Touché: Don Buchla’s Rare Polyphonic Keyboard Instrument

video upload by Sarah Belle Reid

Follow-up to Sarah Belle Reid plays the Buchla Touché

"In this video, I explore an extremely rare electronic instrument called the Touché, created by Buchla and Associates in 1980. Filmed at the Buchla Archives in Vancouver, this is a rare opportunity to hear and see an instrument that very few people have ever encountered firsthand. Only around five Touchés are known to have been built, and very few remain functional today. Because of this, the instrument has remained largely absent from public performance and documentation. This video helps bridge that gap by sharing the Touché’s sound, design, and historical context.

While Don Buchla is best known for his modular synthesizers such as the 100 and 200 Series, he also created a number of non-modular, computer-based instruments that explored new relationships between performance, software, and sound. The Touché is one such instrument. Conceived by Don Buchla in collaboration with composer David Rosenboom, it is a bi-timbral, eight-voice polyphonic keyboard instrument that combines digital sound generation, analog processing, and computer-mediated control.

The video begins with a historical overview of how the Touché grew out of Buchla’s computer-controlled instruments of the 1970s, including the 300 Series systems. From there, the video moves into a detailed walkthrough of Touché’s sound architecture, including many musical demos.
This video was created in collaboration with the Buchla Archives, an organization dedicated to the thorough and thoughtful documentation and preservation of Donald Buchla’s work.

Special thank you to Ryan Gaston and David Rosenboom for research assistance."

Timbre & Digital Nonlinear Waveshaping (Buchla Archives): https://www.buchlaarchives.com/blog/t...

Nova Wind (1983)

video upload by David Rosenboom

"This video, shot informally in the Ensemble Room at Mills College in 1983, contains the only footage known of David Rosenboom playing his 1981 composition Nova Wind from Future Travel. In it, he plays the legendary Touché—digital/analog keyboard instrument produced in collaboration with Donald Buchla in 1979-1980—, violin, piano, and ancillary electronics. A complete studio recording of Future Travel was released first on a vinyl LP by Street Records in 1981 and later on a double-CD from New World Records in 2007."

Circuits and Fingers – Composer-Performer Convergence in Electronic Instrument Designs, Oct 5th

Shasta Cults - self titled album: https://shastacults.bandcamp.com/albu...

Future Travel (David Rosenboom): https://blacktruffle.bandcamp.com/alb...

Daytime Viewing (Jacqueline Humbert & David Rosenboom) https://jacquelinehumbertdavidrosenbo...

Zones of Influence (David Rosenboom) https://davidrosenboom.bandcamp.com/a...

Exploring the 1st Buchla 100 Modular Synthesizer

The Electric Music Box: Exploring a Vintage Buchla 200 Modular System

Free Intro to Modular Synths Course: soundandsynthesis.com/firstsynthpatch