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Marc Doty on Don Buchla at Synthplex 2019
This is a really great watch, as not only is it a good history on Don Buchla and the instruments he created over the years. It debunks many of the myths 'the Internet' states as universal truths regarding Buchla and the whole East vs West Coast synthesis thing.
This two part review of the 200e series from 2005 in Sound on Sound compliments the video nicely (at the time the complete 200e system described in the review cost $19,850, and that particular system didn't include Buchla's most expensive module, the 296e Spectral Processor).
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/buchla-200e-part-1
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/buchla-200e-part-2
Comments
thank you for posting this - really fascinating - I'm also a big Buchla fan. He had some really interesting ideas
For those interested in Buchla, it is also worthing checking out some of the various interviews out there with Morton Subotnick that cover their work together. There are a few Subtonick and Suzanne Ciani podcast interviews from the last couple of years that provide some fascinating background. I don't have time to find the links right now. I think some were on Art + Music + Technology and Resident Advisor.
@pagefall It was great to hear about some of the more traditional designs he made in the seventies (especially the ones with piano keyboards!) as well as the otherworldly. And Marc's takedown of the 'forum guardians' of all things Buchla was hilarious.
@espiegel123 There was quite a few cool bits published by the Red Bull Music Academy too.
https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/10/instrumental-instruments-buchla
I've heard most of the Darwin Grosse interviews (I think I caught most of them anyway, I certainly remember the Todd Barton one), but I'll have a scoot about to what I can find and post them in this thread for others. This Vince Clarke interview with Reed Hayes is fantastic, especially for Vince's bemusement of Buchla's design intent.
If you find the links before me, post them here as I'm sure you'll have stuff I've not seen. The combination of the hype on modular in general and Don's death in 2016 seems to have generated more Buchla coverage than the company got during the previous 40 odd years!
I realise I tend not to save links or anything but there is a fair amount out there.
Favourites (you will have to search for them) are Alessandro Cortini's performance with Buchla and there is a really cool performance with Buchla and a number of other people - it's mentioned in the original video - where the instruments are removed. You see in it that Buchla had quite a silly sense of humour as well as all that technical expertise.
I'm particularly interested in the programming languages he used. David Rosenboom appears to have worked on them. You can find the source code for the 700 series somewhere (or at least you could - the new Buchla is clearly mopping up IP - a lot of stuff seems to have gone from the internet); FOIL . MiDAS, Foil-85, meta-foil
I've been thinking this myself. But I'll force myself to stay away from conspiracy theories!
Something I've found really interesting is the release of the Softube version of the Buchla 296e Spectral Processor. They're taking aim at VCV Rack which has a couple of Spectral Processor emulations, the best of which is created be Andrew Belt, the developer behind VCV Rack. The blurb on the Softube marketing material reads:
It seems odd to me to bring attention to the fact that other emulations exist (and Andrew Belt's version is pretty much spot on and costs $30) when your selling a virtual module for $199.
I purchased the Softube version of the Buchla 259e Twisted Waveform Generator and all the Mutable Instruments Softube modules but I think $199 is valuing the IP a little too highly for a software emulation and it's maybe a sign of how the new Buchla U.S.A. are going to attempt to monitise Don's original IP's. I hope they don't stamp down on the micro businesses creating modules inspired by Don's designs for Eurorack. In many ways, it's the likes of Make Noise that have created a willing audience for Buchla gear, but that audience is used to Eurorack prices. It's certainly going to be interesting to see how Buchla U.S.A. evolves.
yeah - Buchla stuff is currently pipe dream stuff (although if I have money at some point I will almost certainly buy some). My modular is about 50% make noise stuff.
At this point though I'm more interested in his ideas than any nostalgic view. Currently wondering what FM synthesis with looks like with a touch interface (like the one conveniently on my iPad.....) - TC-11 is kind of the right idea and kind of totally isn't......
I'm interested in the language stuff because "reasons" ;-)
Today is the last day of the introductory offer of the 296.
At the jrr shop with the coupon facebook15 it´s 86$.
When i read the quote "Our Buchla 296e module is officially licensed and endorsed by Buchla U.S.A. It's not just a copy, or an homage. It's the real thing." i did not read it as a comparison to other software but to the hardware.
Buchla's wavefolding algorithms are amazing and interesting and have a musicality that is really interesting and unique.
Also worth noting that BMI and Don Buchla ended contentiously. Buchla was very unhappy about their direction, but I don't know the details.
@espiegel123 I remember Tom Whitwell posting about the writ, a year or so before Don died. I believe the new company is a completely new entity which I believe (a foggy memory) was financed by one of Buchla's distributors. The one thing I'm pretty certain of is that the new company has nothing to do with the motley crew that Don was suing.
@dreamrobe Thanks for the info. I may pick it up at some point but seeing as I have other options the desire isn't burning a hole in my wallet.
This was a great piece in FACT (pun only slightly intended...).
https://www.factmag.com/2016/09/26/the-genius-of-don-buchla-suzanne-ciani-morton-subotnick-surgeon-alessandro-cortini/
Btw, I am curious as to when this whole East Coast/West Coast label became prevalent. I grew up in Southern California and and went to school university in the SF Bay Area. My formal EM composition education began in the mid-70s, and I don't recall ever having heard the phrases West Coast and East Coast used in reference to synthesis approaches in the 70s, 80s or 90s.
Heck, other than Moog, most of the U.S. synth designers/companies in the 70s were on the West Coast (Oberheim, E-Mu, Sequential Circuits, and, if memory serves, ARP) but doing what people now call East Coast synthesis.
Even on the west coast, Buchla and Serge were esoteric.
Anyone know when the phrases came into common parlance?
Probably an internet thing.
Joel Davel is the person to listen to about Buchla, really interesting fellow.
Buchla for me is just a really good sounding oscillator & FM.
The DX7 is in a way an evolution of Buchla.
You can ape a lot of "West Coast" just by using a great sounding oscillator & FM in conjunction with odd number step sequencers and fast envelopes.
The Buchla Marc Doty is involved with now is the real deal. The previous company was some of the worst people on the planet that stole from a dying man.
That review of the 200e system from 2005 in SoS already states the difference between Serge and Buchla on the West Coast and Moog. I'm sure the Internet has amplified the nomenclature but I suspect that it originates with Buchla dealers. They would have needed to create marketing literature that spells out the differences. By the late nineties/early noughties most synth enthusiasts thought of modular as being of the Moog, Roland and nascent Eurorack flavour (and Eurorack in it's early days was mainly about subtractive synthesis). The likes of Mark Verbos and Make Noise have taken many ideas that originated in Buchla and Serge systems and made them available in Eurorack format, and yet again dealers needed language to manage users expectations with regard to modules that differ so greatly from artists preconceived ideas.
For all Marc Doty's distancing from the East Coast/West Coast thing there is a fundamental difference in the approaches to synthesis. At it's most simple (description here, for those new to the concept), it's about adding harmonic content to simply waveforms rather that filtering complex waveform content. Which is something we all take for granted now, but I remember how much it noodled my brain when I was first introduced to the concept. Even the low pass gate was something that initially made me think WHY!
Funnily enough, I've always thought of Buchla as being an extension of DX7 style FM not the other way round. It's interesting that Mark Verbos has made true analog oscillators for 200e systems. And these oscillators fit perfectly into the Buchla ecosystem as a whole.
@pagefall If ever you find yourself taking inspiration from Buchla, an iOS version of the Source of Uncertainty would be top of my list.
The Verbos take has a few nice variations on the theme.
https://postmodular.co.uk/modules/random-sampling/
John Chowning developed FM synthesis, patented it, and licensed it to Yamaha. Not Buchla.
I'm sure @BroCoast is aware of John Chownings role in the history of the DX7.
Because Ring Modulation, AM and FM are all so closely related and Buchla's systems from the mid 60's featured FM (as stated on the FM synthesis Wikipedia page), I think it's easy to understand how confusions come about. I was always of the impression that the thing that John Chowning invented and patented was Phase Modulation which has come to be commenly known as FM. The reason this was a breakthrough was that it could be computed digitally whereas FM in its original sense was and still is an analog process, much like Ring Modulation and AM.
I could be wrong about this but Buchla systems featured FM before 1967, which is the date accredited to John Chowning with regards to the invention of the FM algorithm.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation_synthesis
Yes I am aware of this. They licensed the algorithm from Chowning but Buchla had FM synthesis prior to Chowning. It was digital FM that was patented by Stanford & Chowning.
In what way? The DX7 and its precursors have a different approach to FM (which was not unique to Buchla's instruments) and very different sound character. Wavefolding was central to Buchla's instruments as was his not quite sine and not quite triangle waves.
FM wasn't unique to Buchla's instruments though they might have been the first synths with linear FM.
John chowning (whose work, designs and patents are the foundation of the DX7) was already interested in FM in 1967 and his interest wasn't connected to Buchla's work...and he got to figuring out how to implement it on computers right away.
I can't really see any connection esthetically or historically that would put Buchla as something leading up to the DX7.
In my opinion, not really.
Re: Buchla/"west coast sound". I don't think this is an accurate characterization of the Buchla sound palette. Simplistic reductions of what goes into the sound don't capture either the technical of esthetic aspect of the sound creation. Don's wave-folding algorithms are at least as important as the oscillator cross-modulation --which is as likely to be AM as FM. And the nature of of the oscillator "morphs" (such as the "high order" knob) which vary from generation also is a huge aspect...
His wavefolding algorithms are both key and unique. I've been doing som spectral analysis in order to figure out how to capture some of that character and comparing to other wavefolders i have access to. Even the very nice Arturia emulation doesn't nail it.
FM is no more important than AM in the Buchla sound. And Buchla's AM and FM also have special character.
I don't know enough about the current company to know much about their ethics, etc. You could well be right about the current company not being the same as the inevitable he sued BUT calling them the "real deal" seems like a huge stretch. As Don wasn't, to the best of my knowledge, involved in any way with this company. And a number of artists closely associated with Don seem to express ambivalence about them. Given Don Buchla's unceasing quest, it is hard for me to see how they could be "the real deal" even if they are decent folks.
Yikes.
I have real experience with 100 series. I'll leave it at that.
Good luck on your quest.
To get things back on a more positive track.
Here's another bunch of great Buchla videos (a three part set) that escaped Synthtopia reposts.
And this was the Suzanne Ciani on the Buchla thing from the Red Bull Music Academy that I was looking for. The thing that's great about this talk is that there's lots Buchla audio of a more melodic bent. People often have a preconceived idea that Buchla's are only good for abstract/experimental stuff. But that's just one particular use-case for a Buchla system.
Suzanne Ciani is great to listen to on the subject.
My enthusiasm is not gone despite some efforts
The current Buchla USA that Marc Doty is involved with is to do with Joel Davel who I mentioned earlier. He used to work with Don on things like the lightning, thunder and Marimba Lumina. Quite unknown devices...
Here he is talking about the new Sensel Thunder overlay:
Now if I am welcome to contribute I can speak of my experiences with 100 series modules, the "new" Easel as well as Verbos/Make Noise things.
It is well worth checking out Mark Verbos blog if you want to understand how the modules worked: http://buchlatech.blogspot.com/
Of course, please do contribute.
My own Buchla experience is strictly 200e series, but I'm very much in the market for the new Easel if it's not cloud cuckoo land pricing.
@BroCoast
The Mark Verbos blog was a brilliant recommendation.
I'm slowing going through it from the beginning. His opening post is spot on it terms of those little things that makes Buchla different. These days many of the core characteristics of a Buchla/Serge system can achieved via tools (both hardware and software) that have be inspired by those 'West Coast' pioneers but it's great to read Mark's thoughts considering he's devoted most of his adult life to the Buchla design ethos.
I'm copy/pasting it here as I think it provides a clarity that will be useful for others reading this thread.
http://buchlatech.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-buchla.html
Why Buchla?
Since this is the first post, I'd like to start by explaining why I vote Buchla.
The Buchla 200 is the best modular electronic instrument ever made.
Don Buchla designed the front panel of his instruments first and the electronics second. A musician himself, this means that each module was an idea for a musician's tool rather than an engineer's.
Audio paths and control paths are totally divided. The control path uses unshielded stacking banana cables. The audio path uses 1/8" mini cables. On early modules the control paths and signal paths even used separate power rails! The audio signals are line level, just like all the signals in a recording studio, so patching in and out of the system is seamless. The stacking bananas are great for control signals, they mult simply. The EF Johnson banana jacks come in a variety of colors, which Don used to code what the jacks are used for.
Controls sweep within a musically useful range. This is in some ways related to #2. Because audio processing modules never have to concern themselves with CV signals and vice versa, the controls don't have half of their rotation representing useless values, like a Serge.
"Unencumbered by engineering expediency or presumed musical asthetics..." Taken from the 248 catalog page.
Circuit boards are all mounted parallel to the panel, making the system take up less space behind the panel than most modulars. This allows for the suitcase cabinets and folding 203 cabinets. I will never understand the MOTM/Moog/Blacet/whatever system of mounting PCBs sticking way out back.
Sound design emphesis taken away from "fat" and "juicy" 24dB/Oct. lopass type sounds and into more interesting textures. Sure, you can do FM, AM, whatever audio rate modulation on any modular, but Buchla really pushes the user that way. The 259 has a switch and VCA internally patched for FM. It has a dedicated modulation oscillator!
Analog address of sequencers. Most of the time a sequencer is simply going to be pulsed along linearly. But having the CV in to sweep through the range of steps allows the sequencer to be used in several new ways including as a quantizer, tracking generator and more.
Harmonic Generator. No other modular ever had an oscillator module with the first 10 harmonic sine waves available. Don updated his 148 module for the 200 series too, but only made 2 as far as I know.
Source of Uncertainty. These days, all modulars have noise and sample & hold modules, but nobody ever made so many specific and musical options available to make sounds randomly shift and evolve. All hail the 266!
Quadrature mode on the 281. After a while, the ADSR became de facto for the whole of the synth industry. The 281 module allows all of the modes on a 284 or a 280 to be achieved, with voltage control of each stage. It's the quad mode that allows a quadrature LFO to be created, for quad panning or whatever. However, this mode can also be used to creat ADSR and DASR envelopes. I like the ADSR that you get from this because it follows through the whole decay and release cycles, even when it only gets a short pulse.
"Timbre." No, I don't mean the sound of the machine, at least not in this case. I mean the "timbre" circuit that is inside the 208 and the 259. It involves wave folding similar to the Serge wave multiplier (totally different circuit) attached to the sine wave output from the oscillator. The 258 already had the ability to sweep from a sine wave to either a saw or square wave, which is a bit like lopass filtering. A sweep of the "timbre" sounds unlike any other synth and is amazing.
Voltage Controlled Panning. The 207 allows 2 channels to be sweeped around via a CV. The 227 and 204 allow quad panning from 2 CVs. Simple yet wonderful.
Tunable Touchplate Keyboards. Those users who have no interest in playing a piano keyboard can rig up a 217 to do lots of things that no other system has ever allowed.
VTL5C3. The vactrol used in the 292 lopass gate has a characteristic slew to it. It makes the attack of any note from a Buchla 200 a little round. The "woodiness" of the sound is a key reason that the Buchla's sound has been discribed as natural.
I'm sure there are more reasons that will come to me as soon as I post this, but it will do for now.
> 11. "Timbre." No, I don't mean the sound of the machine, at least not in this case. I mean the "timbre" circuit that is inside the 208 and the 259. It involves wave folding similar to the Serge wave multiplier (totally different circuit) attached to the sine wave output from the oscillator. The 258 already had the ability to sweep from a sine wave to either a saw or square wave, which is a bit like lopass filtering. A sweep of the "timbre" sounds unlike any other synth and is amazing.
Buchla's wavefolding (and the parameter range he chose for it) really is special. When you compare the spectrograms of Buchla-folded sine waves as you crank up the wavefolding, you see some really interesting harmonic development different from what you see when analyzing other wavefolders. It is really cool. With most wavefolders, you get more and more harmonics -- the harmonic "density" goes up, but with Buchla's it is more interesting. As you crank it up, you get new harmonics but as you get the higher order harmonics some of the lower-order introduced harmonics become less prominent -- the total harmonic density doesn't change as radically. There are also a couple of particular harmonics (like one an octave and a sixth above the fundamental) that emerge that I haven't seen in other wavefolders.
Re the "East Coast/West Coast" terminology, I've checked in with a few other dinosaurs (a prominent EM writer and historian and one who is a pretty well-known Buchla virtuoso) and none of us can remember having heard it until pretty recently. I wonder if somehow it tracks with the emergence of Eurorack and marketing (as @jonmoore suggested) as a way to disambiguate Buchla/Serge type modules from subtractive.
My historian friend also confirmed what @BroCoast and @jonmoore with respect to the people owning Buchla now are people that wrested it away from the vultures that ripped Buchla off.
I remember reading east coast many years ago, but it was talking about academic composers. If west coast was mentioned, it was in the context of Cornell University computer music department, or more electro-acoustic type stuff.
@espiegel123 If you don't already own it, the Softube Modular version of the 259e Twisted Waveform Generator is bang on the money. Pair it with the Doepfer Vactrol LPG and you'll be surprised by how authentic it can sound.
The main downside to Softube Modular is that it's computationally very expensive. And even more so with the Buchla modules. It's worth it IMO, seeing as the 259e is so self contained, it's amazing how much timbral range you can get by simply modulating it by itself!
The whole Softube Modular range is discounted until the end of May for anybody that's interested. And most of the available add on modules have a 'West Coast' flavour. I have a feeling that the main dev at Softube is fan of Serge and Buchla.
Bump.