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.