Exploring the 1st Buchla 100 Modular Synthesizer
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- Опубліковано 15 чер 2024
- This video is a historical, technical, and musical deep dive into the Buchla 100 Series Modular System at the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music. This instrument was the first voltage controllable modular synthesizer built by Don Buchla-it was delivered to the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the mid-1960s.
In this video we’ll start with a brief historical overview of the Buchla 100 Series Modular System and the San Francisco Tape Music Center. Then, we’ll unpack everything that’s inside the instrument module by module. Finally, I’ll share some of the quirks of this particular instrument, and lots of patch examples to illustrate its unique voice and character.
As I was getting to know this instrument, I tried to keep in mind the circumstances surrounding its development-the people who contributed to it, the time in which it emerged, and the state of electronic music at the time of its invention. These thoughts greatly inspired my approach to working with the instrument and are present throughout this video.
It’s a rare opportunity to be able to work with a historical instrument like this one. I have always been super inspired by Buchla’s work in general, but like many people have had few opportunities to work with his original instruments. Instead, much of my experience has been through newer instruments inspired by his designs. Being able to work closely with this instrument was an incredibly inspiring and clarifying experience that allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of Buchla’s own creative and technical development, as well as the multitude of music, modern modules, and instruments that have been inspired by his work.
Special thank you to Mills College for letting us spend a week in the electronic music studio working with the Buchla 100; to The Buchla Archives and Ryan Gaston for helping to put this video together; and also to all of the amazing folks in my Patreon community for your support in helping to bring educational projects like this one to life!
Learn more / join the waitlist for Learning Sound and Synthesis, my online modular synthesis and sound design class: www.soundandsynthesis.com
Join my Patreon community for behind-the-scenes content, unreleased music, and extended tutorials: / sarahbellereid
Thank you to:
Mills College Center for Contemporary Music www.performingarts.mills.edu
The Buchla Archives www.buchlaarchives.com
Ryan Gaston (co-producing + filming) ryangastonmusic.com
Hainbach (tape slicing footage) / hainbach
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Historical Overview: Buchla 100 + the San Francisco Tape Music Center
7:38 Mills Buchla 100 System Overview
14:27 Timbre in the Mills Buchla 100
18:29 Chaos in the Mills Buchla 100
21:52 Voltage Control Quirks
25:00 Sequencing Tactics: Triggered Segments
30:40 Sequencing Tactics: Extended Sequences
32:06 More Patches + Sounds
32:36 Ring Modulated Reverb Patch
34:40 Keyboard Chaos Patch
36:55 Gated Voice Patch
38:29 Wonky Drum Machine Patch
38:57 Triggered Gestures Patch
39:14 Transposed FM Sequence Patch
39:48 Bell Tones Patch
40:27 Touch Controlled Ratchet Patch
41:00 Sequenced Melodic Patch
Sarah Belle Reid is a performer-composer, active in the fields of electroacoustic trumpet performance, intermedia arts, music technology, and improvisation.
www.sarahbellereid.com
Addendum: now watching this video after its release, I realize that, in the section in which I talk about the formation of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, my wording makes it sound as if the SFTMC was entirely Subotnick & Sender's idea-but the SFTMC also owes a lot directly to Pauline Oliveros.
Prior to the SFTMC's official formation, Oliveros and Sender organized Sonics, a popular concert series of tape music, multimedia pieces, and improvisation. This series was responsible for much of the community-building that led to the SFTMC's success/popularity, and truly, the SFTMC effectively WAS the next evolution of the Sonics events. And, though she was not as directly involved in the SFTMC's "official" incorporation as were Subotnick or Sender, she did remain an important figure in keeping the SFTMC alive, active, and functional. Without her, the SFTMC would likely never have existed-and without her, it certainly wouldn't have seen the success that it did.
Thank you for, totally riveting (and ratcheting).
Making me think I should try some no-filter FM/AM experiments.
Some really marvelous sounds at the end, really showed off what it can do.
Thanks again for the in-depth video of such a rare and strange system.
Kind of mind blowing that there were no filters in that system. Thank you for taking us with you to explore this instrument. Sometimes looking back helps spark new ideas for today.
If you used the Wavefom module, it was a sorta Additive Synth. But _Silver Apples of the Moon_ was fine without....😎
I find it mind-blowing this is still in use! I learned the basics on its baby brother in 1970. This one was twice as much ti rent, so I never got to play it.
I taught and undergraduate class on Synthesis on this very synth when it was located at UCSD in the mid 70’s. Was an honor and a privilege to get to know this very quirky instrument in a very intimate way. It’s really quite something!
Sarah, it is absolutely great to finally find someone (with very advanced 'musical' analog sound synthesis expertise) able to make these kinds of early electronic music type sounds and structures, most often neglected (or forgotten :-) by analog modular players!! Very much appreciated!! Greetings from Willem Twee Studios, The Netherlands :-)
Those raw oscillators are still amongst the most powerful sounding ever made.
Glad to hear and see this senior ciizen is being used for new music.
A piece of electro-acoustic music history
I just took a massive bong hit, decided to open UA-cam, and this is what popped up. The universe has aligned itself in my favor today. Thank you.
Algorithm is working same for me too 😂
What if you experienced things sober and found out if you enjoyed them?
DUDE WEED LMAO
I’m a gummies kind of guy. Not gonna lie I take two 10mg gummies and power up the 208C
Universe do be like that bro
Super cool history video/demo!!! Something I found fascinating while watching this are the physical gestures you made while engaging with the instrument. For example, you aren't simply touching the touchpad, you've got this flicking motion almost like you're plucking a string. How cool! That would be a great video if you haven't made it already, how you perceive physical embodiment of music and performance in your work.
I feel like I was able to experience this trip along with you and really get a pretty intimate look into this historical instrument. Thank you for taking us there! This was great!!!
Thanks Sarah for the best explanation and demonstration on the Buchla 100 that I’ve ever seen.
It took me back to my earlier days in the 70’s at the Columbia- Princeton lab. We programmed music on a mainframe using Music 360, Wylbur and Fortran. The digital tapes were bussed from NY to Princeton for D/A conversion and then shuttled back. The whole round trip took days before you could even hear if you actually generated any audio, much less the audio you were hoping for.
Synthesizers were a truly disruptive technology. As you said, these early machines were designed with the thought in mind of reducing the turnaround time and making sound creation a more immediate experience. They really did come to be their own ecosystem though. I remember splicing, tape, snippets and coming up with some truly serendipitous, unique and unexpected results. I don’t think any of the new hardware come close to the feel of composing with actual magnetic tape, but certainly it did open up an even more expansive palette and musical dictionary. Even as a hobbyist, I have assembled a home studio containing enough modular gear, synths and equipment that I should probably delete the word “home”.
Thanks for getting an old geezer excited enough to actually leave a comment. Maybe I’ll go dust off that reel to reel now.
Great job 👍
make a video!
I worked with a Buchla system at the University of Chicago in the early 80s. This was when Easley Blackwood was in charge of the joint. I had tons of fun with the Buchla + a 4-track reel-to-reel.
I appreciate how the panel designs aid in understanding the pathing of the signals. Clearly, this was all really new so more visual guidance probably helped make it less cryptic and overwhelming. Thanks for the dive into the system!
Thanks' for all of your hard work. I've been wanting to see a really 'in-depth' video of the first 'Buchla#100' system!
My composition teacher Dr Beverly Grigsby actually studied with buchla. Grigsby later created the computer music lab at Cal State Northridge and I learned how to use a Fairlight. I’ve been into analog synthesis my entire musical life and after years of composing for symphony orchestra, I am starting to build a euro rack system. Thanks for sharing this.
Super stoked you got a chance to do this deep-dive on the system 100 and decided to share it. It really gives a good idea of the process instrument itself and some of its possibilities. I have been working with Buchla systems quite a bit in the last couple of years and am very happy to see interest in it growing.
I've been pretty interested in this instrument since I discovered Mort Subotnick. It really has such an incredible history. But also DAMN does it still sound amazing! Great video.
What a fantastic look into this machine and it’s history. Great patches ! Your genuine love of these machines comes across and it’s very inspiring. So glad this machine still exists and sounds so good. I particularly loved the start stop sequence. I’ve never thought to make a patch like that.
Glad you enjoyed it 🙌
Thank you so much for this amazing video on this historic instrument. Loved how you shed a light on the fascinating minds of everyone involved.
Such amazing tones, can"t wait to hear what you come up with it. A daunting task no wonder, even being so familiar with the Buchla world.
Fascinating video! i just purchased some software emulations of some Buchla modules, and I've been watching various video to learn how to use them effectively. Thanks for all the information in this video. i look forward to more of your content as a new subscriber.
This is the best video on Buchlas, and incredibly well researched. As someone who owns several of Morton’s albums, it’s cool to have actual insights as to the technical side of what he was doing. Thanks for this!
Truly incredible and inspirational - both the sounds and your adeptness in manifesting them. So visceral yet so beautiful. Thank you - it’s been totally fascinating to learn more about and made my evening!
You're videos are a treasure of delight. Thank you for the best content out there
thank you!
Thank you so much Sarah for this video. Your intimate connection with this instrument is inspiring .
This was available to rent for, I believe, $5/hr, along with a four-track tape machine and a full Moog system in 1970. . I learned on the smaller one ($2.50/hr and a two-track recorder.) You really LEARNED on these, nothing of the 'normal' world was relevant. SO much more fun than piano.
Ms. Reid, the 132 Waveform module was also on Mills' smaller System 100. (I used it as a VC B3 Hammond.)
What a treat to be able to visit and dig into this piece of history. Thanks for this entertaining and educational video.
Thank you for a great tour and intro to this great instrument!
Great overview. Thank you!
very cool history and experimentation of this historic instrument. thank you so much for making this video!
Thanks … it’s very inspiring and great to see how much you enjoy this instrument
I really appreciate this one. What a fantastic opportunity.
Excellent video........ Completely enhanced by the way you say "modulate" and "cross modulation" 🙂
Perfect explanation, thanks! I love the sound of this thing! Wow!
Definitely a part of synth and experimental music history. Enjoy!!!
I love your videos. Both the details and the delivery are exemplary! Loved the tape-splicing reference!!
Thanks so much!
Those vocal experiments were srsly wild tho! At times it sounded like slowed down delay artefacts. Defo have to try it out now.
Thank you for sharing your impressions! 👏👏
Wow, there are tons of unique sounds!
Thanks for watching!
This is great. You really know your stuff. Very educational.
What an incredible tone this has - played around with one at UNCSA back in the 90s - recorded the whole session. Made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Some of the sounds are so familiar and almost "natural" in an electronic way. They make sense and are aurally pleasing. Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you so much for this amazing tour.
The gated voice patch is amazing !
Good job! It has a lovely sound.
Wonderful video
So unique and fascinating to this day!🖤
What an incredible video. I was in the Bay Area lately, and I wondered if it was possible to see any of the SFTMC stuff, and found out it’s non trivial to see. I’m grateful for the peek behind the curtain! Thanks!
That was a very interesting and informative talk. Thank you! My 18-year old son walked in near the end during the patch demos. He got right away that the synthesizer was at the frontier of electronic music at the time. I think it was built right around the time I was born.
That is awesome!
Really interesting and informative look at this piece of history...and sourceages is an excellent word!
some buch la rogers action here. Good video. Thanks for making it. Eye poppin.
Wow, that was really great! Thanks!
Thank you for this...a reminder I need to spend more time, and become more familiar with my Buchla.
This is so cool to see these early origins and hear the raw madness of it - existential.
This was so cool! The stuff you're doing in this video with the 100 is so musical, I can't believe how (comparatively) "basic" the system is. Might be time for me to see what I could do with FM/AM and without filters for a bit...
just wonderful!
"It could be the precursor of fascinating developments in the field of electronic music"
Love it
I'd be interested to hear it synced with a drum machine
Amazing! Thanks for sharing
Appreciate this documentary!
Awesome video and cool insight into how things really started. Thank you!
Amazing how technology evolved since then. We can do a lot more complex musical things with devices that fit in our pockets now.
Excellent overview and demo of this lovely modular! 😎👍
thank you!
So very cool
It's amazing how the bell tones patch instantly made me remember Stockhausen's "Studie 1".
Anyways, thanks for sharing this wonderful and historic synth with the rest of the world :D
Really interesting video! I am particularly inspired by the part where you describe that the sequencers were not primarily used to create loops but as a device for unique sound events.
It must be quite a thrill to sit at that instrument, one with so much history to it--quite an opportunity!
I'm now 100% positive Tetsu Inoue used at least one Buchla in his studio. This thing sounds so much like him, or the other way around.
well produced and interesting :)
What a great insight! Thanks for sharing - and for explaining this fascinating piece of musical history. (Now, if only I could fit one in my small house … ?!)
He was a genius. Nice demo.
Thanks for this brilliant video! Really interesting, and some of those patches are absolutely incredible. I built the ‘Mort’s Barge’ DIY 100 series replica (158, 110, 180, 140 and 123) last year which is lots of fun as a mini-system, so it was great to hear/see some of the other modules. Would love to build another row (or two) to expand it now! Inspiring stuff 👍
Very cool!
That's so cool. I bet the week went by too quickly!
This is terrific - thank you so much, both for the historical background, and for the detailed walkthrough of the modules! One question comes to mind about the model 132 waveform generator: as you noted (and apparently Don also acknowledged), building a waveform with 32 knobs is pretty tedious and cumbersome! So, I wonder if anyone ever thought to reconfigure it with sliders (like the layout of a typical third octave graphic equalizer), so you could "sculpt" the waveform using the side of your hand (or two hands) to move multiple sliders at once. To your knowledge, did anyone ever try that? That would be super easy to emulate on an iPad, of course, but that would lack that certain magic that hardware has!
Excellent video, thanks for sharing your experience, it really helps to promote the West Coast alternative to the "normal" way of thinking.
Glad you enjoyed it!
awesome patches ! love the slide controller, looks like a 0ctrl on steroids :)
Thank you this. The sequence at 41:01 sounds quite close to the start of "Brain in the Bottle" by Thomas Yorke. Not exactly the same notes but close. I know Yorke has used modular synths at least
Very informative, thank you! I'm wondering if the quote of "Yankee Doodle" in the intro is a reference to Daniel Goode's "Faust Crosses the Raritan..."?
Very interesting to get a tour and hear this pioneer modular. The 156 Control Voltage Processor, I can see where Maths comes from.
Such a creative playground full of cool sounds. I could get lost with one of these and a box of reverb and tape delay pedals. haha.
Can’t wait 😊
This sounds just so rich and vibrant ❤ Also the caotic sounds you archive by crossmodulating the 158 ... you almost need no random voltage source 😅
I wonder if with all the possibilities of later synth developments composing got more and more complex in the sense that the sound design got (more) interweaved with the composing part which can obstruct the latter. These really early synth designs come with a certain "purity" that is somewhat appealing to me 😀
Top content here 👍👍👍
Great stuff , sonic maverick of a machine tamed by Sarah’s boldness… I was getting filter withdrawal symptoms though 🥴😂
32:33: great organic instability happening in this section.
17:50 It's worth pausing the video and reading this text. Very interesting! I've experimented with using software to generate sounds, and I've sometimes encountered similar disappointment, when something that seems like an incredibly cool idea relating to making weird shapes in the waveform actually turns out not to sound special in the slightest :)
the sounds of every sci fi and cartoon of time
Maybe they could get a grant to have someone clean the thing. I just don’t think of dirty fingers as adding a beautiful patina. The square wave generator looks like it has some jam residue on the frequency knob.
You can do the waveshape via knobs with the DFAM if you turn the tempo up to audio rate. Since there are only 8 steps it's pretty quick to set up a sound and each knob makes a difference. It's kind of fun, but you'd need an external adder if you wanted anything other than a static pitch.
It's such a fun idea, I do that at various tempos to make a stepped LFO to use with the Subharmonicon.
liked the video a lot, glad i have in my euro the red panel 158 love that oscillator, also have the tiptop buchla stuff, great fun, besides subotnick stuff, Michael Czajkowski "People the Sky" is a great buchla 100 lp
Glad you enjoyed it
On some weird early KRAFTWERK stuff. VERY INTERESTING at the same time a movie came out in the late seventies called Lipstick
My lady, what camera are you using during the recording of this video? It looks great.
Sarah, a needed correction. The SFTMC was founded by Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Sender, although Morton came quickly after. It's unfortunately a common misconception. It's also a long story and it's also true that thanks to Morton that Donc Buchla came to work for the SFTMC.
Don Buchla, sorry for the typo.
Hey Sarah,
i know this is from an older video you did but in regards to bringing pedal fx into modular, you said you can run pedal fx at the end of your chain but output modules are balanced and not unbalanced. I know output modules can use ts but it creates a lot of unwanted noise doing this. Is there a way you work around this?
I have a pedal fx send module from a company i wont mention but it doesnt do a good job of getting the fx in loud enough that you can hear it well although its well recommended by a lot of people. Would love to figure out how you can put a pedal at end of chain and maybe that will work better than an fx send return. Thank you.
39:48 sounds so Stockhausen
19:30 Sounds like Defender and some other Williams Electronics games.
I have never really gelled with the Buchla , the sounds it produces are very tinny, I do like the percussion sounds it can make though
NICE♥ ♪
❤
😍
A lot of the chaotic sounds are like what you get doing no input mixing.
Logan's Run soundtrack :)
I am a big Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Larry Fast, old school electronic music fan. Why is it that nowadays, every frigging time that I see a video like this one talking about amazing machines, the only sounds that seem to be created are either wet farts or R2D2 vocalizing?
WHY ARE MY WALLS BREATHING AND MELTING????
How many of these machines were build?
This is it.
Voltage controlled sausages - me like!
1:00 = Sarah Belle trying to snort the assortment of drugs that came in contact with those 60-year-old touchplates ❤