Tuesday, April 15, 2008
CHARLES COHEN AT THE BUCHLA MUSIC EASEL
CHARLES COHEN AT THE BUCHLA MUSIC EASEL from Alex on Vimeo.
"/ / / / / Viewing with headphones or a stereo source is highly recommended / / / / /
This colorful video features sound artist Charles Cohen improvising on a 1970's Buchla Music Easel. This extremely rare instrument is one of Don Buchla's 200 series. Buchla (a pioneer of audio synthesis) only manufactured 14 of these units. The entire film was edited from an hour-long set of free improvisation, with audio was taken directly from Charles' mixing board.
All of the photography and editing was produced by Alex Tyson, a sound and video artist from Pennsylvania. The film was shot in 16:9 720p High Definition format, using a 35mm LensBaby 3GPL.
This film is free to distribute, share, blog, vlog, etc. When re-posting, please copy and paste this text to inform anyone about the film.
At this time the film is only available online. While you can stream it in HD, it is best viewed on DVD.
Please contact the filmmaker for hard copies if interested.
Charles can be reached at ccohen (at) voicenet.com .
Alex can be reached at alextyson (at) gmail.com"
Update: if you haven't already watch this one full screen. Also check out these previous posts on Charles Cohen.
32 comments:
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© Matrixsynth - All posts are presented here for informative, historical and educative purposes as applicable within fair use.
MATRIXSYNTH is supported by affiliate links that use cookies to track clickthroughs and sales. See the privacy policy for details.
MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH
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that was AWESOME!
ReplyDeletewooooow I'd never heard one of those before. I'm pretty floored, actually! o_O
ReplyDeletenow I really want one! :D
that is some beautiful sound. what an instrument , and what a musician! great.
ReplyDeleteBRAVO!
ReplyDeleteAmazing footage! and great playing!
that man really loves what he does, brilliant.
ReplyDeletehappy day. amazing
ReplyDeletethat thing rules! i wonder how much a new one would cost?
ReplyDeleteYou can get all of that functionality out of a 200e module (plus midi and patch memory) for about $11,000. Considering Easels now go for $30,000+, I'd say that is a bargain.
ReplyDeleteThe real-time "bending" with the unpatched memory card is very, very cool!
ReplyDeletewow...!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteBuchla Fiction:
ReplyDelete- only 14 music easels were made
- they sell for $30k
Buchla Fact:
- that was AWESOME!
- charles rocks the easel
Made my day! Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteThey also sell for 75,000 too.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you could also get one for 145,850.
lensbabies are almost as good as the music easel
ReplyDeleteThis is great, Charles is great, Rick is correct there are more than 14 out there, but one thing you must take into consideration with a 200e vs. an easel or any analog VCO is the response to short transient voltage control signals, chiffs if you will - hard to translate through the ADC correctly even at 14 bit resolution. Analog does a better job at it.
ReplyDeleteEnough with comparing (silver) apples to digital oranges. Mr. Cohen has shown that spending years with an excellent instrument is indeed good for the soul.
ReplyDeleteboring seen it all before
ReplyDeleteNOT !
:-)
totally amazing, footage and playing
I would like more, please!
ReplyDeleteGreat video! Amazing instrument and player.
ReplyDeleteI think a new Easel based on 200e tech would be very interesting.
"You can get all of that functionality out of a 200e module (plus midi and patch memory) for about $11,000. Considering Easels now go for $30,000+, I'd say that is a bargain."
ReplyDeleteWould be larger, not sound the same, and lack the Reverb and touch plate interface. A lot of people have been demanding a new Easel from ANYone for at least the 10 years I've been involved in the synth community and it boggles my mind that no one has listened or brought anything to market. I think there's a lot to be said for something that's compact, portable, self-contained, and semi-modular, and that you can approach as an instrument in its own right rather than as an open-ended modular system.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete> touch plate interface
ReplyDelete222e
> A lot of people have been demanding a new Easel from ANYone for at least the 10 years I've been involved in the synth community and it boggles my mind that no one has listened or brought anything to market.
ReplyDeleteSign me up for one too.
Charles Cohen is a genius, he rocks the easel like a exotic groovebox. Truly a renaissance man.
ReplyDeletehis face at 2:50 the quintessential charles face. that's the what i'm doing is sill face. :)
ReplyDelete"> touch plate interface
ReplyDelete222e"
Whoops, of course!
The 200e also lacks the equivalent of the 'balanced external' input for ring modulation with any other signal, I believe. The 200 had a balanced modulator and frequency shifter in the same module. I wonder if an 'e' version is planned.
> The 200e also lacks the equivalent of the 'balanced external' input for ring modulation with any other signal, I believe.
ReplyDelete291e + 210e (or submixer on on 227e) to get sum + difference.
Is this modified? it has an extra row of knobs and switches at the top I've never seen on a Music Easel.
ReplyDelete"> The 200e also lacks the equivalent of the 'balanced external' input for ring modulation with any other signal, I believe.
ReplyDelete291e + 210e (or submixer on on 227e) to get sum + difference."
Thanks, Roger!
Yes, I believe Charles has added some EML circuits, including at least one extra VCO.
philly!~!!
ReplyDeletethat is truly brilliant.
ReplyDeletethe one thing that almost all the modern analog gear manufacturers forget is that gear must also look cool.
and not japanese teenager cool, but hipster cool, with nice fonts, coloured switches, and quirky interfaces. some manufacturers are just about getting the message with the wood thing (eg the microgrok) but when i see a boring but relatively sweet sounding vostok i weep with regret at what might have been.
"but hipster cool"
ReplyDeleteyes let nothing neat go unco-opped. :)
wait, i'm a hipster too.
yeah, there are EML circuits in there. a VCO, a SVVCF, noise, and an LFO i think.