Harry Thumann

Harry Thumann was born Harnold Thumann in Germany and was a record producer and sound engineer. In 2001 Harry passed away. The following information has been gathered from various internet sources (I hope they find the page and credit themselves) Harry Thumann was a German electronic composer, who designed and built ground breaking synthesizers and studio equipment from the early 60's onwards. Sadly, he died in 2001 in relative obscurity, but will forever remain an interesting footnote in the annals of electronic music production history for Underwater and the Album it was taken from...

Harry Thumann was a German electronic composer, who designed and built ground breaking synthesizers and studio equipment from the early 60's onwards. Sadly, he died in 2001 in relative obscurity, but will forever remain an interesting footnote in the annals of electronic music production history for Underwater and the Album it was taken from, his extraordinary technical achievements in synthesizer design and his inspirational work on early electronic sequencers.

The audio world lost another pioneer in August 2001 with the death of Harry Thumann, founder and owner of Countrylane/Key One Studios near Munich. Though not as well known as other audio luminaries recently departed, Harry was much of the same breed.

Like a lot of people in the seventies, Harry was a Renaissance Man starting 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. Harry is an unsung hero in the story of the development of the SSL 4000 Series of consoles, but he participated in its development 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, Harry Thumann recognised the potential of MIDI and used Commodore 64 computers with MIDI cards controlling a system that evolved into a huge MIDI-controlled synthesiser 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 synthesisers. He also had a run of what he called 'dog records' marking the adventures of Wondererdog. More seriously, his album Andromeda is still a must for synthesiser buffs.

With the introduction of the Yamaha DMP-7 digital mixer, Harry 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.

As a professional, Harry shone in two areas: he was immensely jovial and had the ability to make MIDI-controlled productions swing. You never felt they were locked to a soulless clock. He was also well known for smoothing over problems in the studio by calling a break for the justly famous Countrylane cocktails when tantrums were about to ensue.

Harry will be missed by a lot of people but his wife, Jolette, and children, Harry Jr, Isabel and Julian, will keep the torch burning and bring the productions that he was working on to the light of day. And you can bet that he and Colin are planning some upgrades for St Peter's studio.