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mosc
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Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18197 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 5:30 pm Post subject:
Original Buchla circuit Subject description: The Buchla Machine |
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Here is something special that I've been meaning to post for about 10 years, but I never got around to it. This is the first circuit that Don Buchla ever made. Here's the story:
Way back in 1972 I got a job with Don Buchla as an electronics tech. This was in the very early days of the infamous Electric Symphony Orchestra project. One day in the early summer, he took me, and all three of the other employees, to help him clean up his old place, because he had just moved. His old place was fabulous. He had an entire WW-II temporary building at the Oakland, California airport. It was a wooden, barracks-like building - very cool. For those who would know, it was very near the old Mike Quinn Surplus store, and it was the same type of structure. There were many stories circulating at the time of fantastic parties there in the sixties, some with The Greatfull Dead and other now-famous people. I don't know much about that, but the place was just perfect for parties in the sixties. This was the coolest pad I'd ever seen.
Anyway, the work we did was mostly carrying stuff out of the building to either a garbage can, or to Don's car. (I can't remember what kind of car). I didn't like doing this it because it was physical work, and it was very dusty.
At the end of the day, we were standing around talking before getting into our cars to leave. I just happened to glance into a trash barrel and saw this little box labeled, "The Buchla Machine". I asked Don, "What's this?".
He replied,"Oh, that's the first circuit I ever built. It has the first available commercial transistor in there." He told me the number which I can't remember, but it wasn't a 2N number. Subsequent research tells me that it must have been in the mid 1950s.
"What does it do?", I asked. (My father was a journalist, so I know how to ask the right questions.)
"It's a distortion circuit.", he said.
I asked if he knew it was in the garbage. He said he didn't care. I said, "Can I have it?"
Don said, looking at me with disappointed amazement, "Why on Earth would anybody want this?"
I said, "I dunno, I would like to have it though."
He said, "Sure, you can have it, and any of the other garbage too." He pointed to plastic bags full of kitchen and bathroom trash.
Well, I've kept it as a treasure for all the last 41 or so years. As you can see, it's a mess. The batteries that were in it leaked and may of the wires and parts are disconnected. There's even a clip lead in there, and a resistor just jammed into the chassis; probably something that happened in the garbage can. Obviously this was an an experimental project. I have refrained from doing anything to it, not even blowing out the dust. I thought of taking it apart to look for a transistor number, but I have resisted.
Anyhow, at least I know from the horse's mouth that it is the oldest Buchla box in existence, and so, to me at least, it's quite groovy. I think it belongs in a museum, but, like Don would say, "What museum on Earth would want this?" The Chez Mosc Museum, of course.
Here are some pics I just took. I hope you enjoy them. If you ever come to Chez Mosc, you'll get to see it, and even touch it! It's not an autographed first edition of the Bible, but it's not a piece of garbage either...
The harmonica is in the pic for size reference. If you click on a picture, it will take you to a full res image.
_________________ --Howard
my music and other stuff Last edited by mosc on Tue Feb 08, 2022 5:13 pm; edited 12 times in total |
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Cynosure
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Joined: Dec 11, 2010 Posts: 966 Location: Toronto, Ontario - Canada
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Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 8:00 pm Post subject:
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Wow! That is really cool. Thanks for sharing the pics, and for saving it out of the trash.
I'm no Buchla, but I would never throw out my first completed build (my C-MOnSter synth). |
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Paradigm X
Joined: Feb 15, 2011 Posts: 363 Location: Null and void
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Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 5:56 am Post subject:
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That is fascinating, thanks for posting |
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kkissinger
Joined: Mar 28, 2006 Posts: 1354 Location: Kansas City, Mo USA
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Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 7:59 am Post subject:
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Enjoyed reading about this. Great story! Thanks for posting. _________________ -- Kevin
http://kevinkissinger.com |
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Paradigm X
Joined: Feb 15, 2011 Posts: 363 Location: Null and void
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Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 8:02 am Post subject:
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Have you tried/thought about reverse engineering it?
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cebec
Joined: Apr 19, 2004 Posts: 1098 Location: Virginia
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PHOBoS
Joined: Jan 14, 2010 Posts: 5591 Location: Moon Base
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Minimoog56
Joined: Sep 21, 2009 Posts: 9 Location: The nations capital...
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Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 10:05 am Post subject:
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Looks like a germanium fuzz box! |
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mosc
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Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18197 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 1:57 pm Post subject:
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MiniMoog56 wrote: | Looks like a germanium fuzz box |
Probably something like that.
Reverse engineering this is possible, but the time and energy I'd put into that would, in my opinion, be best spent on my own experiments. Besides, it would necessitate removing some of the sacred sixty's dust. That's similar to magic smoke, but even more so. _________________ --Howard
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drumsofd00m
Joined: Sep 23, 2013 Posts: 20 Location: EU
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Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 2:28 am Post subject:
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mosc wrote: | some of the sacred sixty's dust. That's similar to magic smoke, but even more so. |
I'm sure you *would* get a good high from smoking it. |
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mosc
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Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18197 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:53 pm Post subject:
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drumsofd00m to electro-music.com _________________ --Howard
my music and other stuff |
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drumsofd00m
Joined: Sep 23, 2013 Posts: 20 Location: EU
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Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:01 pm Post subject:
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Thanks. I'm more active on Muffwiggler, but have been lurking here for a while. The oldest Buchla box I ever touched was said to have belonged to Stockhausen's workshop at WDR earlier, but it had no dust or other residue from exotic smokes on it. |
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Johan Zwart
Joined: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 496 Location: Utrecht, Netherlands
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L´Andratté
Joined: Sep 23, 2012 Posts: 150 Location: Hamburg, Germany
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Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:29 pm Post subject:
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Picturing The Don soldering away on a distortion box is what really made me smile... Thanks, and you have a way of telling, mosc! I wish it would go on and on |
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blue hell
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Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 24081 Location: The Netherlands, Enschede
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Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:44 pm Post subject:
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That one must have been the first transistor fuzz box ever
Lovely story! _________________ Jan
also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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L´Andratté
Joined: Sep 23, 2012 Posts: 150 Location: Hamburg, Germany
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Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:44 pm Post subject:
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Ok, it´s late around here, I spent the night digging around the web, found this interesting read, kind of fits into this thread
http://www.vasulka.org/archive/RightsIntrvwInstitMediaPolicies/IntrvwInstitKaldron/61/BuchlaTranscription.pdf
Now I´m going to sleep
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"My studio at that time was ten feet wide and I worked out. on the sidewalk . It was so crowded in there we hauled the workbench out on the sidewalk on good days and set up my oscilloscope and worked out there. Cage came by and for voltage control I had hooked up my keyboard to an FM module that I'd built, a little module that was an FM receiver and I could play stations on it because I had one of the first varactor tuned FMs . Cage, as you can imagine was, just enormously interested in the fact that I could tune each key to a station and then proceeded to play the radio" Don Buchla |
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Acoustic Interloper
Joined: Jul 07, 2007 Posts: 2067 Location: Berks County, PA
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Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:28 pm Post subject:
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L´Andratté wrote: | Ok, it´s late around here, I spent the night digging around the web, found this interesting read, kind of fits into this thread
http://www.vasulka.org/archive/RightsIntrvwInstitMediaPolicies/IntrvwInstitKaldron/61/BuchlaTranscription.pdf
Now I´m going to sleep
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"My studio at that time was ten feet wide and I worked out. on the sidewalk . It was so crowded in there we hauled the workbench out on the sidewalk on good days and set up my oscilloscope and worked out there. Cage came by and for voltage control I had hooked up my keyboard to an FM module that I'd built, a little module that was an FM receiver and I could play stations on it because I had one of the first varactor tuned FMs . Cage, as you can imagine was, just enormously interested in the fact that I could tune each key to a station and then proceeded to play the radio" Don Buchla |
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Very interesting and helpful link, thanks!
Quote: | I wasn't excited about the size of the visual field believe or not, compared to the size of the audio field. The fact that I could command 100% of my acoustic perceptions and only 3% of my visual field. Kind of limited me as a composer in some weird way. |
It has taken ready availability of a planetarium to get me interested in generating video. It seems I am part of a tradition! Also, I just found out last week, that most new planetariums have everyone facing in the same direction, mostly using one end of the dome. I guess that's the lecture based use of planetariums. For music I love working in a planetarium with circular seating and no preferred orientation. You get to watch the faces of people across the room.
Very nice thread here, thanks for getting the ball rolling, Howard. _________________ When the stream is deep
my wild little dog frolics,
when shallow, she drinks. |
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drumsofd00m
Joined: Sep 23, 2013 Posts: 20 Location: EU
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 5:53 pm Post subject:
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L´Andratté wrote: | Ok, it´s late around here, I spent the night digging around the web, found this interesting read, kind of fits into this thread
http://www.vasulka.org/archive/RightsIntrvwInstitMediaPolicies/IntrvwInstitKaldron/61/BuchlaTranscription.pdf
Now I´m going to sleep
Quote: |
"My studio at that time was ten feet wide and I worked out. on the sidewalk . It was so crowded in there we hauled the workbench out on the sidewalk on good days and set up my oscilloscope and worked out there. Cage came by and for voltage control I had hooked up my keyboard to an FM module that I'd built, a little module that was an FM receiver and I could play stations on it because I had one of the first varactor tuned FMs . Cage, as you can imagine was, just enormously interested in the fact that I could tune each key to a station and then proceeded to play the radio" Don Buchla |
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It's always fascinating to realize that the idea for recently released modules, with SMD technology, onboard computers, MIDI and all, *still* can date back to ideas first explored more than 50 years ago. (Speaking of the 272e of course)
This makes me imagine that some, if not all of the 200e modules really were made because Don loved them and wanted to have them *for himself*, and not just as a 200 series rehash due to popular demand or influence from sponsors (cf. 260 & 297).
Nice find, thanks for sharing. |
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mosc
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Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18197 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2022 6:14 pm Post subject:
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This little Buchla Machine is now on loan to Emeapp, a fabulous sorta museum in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. Some of my other stuff is there including my Moog Modular 2C that I bought new in 1963. I had kept the original boxes that the museum staff is almost more interested in than the synth.
https://emeapp.org/ _________________ --Howard
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