Sounds from the synthesizer

Sounds from the Synthesizer (SvS) was a radio broadcast by the Hessischer Rundfunk (hr).

history

On Sunday, January 2, 1983, the signature hr3-Top Time was heard for the first time on Hessischer Rundfunk and Volkmar Krammarz kicked off the radio show Sounds from Synthesizer, which in the following years became a cult show and a family fixture that was still in the The Rhein-Main techno music scene and the Sound of Frankfurt were in their infancy .

The program was broadcast fortnightly on Sundays at 9 p.m., before it had to give way to the new program structure of the Third Hessian Radio Program in early 1986. Especially under its presenter Rainer Sauer, of the to from July 1984 Deutsche Welle replaced changing Volkmar Krammarz, the show reached a status in the German electronics -Musikszene, which only the WDR telecast vibrations with their moderator Winfried Trenkler equaled.

The broadcast format was thought up by HR music editor Jörg Eckrich in the early 1980s. After bands like Kraftwerk or Tangerine Dream had established themselves nationally and internationally, Eckrich suspected that the time was ripe for a radio format on the subject of "electronic music". Since this term was already used for the experimental music division, the Hessischer Rundfunk came up with the term “sounds from the synthesizer”. The starting shot for the new format in the hr3 program was in January 1983. Eckrich found the right presenter for his show in Volkmar Krammarz, a music journalist from Cologne, who had a doctorate. Krammarz introduced the format and from now on you could hear synthesizers , electronic drums and computer samplers on the radio . Krammarz presented both the music and its protagonists extensively in almost 40 programs.

The radio presenter, singer and electronic musician Rainer Sauer (Velvet Universe) from Frankfurt am Main was also the presenter of a radio program about synthesizer music at the time. However, this was not heard in Germany, but in Italy on Radio Centofiori and was called EMMIG / Electronic Music Made In Germany. Sauer moderated this program in English and was Eckrich's first choice when he was looking for a successor to Volkmar Krammarz, who was moving to Cologne. His condition: Sauer should give the show a new profile, conduct more interviews with international artists and thus reach new audiences. The SvS managed to bring bands and performers as diverse as Propaganda , Klaus Schulze , Jean Michel Jarre , Tangerine Dream , Howard Jones , Michael Rother , Ash Ra Tempel , Kraftwerk , Art of Noise or Spliff into the hr3 studio and into the home Bring living room.

Another special feature were specials such as the regular series The Hitchhiker's Guide to Synthesizer History, We Are Producers or the Electronic Poll, the annual election of the best synthesizer titles and artists. The sounds from the synthesizer had their greatest success, however, with the promotion of young people New People Needs, which paved the way for many musicians and projects to achieve success and record deals. The biggest of SvS discoveries is the band Camouflage (Love is a Shield), but the sounds from the synthesizer archive also contain tapes from protagonists of the later techno scene in Frankfurt such as Couleur Trois / Okay , Michael Münzing and Talla 2XLC . Many successful electronic acts from the greater Rhine-Main area later referred to the sounds from the synthesizer broadcasts of the Hessischer Rundfunk as their first artistic influence.

After the synthesizer sounds had ended , Rainer Sauer organized the Frankfurt Synthesizer Days from 1986 to 1989 under the title White Waves . The old sequences of sounds from the synthesizer are repeated today on Sundays by Radio Jena . Due to the great response to the re-broadcast, there have been new, regular programs with Rainer Sauer since October 2008 under the title “Sounds from the Synthesizer Reloaded”, which can also be heard both via antenna and on the Internet.