Buchla, Make Noise, & A History of Spectral Animation in Synthesizers

video upload by Sarah Belle Reid

"A historical and technical deep dive into the synthesizer designs and ideas that influenced the development of the Make Noise x Soundhack Spectraphon, featuring excerpts from an interview with Tom Erbe.

Spectraphon is an oscillator for Eurorack modular systems that allows you to analyze and resynthesize sonic characteristics of OTHER sounds, using those characteristics to create unique waveforms and timbres…with the ability to continuously transform them into something new. It’s Erbe’s unique take on the concept of a harmonic oscillator—inspired by some of instrument designer Donald Buchla’s work from the 1970s and 1980s.

Erbe and Make Noise specifically name three Buchla instruments as important inspirations: the Model 259 Programmable Complex Waveform Generator, the Model 296 Programmable Spectral Processor, and the Touché, a hybrid keyboard instrument developed in collaboration between Don Buchla and David Rosenboom.

This video unpacks each of these instruments in turn, examining how their innovative approaches to timbre control and spectral manipulation influenced Spectraphon’s design.

Special thanks to Tom Erbe for sharing his insights on Spectraphon’s development and its relationship to these historic Buchla instruments, and to the Buchla Archives for providing images.

Buchla Touché footage made possible by the Buchla Archives—check out Buchla Archives website: https://www.buchlaarchives.com/

Watch my Spectraphon Overview + Exploration video:" [posted here]