BUCHLA and Associates - rare original Piano Bar

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video upload by Con Brio Synthesizers

"This is my old Buchla Piano Bar - a very rare instrument interface from Don Buchla. Originally conceived and designed by Don - this is one of very few ever made (This one is serial #105 - they started at #100 - so likely the 5th made of 10 or so?)

I have only seen one other of these - it's in the Cantos Museum (NMC in Calgary Canada) but that one is a different model altogether. No others appear on the web at all currently.

The Buchla system works very well - it's placed (no mounting or drilling) across any 88-key piano keyboard. Optical sensors over each key convert these to note on/off of MIDI. The box generates programmable General Midi sound sets, and also has output of MIDI signals for recording or triggering external modules.

I have both the Moog and Buchla Piano Bars - they are quite comparable. The Moog is far more common, with a few hundred sold, but both are rare. Too bad - as it's an excellent design and works so well. Having the acoustic piano sound (and superb feel of any wooden piano keys) plus the richness of the layered sampled sounds - really is a blast to play this. Pedals sensors are down below, so sustain is also triggered.

It has full dynamic control, a very sensitive response. I reprogrammed most of the generic preset sounds into better sets of things - any General Midi manual will show you how this can be done. Splits and layers, effects, retuning, octaves, varied Midi channel outputs - all the basics are possible here."

You can find additional posts featuring the Buchla Piano Bar here.

via this listing

"This is a very rare item, one of only two I can find currently in existence.

The Buchla Piano Bar was an ingenious invention by legendary synthesizer designer Don Buchla. It is placed across the keys of a standard acoustic piano, the height is adjusted at each end, and the stretch can be adjusted to fit slightly different size keyboards. Beneath you have a portable sensor to go under the pedals, this and the keyboard sensor connected to the back of the main box.

The main box is a converter to change the piano motion into midi notes, covering all 88 keys with full Dynamics. Inside the box is also a General MIDI device, a sound synthesizer chip with hundreds of preset sound options. These can be stacked, split, layered, retuned, and affected in different ways. These can be saved as presets which I have done for many sounds in here. (The original sounds were terrible general presets like Marimba etc.)

Bob Moog was given a license to change this design and sell his own version in 2004. It's a very similar device with the same types of sounds, but those are more common as they made 100 or more.

As you can see in the video it works very well, simply adjust the keyboard sensor as low as possible, and it just works. You can feed a sequence or a computer with the midi notes coming out, recording a midi performance along with the acoustic sound of your piano. Most people find an acoustic piano has a superb feel, so it also makes just a great controller for other midi devices.

I have changed one knob out on the front panel for a larger knob, as seen in the video, but I will include the smaller original knob as well. I received two original carrying cases, but no paperwork with the unit.

These are quite rare and valuable, please email me and discuss if you want to ship with insurance as an additional cost."