"BugBrand Blue System that can be configured as a four voice synthesizer, multichannel sound processor, or anything in between! Includes a wide range of oscillators, filters and effects modules allowing for adventurous and expressive sonic scuplting. The system is also eminently playable thanks to gestural and touch-based controls as well as both voltage and gate sequencers.
Included modules:
Compact VCO (x2) Quadrature Sine 2130 VCO Phaser PT Delay Multiplier Frequency Shifter Dual Amplifier (x2) Dual Filter Dual Pre-Amp Matrix DC Mix NSH LPG Drive VCA Dual Mixing Joystick/Touch Penrose Sequence Diode Director Seq Switch/Random Dual Envelope Two Touch
The system is housed in a beautiful wenge case by Ross Lamond."
"I'm excited to present the new Weevil to mark 20 years of BugBrand and Weevils - it's the first regular production since the 2015 BoardWeevil and, I think, the first 'cased' design since 2008! Quite a change from the old cigar boxes of the early days ;)
The main listing for the 20/25 is here - I'm doing a run of 50 for now, which will be built up in batches of 10 over the coming months. The 2nd batch should appear in early April.
The overview video features a load of pics of old Weevils after the callout last time -- thanks so much to everyone who sent in pics & memories, it meant a lot to me 💚💚💚
Next week I'll do another mailout to mark the actual 20 years - stay tuned!
All best! Tom"
"Weevils were the first designs I made as BugBrand and, between 2005 & 2015 I made a whole slew of them – you can see some on the Weevil Archive page. So it seemed apt to make a special one to mark 20 years – the first regular production for 10 years and the first ‘housed’ one since perhaps 2008!
The core is a simple little circuit I found in a library book – a cymbal sound synthesiser made of some CMOS 4000 series logic gates to make squarewaves that are quasi-ringmodulated together. Back in my early days I was doing a lot of circuit bending, so I tried out adding power starvation and body contacts and discovered a deep & chaotic sonic world. This Weevil Heart has stayed pretty constant over the years while I’ve played extensively both with the surrounding circuitry and how to present an instrument. For example, the STEIM Cracklebox was always an inspiration as an almost acousitc electronic instrument that had to be played in a truly experimental manner. It has really been a case of iterative refinement and the developments nicely highlight how my build techniques have evolved.
The 20/25 Weevil is really quite similar to the last BoardWeevil of 2015 – we’ve got the 3 Oscillators, 2 RingMods and State-Variable Filter – but I wanted something cased so took the existing modular boxes and fashioned a new PCB frontpanel with accompanying side-cheeks that could hold a speaker, battery box and line output. Smart!
For further details, have a read of the Instruction Sheet & refer to the Block Diagram – but really the best way to learn is to dive in and experiment!"
"2Frame with the following modules (SynthVoice plus extras): Compact VCO x3 Quad Sine 2130 VCO Phaser Dual Mixing Dual Envelope DC Mix Multiplier Dual Filter Dual Amplifier LPG PT Delay
Also includes: Two packs of BugBrand banana cables in two lengths. Blank panels Power brick (not pictured)
"Some time ago around a visit down to Bristol I got the chance to go and see Tom from BugBrand (again, first visit linked below). The then new Phase standalone box and Phaser module were out on show so we had a listen and chat about them but spoke more generally about who and what BugBrand is, how Tom works and the development of the equipment he builds."
Bananas, Synths & Studio FX - An interview with Tom Bugs of Bug Brand [posted here]
**TIMING INDEX // CHAPTERS **
00:00 Intro
01:15 Who & what is BugBrand?
09:11 Modular synths as limited creative instruments
14:47 Phaser & product development
23:25 How BugBrand operate (differently)
"In June '24, Jamaica Street Studios, Bristol, raised over £100k to buy their building as a community asset!
As a near neighbour, with friends in the studios & being a strong believer community ownership, I've made a batch of 12 JSS Weevils to help!
They're screechy & experimental buggers ;)
I made many different Weevils early in my BugBrand days - they're a simple circuit with circuit-bent features - power starve & touch plates."
"A basic walk-through of the new Weevil module for BugBrand Modular.
1) the individual oscillators, then RingMod1 + Power Starve behaviour
2) processing a static VCO
3) then using a rhythmic gate into the audio input
Support from Penrose plus, off camera, a CVCO & the ever present DDSR.
--- https://www.bugbrand.co.uk/product/we..."
"Back in the Old-Blues days, I tried to port the Weevil design into the modular format but it was a challenge.. The circuitry of the regular Weevils is really very simple & the chaos comes from circuit-bending (an unconventional approach!) – the difficulty was how to add voltage-control features to this simple circuitry (modular approaches are quite a bit more involved). So while I did a design back then which was enjoyed by bug-users (SYN1 Weevil), I never thought it quite captured the chaotic sonic worlds of the ‘true’ Weevils.
For a few years I put the Weevils to bed, but have recently come back to thinking on them – so, looking again at modular approaches, I’ve come up with something that I feel works things a bit differently and, while it still feels a bit different from more regular/simple Weevils, it offers a whole host of chaos & noise.
See the block diagram!
First off we have the power starvation core – this unfortunately couldn’t viably be voltage-controlled. Turn the Starve dial fully clockwise for regular/full-power usage. When starved, everything goes a bit nuts, everything interacts & we get to much more noise-based areas, though note that all outputs pass through circuitry to ensure they remain ‘full-strength’ (all are 0V to +10V). There is also a Stable switch which adds a little smoothing – it isn’t exactly stable, but it is more-so/different.
There are two voltage-controlled oscillators ranging from c.0.5Hz to 20kHz from the front panel (they can go slower with external negative CV). There are CV inputs with depth controls & polarity/mute switches for each Osc plus a CV Both input which affects both Oscs. The Oscs track 1V/Oct reasonably well, but are not temperature compensated, nor do they have the best high-frequency tracking. The two Oscs interact a little, especially so when starved. Each Osc has an independent banana output + LED indicator.
The basis for Weevils was a simple cymbal noise-source generator which quasi-ring-modulated square waves together for richly (en)harmonic tones. Here we have a first RM combining the two Oscs, followed by a second which mixes RM1 with an external signal which has passed through a drive/squaring circuit so that it matches the Weevil-core (inc. starvation). This audio input is quite level dependent so do play with the Drive control – you can also input gates/clocks/etc. to the input which can generate some interesting behaviours when using Starve. Note that without an input signal, the output of RM2 will appear quiet (ie. it isn’t silent, but it isn’t regular amplitude).
All in all, the Weevil Module is inherently quite chaotic compared with my other module designs – that is, I feel, its strength & interest! Experiment, feed different signals in, feed outputs back into CV inputs, etc."
"1st excerpt of a jam session with the Mos-lab 2500 and my Kesako 'Player & Reverb' after installing and testing the last revision of the pin matrix prototype. The wooden case is also provisional.
I made a panel to adapt Buchla modules and also BugBrand modules in the 2500 system."
"The FilterQAmp (FQA) combines a 2-pole State Variable VC Filter with a Linear VC Amplifier and an inbuilt variable-decay Envelope Generator. It is capable both of processing and, when the filter is self-oscillating, generation of synthesised sounds such as drums.
The VCF section contains a State Variable Filter (similar to my other designs) – this offers switchable Low or High Pass responses and covers the full audio range. It is temperature compensated & tracks 1V/Oct accurately. The Resonance/Q is voltage controlled with a linear response up to self-oscillation – this creates a pure sinewave, useful for synthesis.
The VCA is linear in response and takes the Low/Hi-pass output from the VCF section. It can either be set, via rear jumper, to a clean response (gain from 0 to +1) or saturation (gain from 0 to +1 then +/-5V zener clipping beyond – unity at approx 10 o’clock rotation).
The Filter, Q and Amp sections each have a CV Modulation depth control with switchable polarity (centre off) – the Filter has an additional 1V/Oct control input. In addition there is a simple variable-decay Envelope Generator which can be fired either with the manual Trig button or via the Trig input – this has a comparator so triggers on any signal over c.+1V. Decay time is variable between approx 15mS and 3Secs with an amplitude of 0 to +10V. The envelope is internally routed to modulate the Filter and Amp sections via individual depth controls – it could be manually patched to QCV with a 0.75″ shorting bar or cable.
When Q is set to full, the self-oscillating filter makes good sound generator – it can also ring when set below self-oscillation & fed with sharp edges such as gate signals. A basic drum synth can be achieved with self-oscillation and the decay envelope opening the VCA – try varying how much the envelope modulates the filter cutoff too. You can feed the main output back to the FCV input to self-modulate, resulting in an interesting peaky waveform."
"Just got my 252e back after repair. Running through some tests to refamiliarize myself with the features. This is just a simple test with 252e sequencing 4 voices. Two are using the VCOs from Buchla 259e Twisted Waveform Generator with one through Vedic Scapes 13700 band pass filter. Then there is a kick from Bugbrand DRM2 and a drone into glitchy high hat using Bugbrand Synth Voice modules. Used lots of off-grid timing on 252e to make it a bit wonky.
The bass is 259e principal oscillator with RED cells coming from the 8 and 16 rings. The band pass voice is 259e modulation oscillator sequenced from the GREEN cells of the 6, 8, and 16 ring so some triplets in there from 6. Kick is BLUE cells from the 16 ring. High hat is ratcheted by the subdivided pulses from rings 8 and 16. Using a mixer to mute/unmute off screen to the left.
Recorded as 2 tracks into Ableton Live. Compression and FXs added in post."
"Letting the analog synthesizers blast in dopplereffekt/aux88 style. TR808+TR606 beats, Korg MonoPoly bass, Minimoog, PS3100 pads, TTSH ringmodulator sounds and much more fancy stuff. Video annotated with more explanations."
"Magnetic Freak's Boolean Logic Latched is a Buchla format module featuring a clock divider and 7 logic circuits with switchable mode functionality and unique latching capabilities. Logic is hard to find in Buchla land, and as a fan I'm happy to announce its arrival. This simple patch barely scratches the surface of BLL's potential. It's more an introduction to the most basic uses of logic gates. But make no mistake, Boolean Logic Latched will be at the center of every patch I make from this point on. Intended as a companion module to Magnetic Freak's Gaussian I will endeavor to explore that companionship in videos to come. Time is short but the potentials are endless. Thus is life.
In this patch I'm using a clock from Buchla 246 into BLL's clock divider, then combining different divisions to trigger a kick/snare duo created by two of BugBrand's fantastic DRM2 analog drum voices. Simple origins lead to complex results. Everything you hear stems from that single clock input. I'm only making use of 3 of BLL's 7 logic circuits, none of its latching gates, so just a fraction of its capabilities.
Recorded as 2 tracks into Ableton Live. Compression and effects added in post."
'This is clearly the companion module of the Gaussian to generate rhythmic patterns and much more. It can nevertheless be used alone to build up complex IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) rhythmic patterns from a single ticking clock. Two stages of Boolean logic operators are cascaded allowing all kinds of operations between the incoming signals.
The latching function let you use a dedicated clock to latch the status of all gates on the arrival of a trigger signal up to the new one (or using the push button). It could be used to re-synchronises random signals. This module is fully analog and can work up to audio rates with no latency.
These modules are only produced in very small batches for connoisseurs."
"BugBrand Blue System that can be configured as a four voice synthesizer, multichannel sound processor, or anything in between! Includes a wide range of oscillators, filters and effects modules allowing for adventurous and expressive sonic scuplting. The system is also eminently playable thanks to gestural and touch-based controls as well as both voltage and gate sequencers.
