The 259e Complex Waveform Generator

Just before I went to  北京 for one semester to study chinese I recived my first Buchla oscillator from Buchla & Associates. I had no power supply for it after selling most of my Buchla stuff a bit earlier to finance my semester in China, so it just sat at home for six months waiting for me to get home and get a power supply again.

I went for the 259e Complex Waveform Generator. Like all the newer Buchla oscillators it is actually two oscillators in one module. The modulation oscillator of the 259e offers three basic wave shapes: square, triangle and sawtooth. The principal oscillator of the 259e offers far more waveforms. There are two wavetable banks that are driven by a digital sine wave. Because the 259e uses digital wave tables, the output waves exhibit aliasing. And I have too say I love the aliasing of the 259e. With the 259e alone one can have a lot of fun. What I realy like about this module is that three of its wave tables on each bank are reserved for memory scanning. The 259e scanns it's own memory and you can find beautiful sounds between silence.