Harry Thumann
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Harry Thumann (28 February 1952 – 2001) was a German electronic music composer and sound engineer best known for his composition "Underwater" (1979).
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Career
He designed and built groundbreaking synthesizers and studio equipment from the early 1960s onwards.
He was born Harnold Thumann in Germany.
Thumann started out as a drummer while getting a thorough grounding in audio in German broadcast. When touring lost some of its glamour he decided to put his musical and technical experience to work for his own benefit and started his first studio in a bedroom at the family home. Thumann participated in the development of the SSL 4000 Series of consoles and took the first one for this studio. Premises for a studio with live-in accommodation were found in Germeering near Munich and Countrylane studios were born and is still going strong.
Always quick to embrace new technology, Thumann recognised the potential of MIDI and used Commodore 64 computers with MIDI cards controlling a system that evolved into a huge MIDI-controlled synthesizer installation including a plethora of synths and modules, plus a Fairlight II and Moog 3C modular system. This led to a string of albums of Rondo Veneziano, which married both acoustic instruments and synthesizers. His album Andromeda is still a favorite among synthesizer buffs.
Thumann had a run of what he called "dog records", under the "Wonderdog" name, which received some success in Germany and Britain (through E&S Music).
With the introduction of the Yamaha DMP-7 digital mixer, Thumann built a second control room housing six (or was it seven?) DMP-7s as an integrated digital console system interfaced with a rebuilt Neve broadcast console for, as he put it: 'the best of both worlds'. The cost of video was also tumbling and so Countrylane moved into AV production and started producing its own telefilms.
Discography
Albums
- 1979 American Express
- 1983 Andromeda
Singles
- 1979 Underwater
- 1982 Andromeda
- 1982 Living On A Farm
Remixes
- 1992 Break Down The Line (Extended Version) on Jam Tronik Stand By Me (Dance Mix)
