259e and 267e are taking a trip to outer space

Just posted two small demo pieces I just recorded on my soundcloud channel. Both feature just the 259e, the 267e and my beloved El Capistan pedal from Strymon.

I am still amazed about the different sounds one can come up with, using just two Buchla modules be it the 281e in combination with the 259e or now with the 267e. I must say I also had a lot of fun with the 258v.

Buchla 100 system for sale at Muff's Modules

There is a super nice Buchla 100 system for sale at muff's that acording to Rick the man behind the electric music box website includes the following modules:

Fully restored 1970s Era Buchla 100 Modular System in 101 Cabinet:

101 2 piece 25 Panel Unit Cabinet
115 Power supply
110 Dual Gate (2 VCAs)
160 Dual Noise Source
175 Dual Equalizer (2 Filters)
194 Comb Filter (Filter)
190 Dual Reverberator
171 Dual Instrument Preamplifier
111 Dual Ring Modulator
106 Six Channel Mixer
196 Phase Shifter
192 Dual Lopass Filter (2 Filters - SUPER RARE MODULE)
158 Dual Sine/Saw Generator (2 Oscillators)
158 Dual Sine/Saw Generator (2 Oscillators)
156 Dual Control Voltage Processor
107 Voltage Controlled Mixer (10 VCAs!)
140 Timing Pulse Generator
123 Sequential Voltage Source (8 Stage Sequencer X 3)
180 Dual Attack Generator (2 Envelopes)
170 Dual Microphone Preamplifier (transformers!)
130 Dual Envelope Detector
114 Touchplate

all modules cleaned/recapped and tested, power supply refurbished.. wood cabinet restored. this system has 4 VCOS, 12 VCAs, several filter varieties including the rare 192 Lopass Filter which was one of the first Buchla module with Optos!, 8 stage sequencer, tons of processors and excellent stereo reverb.

Pics/more details soon

price is $35,000 plus shipping - pics soon.. here is a crappy one for now:

 

 All modules are cleaned and checked out by a Buchla instrument specialist

The 267e has arrived!!!

Just got my 267e right before Christmas. Wonderful module. Very very well build and one of the deepest Buchla modules I have seen. Took me a while to put it into my 2 panel powerd Box until everything worked fine. Only spend a couple of hours with it so far but I will post some audio soon.

263v Quantizer/Analog Shift Register

Mark Verbos released another Module. The 263v Quantizer/Analog Shift Register. There is no price yet but I guess it's not a module that I can afford at the moment. But it looks very usefull. Mark wrote quite a bit of history on this module. 

from the Buchla Tech blog:

In 1972 as a resident at CalArts, Fukushi Kawakami made four modules as additions to the school's rather extensive Buchla 200 system. The modules are a Control Voltage Switching Matrix, two Control Voltage Integrators and what I believe is the world's first Analog Shift Register. 

Since then, the world has fallen into disarray, computers have taken over, analog modulars have gone in and out of favor several times and those four Fortune Modules have ended up in Grant Richter's hands. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Serge made an analog shift register and wrote about it (under the nom de plume Arpad Benares) in Synapse. Even before the Fortune Modules, Buchla had made a rather amazing Control Voltage Integrator called the 155, but that's another post.

Anyway....

Analog Shift Registers are a bank of Sample and Holds. In fact, using only the first output, it is a Sample and Hold. When a pulse is applied, the CV on the input is stored on output one. Whatever was on output one is moved to output two, and so on. 

I had a couple of ideas of my own that could make it a better module. Sadly, it got back-burnered and never saw the light of day until now. The new version has rotary switches to select the scale to quantize to. The ASR outputs can be plugged into the quantizer with  shorting bar. There is no longer a "slave" switch to chain the two ASR's together, but a cable and shorting bar can now do that too. Some new ideas have come up as well, like using the quantizer to look-up the voltages from the "random" voltage sequences from the 266. It's obviously not as glamorous as an oscillator or filter, but it will come in useful to some people.

Soviet Modernism 1955-1991 Unknown Stories

Very interesting architecture happend in the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1991.
I will go to the exhibition at the viennese Architekturzentrum at MQ tomorrow
and very much looking forward to it.

From the homepage of the viennese Architekturzentrum:

The Architekturzentrum Wien writes architectural (hi)stories: ‘Soviet Modernism 1955 – 1991. Unknown Stories’ explores, for the first time comprehensively, the architecture of the non-Russian Soviet republics completed between the late 1950s and the end of the USSR in 1991. The research and exhibition project shifts the Russian-dominated perspective and focuses attention on the architecture of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, The Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

While Constructivism and Stalinist architecture have largely been included in Western architecture history, the Soviet modern architecture of the second half of the 20th century has remained practically unknown to date. Working in close collaboration with local experts and architects, a research group at the Architekturzentrum Wien has pursued the specialities in the architecture of the period and its ‘stories’. In the course of this extensive project a network has been created between a large number of researchers from the East and the West and interviews conducted with eyewitnesses of the time. Their stories have hardly been documented in writing and their works have not yet been viewed in context. Time is running out, and action is urgently needed as many of the buildings, which are still waiting for appraisal by architectural historians, are threatened. The poor construction techniques used at the time they were built means that these buildings are aging rapidly and there is a widespread lack of resources available, or support, for their upkeep.

Model 267e UNCERTAINTY SOURCE / DUAL FILTER

I just sold my 281e and ordered a Model 267e UNCERTAINTY SOURCE / DUAL FILTER for my
small Buchla Box can't wait for it. As much as I loved the 281e I think that the 267e with its noise, its two random sources and the two bandpass filter will be a much better fit and will play nicely with my 259e. Is this actually the perfect Buchla for the poor man? Let's find out!

Rogan Knobs

I took part in a group buy on muff's a while ago for a  lot of Rogan knobs that are used on some of the Buchla 200 modules and also some later Buchla instruments. My intention is to try out some Buchla DIY projects that seem to go on everywhere at the moment. They look so nice and I just wanted to repost some of the pictures xpander, the men behind the group buy, took and posted on muff's.
The Buchla community will be forever thankfull.

OBERBAMA - Barack Obama Dildulo

Nothing more to say, and obviously not Buchla related but made by some friends of mine.
Check it out!

Buchla 249e Dual Arbitrary Function Generator

Before the Buchla 250e there was the 249e. But because of it's complexity Buchla decided to take it
out of production and replace it if the more straight forward 250e. What has happend to the 259e could now happen to the 249e as well. On Muff's rumors are spreading that Buchla might do another run of this module if enough people are willing to buy one. Mh we will see. Until than there is a used one for sale at Muff's. Go get it!!! ( If you have the money that is.)

This Buchla 249e module is in pristine cosmetic and operational shape. I am the original owner. This is pre v30 and comes with original documentation and firmware card.

Paypal is the way to go. Free shipping in the US (lower 48).

Please PM me if you are interested. All best wishes, Todd

249e $4,650 

Fuckin' Cool Format Jümbler

A friend of mine build this super nice Format Jumbler for my birthday. It's in Module Module format. Very nice. Thanks a lot. Can't wait to try it out.

Klee Sequencer

I just found this panel on muff's. Very nice idea and I hope someone will build it one day. There are a lot of Buchla DIY projects going on on muffs. Go too muff's DIY subforum and see for yourselfs and get inspired too build your own.

Russia in color, a century ago.

via The Big Picture
Russia in color, a century ago.
Check out this extraordinary collection of color photographs taken between 1909 and 1912. In those years, photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images, combined with the bright colors, make it difficult
for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time - when these photographs were taken, neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had yet begun. Collected here are a few of the hundreds of color images made available by the Library of Congress, which purchased the original glass plates back in 1948.

I love this pictures. It's like traveling trough time. I know of no other pictures from that time that look as beautiful.  Find more pictures here.

Buchla Gating Matrix Model 312

After all this time reading about Buchla modules and the history of Don Buchla and his company Buchla&Associates there are still some modules I have never seen or heard of.
Like the Buchla Gating Matrix Model 312 from the Buchla 300.

Rick from The Electric Music Box posted the discription from the Buchla 300 brochure:

Used in conjunction with two model 292 quad lopass gates to implement digital
control over audio signal routing. Eight inputs and 8 outputs are provided; a
display matrix indicates status. Occupies one panel unit


I would put it in my rack just because it looks so beautiful.

New Serge at ELAK/Vienna

A few days ago a friend of mine called me, to tell me that ELAK the univesity for elektronic music and digital media in Vienna has recently acquired a Serge panel, namely the Animal from Sound Transform Systems.

So we went there to check out the Serge and the rest of there amazing studio facilitys and synth
collection including a recently restored Arp 2600 with it's original keyboard, a nice Roland 100 system and a new Cwejman S-1. What a wonderfull experience. And because Rex only send them ten banana patch cords I gave them one of mine. Let's see what they can do with eleven patch cords.

Mark Verbos 262v

Mark Verbos the man behind Verbos & Associates and the Blog Buchla Tech released a new oscillator for the Buchla system. The 262v Harmonic Oscillator.
From Buchla Tech:
The analog oscillator core puts out saw, square, triangle, and spike (208 style). The waveshaper puts out 10 decent quality sine waves. The voltage controlled mixer has sliders and CV ins for all channels as well as scanning circuitry (sort of freq. and bandwidth for the harmonics) and tilt (to favor the high harmonics or the low harmonics from voltage)

 The 262v looks amazing and it's nice to see a new analogue oscillator for the Buchla system (appart from the 258v and the ZOe of which only a handfull are actually in the hands of costumers).

"Seq-A" and the "Creature"

One of my favorite Modular Videos that features a Serge M-panel system. The Serge Modular is currently manufactured by Sound Transform Systems in Wisconsin. Enjoy!

Intellijel uStep ModuleModule

Intellijel's new ModuleModule is actually a reincarnation of Intellijel's uStep that is already available in the very popular Eurorack format.

features include:
separate sequence lengths (1-8 steps long each) or single 1x16 mode
seperate gate lengths
store/recall patterns (8 locations)
8 levels of shuffle
seperate sequence outputs with dedicated leds showing gate logic status
relative and absolute timing modes
gate range from 500us to 30minutes (capable of audio rate sequences)


use this module for:
beat/trigger sequencing (great for polyrhythms)
control of adsr/asr envelopes
clock dividing
swing clock
convert gate to trigger 


Price: $290

Available for direct order from Intellijel HQ.
Please e-mail orders@intellijel.com with your location info for shipping quote

LZX Industries

A few weeks ago I read more about video synthesis and looked again at the modular video synthesizer that is offered by LZX Visionary. Some of the video's on there homepage that where created with there video synthesizer are really amazing so I thought I share them and there introduction to the system here. I am thinking of buying a small system for myself. Maybe it will work nicely with the Buchla.

LZX Visionary: An Introduction

In today’s era of digital video and computer graphics, tools for the video artist wishing to experiment with the use of analogue circuitry for the creation and processing of images have largely been lost, left to a rich tradition of video artists from the 1960’s and 1970’s. We believe the past several years’ renaissance in the use of analogue synthesizers in music production, and the effectiveness of integrated analogue and digital workflows, to be a precursor to a similar renaissance in video technologies. There is a warmth and immediacy in the analogue, hardware-based video workflow which is lacking within software environments, and video artists worldwide have long been frustrated by lack of access to such tools outside of a few scattered studios. With LZX Visionary, it is our goal to both reintroduce classic vintage video processing and synthesis circuitry, and continually push development of new tools which enhance integration with the tools of the day and fulfill the needs of the modern video artist.
LZX Visionary is a line of EuroRack format synthesizer modules designed for creating and manipulating video and images. While our modules may be augmented within the same system by a wealth of interesting modules from other manufacturers intended for the creation of audio, our goal is to offer a complete system specifically designed for the demands of generating and processing video signals.

What is modular video synthesis?

A modular synthesizer is a type of analogue computer which is programmed by connecting the inputs and outputs of various functional modules to each other, typically in order to produce or process audio signals. The advantages of a modular synthesizer are its expandability and flexibility, since a system can be designed around goals the user wishes to achieve, and easily reconfigured (or patched) for multiple uses. Video synthesis is another application of the modular synthesizer, and while the application is different, the same principles of analogue signal paths and voltage-controlled parameters still apply.
While many functional modules are useful for both audio and video, some new module designs must be introduced which deal with the special requirements of video signals. The LZX Visionary modular video synthesizer can function as a traditional video mixer, keyer, or special effects unit, or delve into experimental territory such as the creation of abstract patterns with voltage-controlled oscillators, complex color space modulation, audiovisualization, and many as yet to be discovered techniques.

 

IRCAM's old Buchla 300

I always like this pictures of the old Buchla 300 from IRCAM and the text, especially this part:

"Even in its current place of rest, under quite a bit of dust, it seems to hearken back youthfully to a earlier time before this age of DSP, when men were men and resistors, resistors."

Check out the rest of the pictures here.

ModuleModules

The ModuleModule format for Buchla systems which was introduced by Chris Muir from Eardrill a while a go is on fire at the moment. In the last two weeks alone four new have surfaced. Intellijel has released there uStep for it. Roman F. from Russia a waveshaper based on the Music Easel and now Jason R. Butcher also announced two new modulemodules. 

The first is a Balanced Modulator which is based on the original Buchla 285.  The second one is a Reverb which uses a spring reverb emulator. Both will sell for 400$. I have too say that they look very tempting and they are also totally hand made. Great stuff!

Buchla's 257e

The upcoming Buchla 257e will be a new controll voltage processor and will probably fill the gap that the 255 has left behind.

Solaris

One of my favorite books is the Polish science fiction novel Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.
First published in Warsaw in 1961, the 1970 Polish-to-French-to-English translation of Solaris is the best-known of Lem's English-translated works. The book, not just for it's time but even now, is far ahead and far beyond a normal science fiction book and shows the ultimate inadequacy of communication between human and non-human species. Solaris, with whom Terran scientists are attempting communication, is almost completely covered with an ocean that is revealed to be a single, planet-encompassing organism. While the scientists are perfoming there experiments the ocean itself is experimenting with the scientists minds and is confronting them with there most painful and repressed thoughts and memories without revealing anything about itself. I have seen both movie adaptions, the one from Andrei Tarkovsky which was released in 1972 and Steven Soderbergh's adaption from the year 2002 which both fail in my opinion to capture the main themes from the book which are Lem's highly philosophical approche too the human self-image and and self-understanding. Lem himself observed that neither feature movie much depicts the extraordinary physical and psychological “alienness” of the Solaris ocean: “I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images” I hope that there will be a movie in the future that does the book at least some justice.

Solaristics, wrote Muntius, is a substitute for religion in the space age. It is faith wrapped in the cloak of science, contact, the goal for which we are striving, is as vague and obscure as communion with the saints or the coming of the Messiah.

 

Eardrill's Morphun

Chris Muir said on muff's that it's only a few week away. I looks beautiful and I love the sliders with the green leds. He wrote that it will go over five octaves, when quantized (actually 64 semitones) and ten volts, when unquantized.

Short Update: Chris Muir just anounced that the Morphun will sell for 475$ and that he is ready too take orders. Check out his Eardrill homepage for more information.

Jason R. Butcher's wonderful Buchla

ether^ra who is the men behind the wonderful blog ether^ra : visual arts, sound manoeuvring & arcana pointed me the way to an other interesting blog by Jason R.Butcher who has a very nice Buchla 200 that he put together over the years. He posted a new picture on his flickr page that shows a Easel like Haliburton case with only six Modules. He is not only useing Buchla 200 modules but also Buchla's 250e Arbitrary Function Generator which is, acording too the Buchla homepage a 16 stage function generator, featuring direct and immediate access to each stages' control and timing voltages. I think it is amazing that one can still, so many decades after the first Buchla was build, use the old modules with the new ones (even though sometimes you need too attenuate or amplify some modules).

The new setup that he is experimenting with consists of the folowing Modules:

Source of Uncertainty Model 266
Quad Function Generator Model 281
Quad Voltage-Controlled Lopass Gate Model 292
Dual Reverb / Equalizer Model 275 
 (which is quite a rare module and only one of two old modules 
 that do not fit in the new 200e boats, the other one being the 
 Dodecamodule Model 212)
250e Arbitrary Function Generator 
Programmable Complex Waveform GeneratorModel 259
 (which is probably the most expansive Buchla module that one can buy from the old 200 series 
  but a beauty it is)

Short Update: An anonymus user pointed out that "there are quite a few 200 modules that don't fit in a 200e cabinet without modifications: 208, 248 ,227 ,296 (296 fits only in one position in the 18 and 24 cab)"

Eadweard Muybridge

 

Zuckerzeit

In the year 1974 the German Krautrock band Cluster (Kluster) released there album Zuckerzeit. I love absolutly everything about this album the harmonics, the guitars, the drum machines. Everything feels so organic and dreamy at the same time. Unfortunately, I don’t have an original pressing, but the 180g re-press sounds great as well. I had the opportunity too see Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius performing as Cluster and Roedelius on three other occasions as he lives next to my hometown. When they played at Bologna's 10th International Live-Media Festival in 2010 in Italy I also was fortunate enough too meet Richard Lainhart when I took part in a Buchla workshop he did. This was also my first personal encounter with one of Don Buchla's instruments.

The netmage festival was also the biggest experimental music festival I have ever been too and I can only recommend going.

Raum Zeit Hund

 A friend of mine made a wonderful short film that  has been shown on several experimental film festivals across Europe. There is no music but I love the overall asthetics.

RaumZeitHund
AT / 2010
6 min.

Nikolaus Eckhard's ironic study RaumZeitHund (SpaceTimeDog) is situated in the field of tension between chronophotography and cinematography.

As legend goes, Eadweard Muybridge discovered chronophotography ca. 1870 as the result of a wager. He wanted to prove that a horse had all four legs in the air for a brief moment when in a gallop. In RaumZeitHund Nikolaus Eckhard refers directly to Muybridge's famous photo series 'Animal Locomotions.' A dog, specially trained for this purpose, is filmed on a treadmill in extreme slow motion (150 individual images per second). But in contrast to his role model, Eckhard does not use a slender, athletic greyhound, but rather, a less representative, long-eared brown Alpine Dachsbracke. The hunting dog, which is tethered to a black leather leash, is additionally furnished with black and white circular marks like a crash test dummy. The impression of 'scientific-ness' is further heightened in that the color film is consistently screened entirely without sound.

The dog's movements, which are initially smooth, become increasingly distorted; the animal jerks and flounders ever more acutely. Muybridge was also mentor for the film's complex montage. When presenting his movement studies, the photo pioneer grouped the individual images serially and in a grid pattern. Eckhard likewise arranges all shots in his film in a grid pattern (55 x 277 frames) and scans this matrix with the help of diverse mathematical functions. The dog's appearance hence fluctuates 'between violently controlled marionette and seemingly blithe ballerina' (Eckhard). In the end, likewise the film's climax, the animal floats, in motion, with all four paws in the air. The evidence is there, the wonder is possible. 

My new Buchla Box!

I recently bought a two panel powered box and put my two modules in it. I am constantly amazed by the sounds it makes. I hope I can uprgade too a bigger case soon. The new Skylab by Buchla&Asocciates looks very promising and will cover my needs for a transportable case.

As I said before, I love the 259e.

Buchla 158 Front Panel

I was always fascinated by the first system Buchla ever build, the Buchla 100. There have been a lot of DIY projects recently exploring the vaste amount of Buchla schemetics. And some people did  wonderful jobs cloning entire systems for themselves. As the 258 is alredy available from someone else I thought I make a panel for the 158 from the Buchla 100 and see where people take it from there. I loved the sound of it when Morton Subotnick brought his Buchla 100 system to Vienna that also included a 158. I went for the same font as on the Eardrill modules which is extremly close to the font on the 200e panels as I thought that nowadays people will use it primarily with original Buchla 200e modules.So I hope they will be a very close match. The lines are a bit thicker than on Buchla 200e modules as I felt that the panel would otherwise look a bit empty. I put San Francisco Tape Music Center on it as a tribute to those times  I have no idea when I can make them available as I have a lot of other stuff going on but if you are interested in one send me mail (or pm on muff's) so I can roughly estimate how many I should order. If you are looking for some sounds of the original check out monopoly's blog: mono-poly.blogspot.com The panel is not finished yet.

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II

The drone band Earth is coming to Vienna  next week (28.3. Arena Wien) to promote there seventh full-length studio album Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II. It was just released on the experimental heavy metal label Southern Lord Records.

Short update: the concert was wonderful, even better than I had imagined it. So if you ever have the chance to see them live don't miss it.

Protofields and the Buchla 200

 This is my favorite Buchla 200 video. So inspiring. I think this is the Buchla that now belongs too former NIN member Alessandro Cortini but correct me if I am wrong.

An extremely rare version of Protofields piece made in one take with the Buchla 200 System. This is just a memory of these days not a finished work.

Music by Antonio Isaac, camera by Gerardo Pellicer.

 

The knob of insanity

A while back I wanted too buy a 294 Infinite Phase Shifter. As it is not part of the "e" series I wanted to use the old red and blue Rogen knobs for it. At that time I took part in a group buy for the small blue unskirted Rogan Knobs. So after scoring those I was trying to find the big red knob which is also used on the 218. I knew that this specific knob is as rare as hen's teeth. So I asked around for quite a while and already wanted too give up when I found a guy who was willing to sell one to me.
As I feard that he might back out I offerd him a crazy amount of money for it. And he gladly took it (who wouldn`t).  Till that day my girlfriend still shakes her head in disbelief. So what. Even if I will never use it, it's an wonderful piece of plastic.

Man as Art

I made a discovery today. My mother's husband showed me a book that totally blew my mind.
Its's about tribes from Papua New Guinea. Originally published as a $45 hardcover in 1981, this book is essentially a collection of photographs of New Guinea natives decked out in their finest paint, feathers, and jewelry. It is made by the photographer Malcolm Kirk. The German title is "Menschen und Masken". The photographer is using a Nikon camera and a 55-mm-Micro-Nikkor. No Buchlas in Papua New Guinea I guess but I will be thinking about this amazing pictures the next time I'll patch something. If you find this book anywhere check it out.

Suzanne Ciani: Lixiviation

Labeled the “American Delia Derbyshire (Delia Ann Derbyshire (5 May 1937 – 3 July 2001) was an English musician and composer of electronic music and musique concrète) of the Atari generation,” Finders Keepers Record has released a compilation that features early compositions by the synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani who was one of the few women around that timethat made a career as a synthesist. This new album heavily features the Buchla 200.

In the 60's sculptor Harold Paris first introduced her to Don Buchla, whose studio building was next door to the UC Berkeley in the industrial waterfront section of Oakland. She worked for Don Buchla in his factory and by doing so got her first Buchla 200.

For me she is not just making music but creates landscapes that unfold in front of you as
you listen to the record. And it takes you to places where you have never been before.

Suzanne Ciani says about one of the pieces included on this compilation:
“This is an exampleof a Buchla piece where the music is generated by the machine itself, after lots of careful programming. I would spend weeks just living with the machine, always on, and tweak the parameters that were interacting to create this “automatic” composition. The idea was that you worked with the machine, setting up sequences and envelopes and filter modulations that interacted  in an organic way. The composition then infolded infinitely, going for weeks.”

Suzanne Ciani has a very detailed but also in my eyes, joyful approche in a way that I realy like and I would say that this record is definitely a piece of electronic music history.