You've likely seen Todd Barton's recent Tiptop Buchla 292t videos. For those curious, the t denotes Tiptop Audio. Buchla clone modules are often referred to their makers by a letter: v for Mark Verbos, r for Roman Filippov of Black Corporation, j for J3RK, and d for Djangosfire. c denoted the original modules, and e new modules, by Don Buchla.
Details on the 292t via Tiptop Audio:
“It will be very interesting to see what can be done when light controls sound”. That probably was Don’s Buchla first thought when he saw the photo resistor. It seems it didn’t take him long to come up with a great idea using that electronic part and in 1970 he had already finished making his first batch of Model 292 Quad Lo Pass Gates. Why Quad? Because one was so awesome so four of them will mega awesomeness and if they can also be used to create quadrature speaker installations then hell yea!
Don really nailed it with the 292 and the way the lo pass gate provides a natural damping envelope to incoming audio is one of the greatest inventions ever made in analog audio.
Fast-forward to the year is 2023, and we are now very excited to recreate the legendary Model 292 again. In 2023 proper Vactrols are very hard to find, so we end up designing the Vactrols ourselves and the 292t uses 8 hand made Vactrols that are tailored specifically for LPG sound.
The first batch of 292t is now shipping to our dealers and pre-orders should open soon. We are very happy about it and as always are looking forward to see what you will do with them.
The user manual is already on the website so you can check it for more information. Our dear friend Todd Barton, who helped beta test the module, has videos on his You Tube channel worth looking as he explains the 292t in detail.
Vactrols will not stay with us for much longer: they are a very old technology that is getting banned in more and more countries due to the content of cadmium in them. So Don’s invention form 1970 needs to be reinvented for this century, and we are already deep into some serious experiments on alternative circuits that will help keep that wonderful sound of the low pass gate alive in the future. We hope to have this version available later this year.
And one last note, this coming May 11-13 Tiptop Audio will exhibit at Superbooth in Berlin. We have some products many of you are waiting for and some things that you never seen before, so stay tuned."
