Moog or Buchla

DJ Spooky - the Bono of electronic music documentaries

otmmmmmm

On a similar vintage synth tip...HOLY S*#T KORG are reissuing the Korg MS-20!!!

I always wanted one of those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZUrCOpKGcy4

There's some discussion of that here...
NAMM 2013 - Let's get ready to naaaaaaaaaaaap! also rolling gear geek whatever

(also the Sub Phatty which sounds more like something from Subway)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

http://buchla.com/images/modules/200e_266e.jpg

Buchla documentary will contain 100% less DJ Spooky than the Moog documentary

they wanted to briefly interview me for this because I had a funny Don Buchla story. </pvmic>

what's the story!

Does voting Moog make me popist?

it makes you a Moog voter

D0n was on the guest list for a concert presented by my employer. He shows up late, and because of his appearance, the nice woman selling tickets at first thought he was one of the neighborhood street people who suffer from various forms of mental illness. She was surprised and relieved to find out that he was indeed on the guest list.

We'll run this one again in a few years

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

that homeless guy gave moog a run for his money!

We can lament the fact that Don never made a "MiniBuchla" that really took off like the Minimoog (yes, I am aware of the Music Easel), and never became a household name. Moog wins this based solely on influence. All the late 70s-early 80s US and Japanese synth manufacturers owe a huge debt to Moog.

But even if the tides turn and alternative control devices and the types of sounds pioneered on his devices come into vogue for the next 30 years, I doubt Buchla will ever get to enjoy his day in the sun. I'll choose him because I'm sympathetic to the underdog, and because his synths used banana cables.

― naus, Friday, March 1, 2013 4:06 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

While this sounds sensible looking backwards on the last 40-50 years, Buchla was so far ahead that the people are only really catching up to him now. Alternative assignable control surfaces, those banana plugs enabling multiple patching, implementation of random number generation, the modular renaissance & softsynth development of the last ten years has quietly leaned that way & now take so many of his innovations & approaches for granted.

Basically: it just isn't an accident that the AniMoog not only looks more like a Buchla Music Easel than anything Bob Moog ever designed himself, the expanded sound of it, to my ears, tacks towards Buchla as well.

http://www.buchla.com/historical/b200/images/219-large.jpeg
http://www.tonylongmusic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/animoog-ipad.jpg

that's more than a direct reference; it's capitulation

The model 248 Multiple Arbitrary Function Generator

http://rubidium.dyndns.org/~magnus/synths/companies/buchla/Buchla_248desc_01a_100.gif

Unencumbered by engineering expediency or presumed musical aesthetics

http://myblogitsfullofstars.blogspot.com/2011/04/painting-with-bleeps.html

http://www.buchla.com/historical/

I've been using a 200e modular for the past year and I haven't cracked it. It remains somewhat inscrutable. I mean, I know every corner of it but it's still such a challenge. After working for an hour to get "a sound" I usually give up and dial it in on my ARP 2600 in a couple minutes. The CV modulation stuff hasn't demonstrated its usefulness wrt cost-- easier to program that stuff in Bidule or Max. That said, the "quad dynamics manager" + "quad function generator" are so magnificent sounding-- essentially an envelope generator and a 4x lo-pass + VCA-- the source of the Subotnick "pop"-- that I'd recommend those two modules to anyone who could afford them.

Inscrutable is a pretty good word for the Buchla. I've maybe spent 10 hours total over as many years with a 200e, and even when I like what I'm hearing, I've never reached a point where I feel like I really know what I'm doing; or, just at the point when you start to feel like you do, and get comfortable enough to 'expressively' stretch out and begin pushing it, I accidentally change one parameter that radically shifts every relationship, and changing that knob or patch or switch back to where it was does not restore the sound to where it was before the change. (I know this describes nearly everyone's initial experiences with a modular; you're basically just turning knobs in the dark until you learn the architecture -- I guess my point is, that's more easily done on the Moog & the Arp, but on the Buchla the architecture just kind of seems to remain a little unstable. While Buchla has been caught out from time to time by zealous beta testers about certain behaviors that are actually just broken and not 'randomized', more often than not, it's actually the aesthetic, it's by design, a feature not a bug)

The most common complaint I've heard among users who've shelled out $15-25k for a new 200e is the lack of motorized knobs; it's 2013, but nope you still can't save patches on your Buchla, not going to happen, record that sound now if you like it because it's not coming back. This is the opposite of, say, the Moog Voyager, where it's very easy to quickly gain control of a Moog Voyager and make it do what you want, and then save the sound for later. Buchlas, from the beginning are hostile to the entire idea of dialing anything in.

http://vimeo.com/96808503

wow, looks good. love the dude with the disappearing percussion

Watching that clip sent me down the path of watching a million Buchla YouTubes. Now I really wish I had a Music Easel. Anyone on here got four grand they can spare?

i'm in an improv band with a dude who has one, it seems cool but i expected to be more blown away by the sound

and it's hard to imagine any sound being so amazing that it truly justifies the absurd price. But then I see videos like these and I'm just like damn....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhtar8FlgzU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loeGOKchnuU

Or this:

http://vimeo.com/902069

Kaitlyn totally rules I can't wait for that record

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2015/03/synth-pioneer-don-buchla-takes-owners-former-company-court/

http://www.keyboardmag.com/artists/1236/the-horizons-of-instrument-design-a-conversation-with-don-buchla/59510

big-ass buchla (200 series clone modules mostly with some 200e stuff) in the MESS collection - took a long look at it last time I was in there playing with the two VCS3s, must book in some time with it.

The man passes.

Dibs on the Owlsey refrigerator.

That is meant with the greatest possible respect of course.

I have three or four stories I'll try to nail down later, but heroes seldom come this large.

RIP

Sad sad sad news.

http://www.keyboardmag.com/artists/1236/donald-buchla-a-personal-remembrance/59786

thread should be hopping a bit more but I guess we are on a sub board

I didn't know him too well, over the last ten years it got to the point where he'd smile and wave if he saw me at a party, we'd had enough in the way of extended conversations about software design and the deleterious influence of the corporations spearheading the work into DAW / plug-in / soft synth design -- though he wasn't ever going to pursue soft synth design himself, no way, he was at least very interested in tracking the issues involved

first time we met was at a dinner at Keith McMillen's in the late 90's, about eight people, skewing young. I was blown away he was there, but he was completely impossible to engage; listening intently, but would cold face stare down any direct address. about twice he made a completely non-sequitous Donald Duck quacking noise. he stayed to the end, on the way out Keith said 'Seeya Don!' while he was walking away and Don made the duck noise again without looking back or saying anything else

other key moment was at an AES panel at Recombinant over 10 years ago. heavy hitters, Buchla, Chowning, Linn, Mathews, Oberheim, Dave Smith. History of instrument design, adoring audience asking historical questions. Panel was trying to steer conversation back to their current work, but also touched by the degree to which the young crowd were respectful. Buchla not answering any questions whatsoever, even when directly addressed. Then, out of nowhere, in response to a question about the difference between R&D in the 60's and R&D in the 00's, Buchla suddenly speaks up and says 'The main difference between instrument design in the 60's, and instrument design today, is that in the 60's, there were people who were genuinely interested in the potential of electronic music.' Long pause. Then nothing, no followup, and I think that's the only thing he said the whole panel, the kind of bald criticism that sort of called bullshit on the entire panel & the entire convention really, but the rest of the panel was mostly smiles because it was SO DON and if you wanted to know anything else about what he really thought, well, you'd just have to talk to him

Scharpen's 'Buchla' documentary is on pause; I don't think they made their kickstarter to a degree that allows them the weeks it'll take to cut it all together. But they definitely have enough footage in the can for an amazing film so hopefully it's only a matter of time and public focus.

milton that dinner party story is fantastic.

seems a shame that it happens right as the Ciani/KAS collab has come out - most high-profile buchla-driven record in a while surely?

I like the Suzanne Ciani comment in the guardian's obit: "He never wore matching socks, but oddly, as an enthusiastic tennis opponent, always wore pristine tennis whites"

http://www.emusician.com/artists/1333/don-buchla-1937-2016/60675

Great piece. As a graduate of Oberlin's electronic music program, I can confirm Ostertag's story that all those amazing analog instruments were still there in the 90s—the Putney, Moog Modular and Buchla—and sadly, still untouched as well. I imagine they are quite popular today.

Buchla reminds me of a certain kind of man from his generation – much like my father in law and some other friends of that age. These men grew up being told men didn't show emotions but in truth had many. They were libertarian in their political beliefs but socially liberal. They hid behind bushy beards, hats and glasses. And they spoke very, very little – but when they did say something made it count. The ones I know were in the newspaper industry – but most intense, socially awkward people tend to be drawn to jobs that allow them to make that an asset not a hindrance. We are lucky Buchla chose the profession he did.

They sold the moog modular to buy a bunch of k2000 workstations or similar. And they used to have more heat but the sold it before us. John Mcentire of tortoise got his Synthi from Oberlin.

Heat was a typo. Meant to say gear.

I'd love to have my hands on a synthi someday. I recently got the (stunningly accomplished) iOS recreation of it and it's such a great world of its own.

The thing that was amazing is that all of us actually made fun of the Buchla – no one in the program during the 90s had any appreciation whatsoever for what Buchla, or even Moog, had accomplished. That said, it was probably more of a reflection on the glut of terrible academic electronic music over the previous two decades than anything else.

Much LA Boog

Bullshit man, I totally appreciated and got it, I just didn't have the patience, motivation or discipline to make use of those synths! I remember one long night in the studio using the modular moog sequencer trying to make it sound good and not being able to and pretty much giving up.

Dan, you were always more aware of the history – but your post sort of proves my point, doesn't it? Most of us looked at all that gear as relics that were barely worth the time to plug in and turn on much less make music on.

Again, it's easy to see why in retrospect – we were in the middle of this terrible ROMpler/menu diving era in synthesis. And our professors were products of an era in university composition that felt as if it had been hermetically sealed.

But looking back, if we weren't learning about this stuff, what were we learning? Not being force fed a steady diet of Moog, Buchla, Serge, EMS ... studying composers like Henri/Schaefer, Subotnick, Radigue for more than a month ... and learning subtractive, additive and FM synthesis cold (to say nothing about not being required to learn the electronics behind any of it) was just a huge missed opportunity. Pretty much everything I know about any of this stuff I ended up teaching myself years later.

But as big of a factor was that almost nobody cared about this era of electronic music at the time. It's almost hard to believe today.

My Oberlin rant killed the thread.

What the hell were people thinking during the General MIDI / ROMpler age? Who were the jerks who sat around in the GM Star Chamber and decided "everyone needs a helicopter?" I want an oral history of this. Bad decisions are more important to learn about than good ones.

Hahaha

You're crazy to act as if that age is a relic of the past. It's back. The y2k aesthetic is strong and people are getting excited by machines like Jorge m1s, Roland d50, Yamaha TG 33. Time to invest in some emu proteus modules.

Jorge had the best m1. Obv that should read Korg.

The Yamaha TG33 is an all time classic though. That's one of the few pieces from my collection that I really wish I still had. That and the TQ5

Funny you should mention that...

I just sold my TG-33. Original owner! Have to make room for baby and am downsizing. Not that that thing is a monster, but every bit of space counts.

also babby is expensive

Dan, meant to congratulate you. You need these. Buchla would have approved.

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/05/21/60s-buchla-100-synthesizer-repair-lsd-accidental-trip/?fbclid=IwAR3wNL8yDslDYNNCcncH834xng-9sCBfFN9DUTgXsmHS2pquT5XcC76QQ20#.XOS9upftgAU.facebook

or https://www.factmag.com/2019/05/23/synth-technician-contact-high-vintage-buchla/