Also, poke around Alan Wilder's website. He talks tech about a lot of Mode-related stuff. He, and probably Daniel Miller, are more responsible for Depeche Mode's "sound" than anyone else as is evident by their reliance on producers more for their post-Wilder albums.
Regarding the sounds on "Speak & Spell." The snare and hats on most of the tracks come from a Korg KR55 (the KPR77 wasn't released until 1983). The kicks are Daniel Miller's ARP 2600 as are a lot of the other percussive elements and seqeuenced goodies. The opening riff was probably played by Vince Clarke's Roland SH-1. (At least it's what he mimed on in the video.
)I read an article recently that implied that most of "Speak & Spell" was sequenced by Clarke and Miller in the studio. During the production of the album they worked on it during the day while the other three still had daytime jobs and would come by the studio at night to contribute various bits, lay down vocals. It sounds like Clarke was fed up with doing a lot of the work in the band and this contributed to his leaving (Miller: "It did get very different when Vince left. He had been the driving force behind the band; he got them together to rehearse and went around with demo tapes.").
Sound On Sound has an insightful interview with Daniel Miller that talks a lot about the production of Depeche Mode.
On this page they state that Yazoo's "Don't Go" was done entirely on an SCI Pro-One. I don't know if this is completely true but they do a convincing emulation of "Don't Go" using only a Pro-One.
