you can find the review here."Despite the success of Hollywood, some icons never cross the Atlantic successfully from West to East. Say 'Babe Ruth' to the average Brit, and you'll conjure an image of a small girl too young to play ball games. Likewise, say 'Don Buchla' in the UK, and you'll probably be asked whether he was a character in The Godfather. Strangely, that description is not as far from the truth as you might imagine. In the USA, there are three 'godfathers' of synthesis: Alan Pearlman, Bob Moog, and — largely unknown in the Auld Country — Donald Buchla.
Buchla was a contemporary of Moog, and like Dr Robert, he produced his first synthesizers in the 1960s. He continued to do so throughout the '70s and '80s (see the box on the history of Buchla & Associates overleaf), but the commercial acclaim and recognition afforded to Moog eluded Buchla, and he concentrated on controllers in the '90s. By the early years of this century, he had slipped into the backwaters of the music industry, but in 2002, he decided to reinvent his most successful synthesizer, the Series 200 from the early '70s, bringing it up to date while retaining as much backwards compatibility as possible. Three years later, the result has arrived. It's a feature-packed synthesizer with a staggeringly huge price tag (see the final page of this article). It's the Buchla 200e." Note the printed review was from 2005.
Update via Wavedform in the comments: "The SOS review seems like Gordon Reid really wanted to review a different system, and not the system as it was.
The Keyboard review was a little more even-handed, I thought."
The SOS review seems like Gordon Reid really wanted to review a different system, and not the system as it was.
ReplyDeleteThe Keyboard review was a little more even-handed, I thought.
Don Buchla got the right of reply in the issue after the one in which the second part came out; he took issue with the review on a number of points.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't think it really mattered, in the end; I think it was pretty clear from Gordon Reid's review (indeed, he said so himself) that Buchla's is a synth system (or mindset) you either get on with or you don't, and... he didn't. Happens sometimes. (Also, I guess that the problem is exacerbated with a modular system, in that a reviewer is entirely dependent on which modules they get sent for review - if they find they'd prefer a different set, tough.) And for all Gordon's criticisms, there are precious few synths that warrant a two-part exploration in Sound on Sound - the only other one I can think of within the last few years is the Korg OASYS.
Having said which, I guess if you've just spent $15k on a fully decked out modular (as opposed to, say, half a dozen G2s), it's either because $15k doesn't matter to you(!) or because you've spent some time with it before that and know you're going to get on with it. In which case, the fact that some guy in England spent a dozen pages describing why he didn't probably isn't that important.
The SOS review generated a TON of traffic on the AH list. I think the final consensus was just summed up nicely by gwenhwyfaer above.
ReplyDeleteI didn't check to see if it's online or not, but Buchla replied to the criticisms of the original review and SOS published that too.