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Konrad "Conny" Plank (frequently spelled Planck) (born about 1943 in Austria, died December 18, 1987 in Cologne) was a record producer. His creativity as a sound engineer and producer helped to shape some of the most important and innovative recordings of postwar European popular music, covering a wide range of genres including progressive, avant-garde and electronic music. Plank was as much responsible as anyone else for defining the broad genre now known as Krautrock and is arguably the unifying link between most of its disparate productions. His work has also greatly influenced studio production and engineering techniques worldwide.

Plank and the bands he worked with in Germany had a strong influence on mainstream rock artists, some of whom were able to popularise aspects of his production technique and his highly distinctive sonic approach. In the 1980s the new generation of electronic pop bands were able to realise his ideas in performance as computerised electronic instruments became readily available.

Plank (who began his career as soundman for Marlene Dietrich) was an ardent believer in the possibilities of electronic music and a master of creating startling electronic soundscapes, but he was also adept at blending them with conventional sounds, or natural sounds given unconventional treatments, such as using large metal containers and other industrial objects as percussion instruments.

He was one of the first European producers to fully exploit the possibilities of using multi-track recording facilities to create dramatic production effects and treatments that acted as musical and rhetorical elements in their own right, rather than mere gimmicks. He favoured sometimes harsh-sounding effects and contrasting audio spaces for each element in the mix. His best work stands in stark opposition to the smooth, 'evened-out' sound that predominated in most commercial pop and rock at that time.

Plank used radical combinations of echo, reverberation and other electronic, mixing, equalisation, editing and tape-based effects to create mixes in which every element might be given its own highly individual sound environment, and in which each of these elements might alter radically in sound several times over the course of a track. In this he was undoubtedly influenced by the work of Jamaican pioneers like Lee 'Scratch' Perry but he was certainly one of the first European producers to adopt key stylistic innovations sourced from these reggae and dub production techniques.

Plank was one of the first 'name' producers to favour a very 'live' production sound, especially on drums, a sound that was strikingly opposed to the dense and heavily compressed drum sound that dominated rock recording in the 70s. Plank's open, sometimes clangorous drum and percussion sounds undoubtedly had a significant influence on producers and engineers like Steve Lillywhite, Hugh Padgham and Nick Launay.

During the 1970s Conny Plank produced and/or engineered many of the most important recordings by significant German progressive/experimental music acts (given the derogratory label krautrock by the UK music press at the time), including Kraftwerk (Kraftwerk, Kraftwerk 2, Ralf und Florian, Autobahn, and the precursor album Tone Float), Neu! (all their recordings), Cluster, Harmonia, Night Sun, Ash Ra Tempel, Holger Czukay (Can), and Guru Guru. His long association with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster began in 1970 and endured until his death.

His body of work exerted a strong influence on some of the more adventurous British and American musicians and producers. The most notable are probably David Bowie and Brian Eno, who worked together on the late-70s 'Berlin Trilogy' of albums, Low and Heroes and Lodger all of which showed the strong influence of Plank's earlier German productions. Bowie's song 'Heroes' is a virtual paean to the Plank style, featuring radical sounds and dramatic alterations of sound in various elements, such as the lead vocal, to heighten the emotional or dramatic effect; this is placed against a swirling, droning electronic backing track that interweaves elements such as multitracked synthethisers and feedback guitar.

Plank, via Bowie and especially Eno, in turn had a strong influence on many acts of the New Wave period in the late 1970s and 1980s. Neu!'s Hero is said to have been a major influence on John Lydon's work with his post-Sex Pistols group Public Image Limited. Eno produced an album for DEVO (another overseas act strongly influenced by Plank's work) and enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with Talking Heads and David Byrne, followed by an even longer and more successful partnership with Irish band U2. The earlier work of Australian band Hunters & Collectors also showed unmistakable signs of familiarity with Plank's production techniques, and they were one of many international acts who recorded with him.

Plank's other production credits include Echo and the Bunnymen, Les Rita Mitsouko, Einstürzende Neubauten, Annie Lennox, Ástor Piazzolla, The Damned, DAF (including the classic single Der Mussolini) and Nina Hagen.

He also worked as a duo with Dieter Moebius on four joint studio albums; the album 'Ludwig's Law's used an Emulator, an early form of sampling keyboard that enabled them to duplicate other instruments without having to deal with the musicians who played them.

In the eighties Plank remained in high demand with the new generation of electronic pop and New Wave artists, including DEVO, Ultravox! (Systems of Romance, Vienna and Rage in Eden), Freur and The Tourists (Luminous Basement)/Eurythmics (In the Garden). He also worked on pop and rock productions with artists such as The Scorpions, Clannad, Killing Joke, Play Dead, and Gianna Nannini (Latin Lover, Sogno Di Una Notte d'Estate, Tutto Live and others, also credited for music).

According to Rene Tinner and Stefan Plank in a radio documentary about the life of Conny Plank, it was Brian Eno's idea, that Plank should produce the U2-album "The Joshua Tree" instead of him. After being introduced to the band by Eno and after a short meeting, Plank turned down the job ("I cannot work with this singer").^[1]

Some of Plank's last work before his death from cancer was recording concerts on Eurythmics' Revenge tour, and samples used on the NED Synclavier on their Savage album.

His studio, at his home on the southern outskirts of Cologne, continued to be run by his widow Christa Fast and their son until, in May 2006, her failing health forced them to offer its contents for sale.[1]

Persondata
NAME	Plank, Konrad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Planck, Conny; Plank, Conny
SHORT DESCRIPTION	German musician
DATE OF BIRTH	1943
PLACE OF BIRTH	Austria
DATE OF DEATH	December 1987
PLACE OF DEATH	Cologne