Buchla is back!!!!!!

elektro80 · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 5:37 pm Post subject: Buchla is back!!!!!!

Press release:

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http://www.buchla.com/200e/200e.html

mosc · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 5:55 pm Post subject:

Damn, you beat me to it... I was just going to post this. Laughing

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I just heard about this on the NM mailing list and I posted a long winded memory. I'll repost it here too.

mosc · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 5:59 pm Post subject:

Repost from the NM list...

I used to work for Don Buchla in 1972. My job, one of them, was wireing up modules that looked exactly like these. What memories! Don had HUGE Buchla 200 system set up in the main room of his factory with a quad sound array. I would spend hours setting up self-playing patches (the word "noodle" wasn't used in those days) on that system. There would be sounds spinning around the room because there were modules that made this kind of thing pretty easy to do. Sometimes the patches would play for days in the background because nobody would mess them up (most people that worked for Don at the time weren't musicians, at least not electronic musicians. I think many of them were into guitars, banjos, and rock music). Then, spontainoulsy, Don would unplug everything in order to patch in some new prototype he was working on. I was pretty attached to those patches and it was painful to hear them be pulled appart.. After he was finished testing, the synth would sit there for a while and I'd get to build another noodle. When I would finish, he'd stand and listen for a few minutes. Usually he would nod - he rarely said anything. What fun. I dreamed of a way to save the patches though.

One day he came in with a new delay line module he made from newly available bucket brigate memory chips. These were the first CCD chips. The clock was of course voltage controlled. He messed around for a few hours and called me over an said, "What do you think?". Well, all I heard was some Beethoven playing. It sounded like Beethoven, pretty good fidelity; I didn't see that there was anything to think. I said, "Oh, well, I like Beethoven, I guess, but Bach is my favorite." Then he pulled out a patch cord that was sweeping the clock with a sawtooth and the pitch dropped several semitones. I about fell over. That was the first time I had ever heard real-time transposition. It was an electric moment for me. Suddenly all kinds of possibilities were created. I congratulated him for being the first to develop this. He acted like ti was not a was a big deal. This was years before Eventide or anyone had this on the market. He is amazingly modest. I played with that module for hours before he took it from me in order to hack it up for improvments. He was working on circuits to make one violin sound like a whole section. We were working on a project called the Electric Symphony Orchestra, but that's another story.

Oh, sorry for going off down memory lane. This topic has a big impact on me.

mosc · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 6:02 pm Post subject:

The 200 System was really a great noodle (self-playing patches) machine. I then the G2 is a suitable successor.

elektro80 · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 6:08 pm Post subject:

I f carlo had been still awake he would have betaen both of us to it.
yeah.. this looks like a cute little monster. Silly and smart modules. Great!

elektro80 · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 6:09 pm Post subject:

that is an amazing story Howard!

aquanaut · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 7:24 pm Post subject:

Howard, more.

paul e. · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 8:52 pm Post subject:

yes, great story