the mid-1970s Armin Stöwe also together with Ingo Werner (only in their own GENERAL ELECTRONIC PLASTIC STUDIO, later in the common studio Stöwe-Werner) the design of a polyrhythmic, polyphonic and polydynamischen sequencer, who later commissioned by engineer Wolfgang Palm of Hamburg could be further developed. Since Palm Products GmbH / PPG could not bring the device to series production and integrate it into the PPG product concept, Stöwe worked in parallel with various music computers, synthesizer systems and programmed MP-based music software for mini sequencers and polyrhythmic pulse generators. He then developed and built effects devices such as a 10-channel flanger , a 24-band stereo vocoder , a 64-step digital sequencer or rhythm machines . On September 10th and 13th, 1980 ars electronica honored Stöwe's overall performance in the field of electronic musicians with two appearances by the AIR group. During this time, Stöwes also made several jazz and electronic productions, also with other musicians.

Stöwe's event generator for the PPG Waveterm 340 (PPG Event Generator System 380, 16-part, polyrhythmic sequencer for two wave computer systems) was presented at the Frankfurt Music Fair in 1984, but like some other fully developed PPG products (e.g. B. the "Realizer") no longer built for sale. In 1985, Stöwe once again surprised the professional world with the in-house development of an innovative surround sound system called OCTON (with eight loudspeakers for each corner of a room). However, this development was also unable to establish itself commercially, although Stöwe presented it in 1986 at the Frankfurt Music Fair and a little later at a BDI event. The American Dolby Surround System, developed shortly before , only achieved similar sound impressions ten years later.

In 2005 Armin Stöwe died of suicide near Berlin . After the fall of the Wall, Stöwe had bought an old NVA barracks there , in which he exhibited rarities of synthesizers such as PPG computers, Oberheim synthesizers, a MOOG modular system and hundreds of other items. After Stöwe's widow and daughter turned down the inheritance, the artistic and technical estate of Armin Stöwe was publicly auctioned or sold.

Web links

• Band history of 'Sixty-Nine'
• Circle of the Crayfish
• Armin Stöwe's development: The PPG Waveterm with the Event Generator System 380
• Private festival page