The Nightly News With M. C. Escher

Buchla 200e track on Chris Muir's 200e B-Sides

"This one is pretty much a one-trick pony, but I think it's a pretty good trick. I plan on revisiting this idea soon. The title is a reference to this sort of sounding like a news theme of a certain era, and the fact that the progression seems to always be rising. It was almost called 'The Nightly News with Roger Shepard', but I think fewer people would have gotten the reference."

Grace Against Gravity

All Buchla 200e track by Chris Muir. You can find it along with the story behind it on Chris Muir's Buchla 200e noodle page.

If you are in the Oakland, CA area, here's your chance to see a Buchla Electric Music Box live. Chris Muir will be playing one with Remember the Toykillers. Note pictured here is the 200e.

"Saturday, August 2 Remember the Toykillers + Oaxacan 8pm, $6-10
The original toy killers consisted of Charles k. Noyes and Mark Miller (both on drums), featuring various cohorts like Arto Lindsay, John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Elliott Sharp, (as Mark would say, "anybody who would lower themselves to playing with us.") The band started as an improvised music duo of clattering percussion, fireworks and noise before transforming itself into a messy no wave band featuring the creme of the '80s NYC downtown scene. Tonight's homage paying ensemble, features Miller and Noyes, with Henry Kaiser (guitar), Allen Whitman (bass), Anantha R. Krishnan (mridangam), and Chris Muir (Buchla synth).

Flavorpill writes about Oakland’s Oaxacan 'Oaxacan understands that noise is a matter of texture and timbre not just plugging in your effects pedals and turning all the amps to ten. Like kindred experimentalists Double Leopards or Climax Golden Twins, Oaxacan prefer night swimming in murky, inky pools of gauzy per cussion and reverb-drenched vocal abstraction.'"

Click here and scroll to see the numerous posts featuring Chris here on MATRIXSYNTH.

The Mill

via Chris Muir:

"A granular file player. Great for warping XMas music, enabling you to enjoy songs in a new way. This current version does some calculations based on a 44.1K sample rate, so if you use other sample rates things will be a little wacky.

There are two versions here, a Max patch and a stand-alone Mac OS X application. If you are on a Mac and you don't have Max, you can run the application. If you're on Windows and don't have Max, you can run the patch version, if you install the Max Runtime for Windows."

link

Burble

click here for a new Buchla 200e track from Chris Muir. Scroll when you get there; it's the first track on the list. You will find more under it as well.

"Burble is the combination of two little improvs that were done a few days apart. After I had recorded the less rhythmic, droney, layer I wondered if that rhythmic thing I had recorded a couple days earlier was in the same key and tempo enough to fit on top.

It wasn't, but I glued them together anyway. I go back and forth on whether to add a lead sound to this one. What do you think?

For this one, my system was augmented with a borrowed 259e waveform generator, which I used heavily. There's probably a lot less reverb & delay on this track than you think."

AH Bay Area Gathering 2007 - Chris Muir's Buchla 200e

YouTube via therealretrosynth.
"Chris Muir's Buchla 200e at the Analogue Heaven Bay Area gathering in Oakland CA on Sept 9 2007."

Fun with a Buchla 200e

Title link takes you to a new Buchla 200e doodle, RoundMirrorRolling, via Chris Muir. Scroll down to "The Examples" when you get there. For those of you new to Chris' 200e doodles, be sure to check out the rest there as well.

BTW, Chris has two gigs coming up so if you want to see a 200e live, here's your chance. I wish I was in the area.

two gigs coming up at 21 Grand, in Oakland, CA.

Monday, August 27th with Mark Miller (drums), William Winant (percussion), Henry Kaiser (guitar) and Chris Muir (electronic music box)

and

Sunday, September 2nd with Weasel Walter (percussion), Danielle DeGruttola (cello), Henry Kaiser (guitar) and Chris Muir (electronic music box)

明和電機 「一番素敵な体で行こう！」

YouTube via musica95. Sent my way via Chris Muir.

"The robotic vocalist, dubbed “Seamoons,” is a combination of mechanical bellows and a computer controlled rubber vocal chord that’s monitored and modified in real time, sounding something like a tiny electric Yma Sumac."

Note the robot with a mic. The above quote is a snip from here, where you will find more info on the artist, Maywa Denki, and the tools they use. BTW, if anyone knows/finds more info on the "guitar" like devices feel free to comment.

RadioModular Back Up

"After a long delay, due to an equipment malfunction, RadioModular is back up (hopefully stays up). Right now, it's pretty much all ZeroOscillator.

Modules used: Two Modcan 01a's modulating Zero Oscillator, A Dual LFO, Modcan Super Delay. (No Filters). It's then sent through some light digital processing for ambiance and out through the Internet.

I tried to get some 'buchla-200esque' Chris Muir-ian Timbers out of it.

Listen to it at:
http://paulsop.com:8000/radio1.m3u

Garden of Memory

via Chris Muir on the Buchla 100e list:

"I will be playing my Buchla 200e in a duo performance with Henry Kaiser on guitar at this year's Garden of Memory event.

The Garden of Memory is a really fun event, held in Oakland every year on summer solstice (6/21/07). It's described as a "walk through concert". There are many performers in many areas of The Chapel of the Chimes, a large columbarium in Oakland.

Having played this a couple times, and attended it a few times, it's a toss-up as to whether it's more fun to play or to attend. I think this year's event has a typically interesting lineup: http://www.gardenofmemory.com"

Buchla B-Sides via Chris Muir

As most of you know, I've been putting up Chris Muir's new Buchla 200e tracks as they come in. Each track get's added to Chris's 200e Noodles page. Well, it turns out Chris has more that's he's put on a B-sides page for the time being, while he thinks about what he wants to do with them. Until then, I say enjoy. Title link takes you to them.

Vox Gong - Buchla 200e Demo

Title link takes you to another demo of the Buchla 200e, Vox Gong, by Chris Muir. The link is just under this image when you get there. Make sure to check out the other demos on site if you haven't already.

Chris Muir and His Buchla 200e Live, April 15 2007 SF

As you might recall, I've posted a number of Chris Muir's Buchla 200e samples. Well, if you want to see the 200e live, here's your chance.

"I'm playing a gig Sunday, April 15 at 7PM

The ensemble consists of:
Jennifer Hicks butoh/movement
Aurora Josephson Voice
Henry Kaiser Guitar
Chris Muir Buchla 200E
Damon Smith Bass
Weasel Walter Drums

This will be 96% improvisation. Chance of cacophony 100%.

It's my first gig with the Buchla 200e and a custom Max program
driving it, so I'm a little nervous about it. (but in a good way)

Jon Sims Center, 1519 Mission Street, San Francisco
(between 11th Street and South Van Ness)

Marginally more information can be found here:
http://www.xfade.com/gigs/Hicks.html

-C"

Table Thing - New Buchla 200e Noodle via Chris Muir

Title link takes you there. Other Buchla 200e samples on site.

GestureLong - Buchla 200e Sample

Title link takes you to the sample via Chris Muir on the Buchla 200e list.

Blackbird Played on a Buchla 200e

Brilliant. Title link takes you to the mp3 with some background by Chris Muir.

Previous 200e posts

Xfade Buchla 200e Samples

Title link takes you to more samples of the Buchla 200e, via Chris Muir in the comments of this post.

Previous 200e posts

AH Bay Area Gathering 2006 via Electronic Musician

The synth gathering made the Electronic Musician blog. Our own Brian Comnes got a mention as well. Pretty cool. : )

"List member Brian Comnes, who coordinated the gathering, set up a raffle to raise money for the Bob Moog Memorial Foundation. The donated prizes included hats and shirts from RobotSpeak, a Metasonix TM-6, a gift certificate to Analogue Haven, and a vintage Korg MonoPoly synth (donated by sound-designer and EM author Nick Peck).

Personally, the most interesting aspect of an AHCali meeting is hearing what people have to say about their instruments, finding out what they like most about them, and hearing how they use them. I was particularly interested in learning more about the Buchla 200e, and Chris Muir was patient enough to explain some its deep feature-set to me."

Update: I realized I didn't give the celebrity list for the event. Here it is:

"Instrument designers visiting the show included Don Buchla, Dave Smith, Mike Brown (LiveWire), and Eric Barbour of Metasonix. Composer/performer Robert Rich was kind enough to bring along his large MOTM system. And San Francisco-based retailer Robot Speak was also present with plenty of Moog-related hardware and software items on display."

Fun with a Buchla 200e - Samples by Chris Muir

"Each of these was recorded live in a single pass. Some were then edited for length. Four channels of audio from the Buchla 227e System Interface were recorded into Logic Pro, along with a reverb send and a delay send. The two sends come from the 210 Signal Router and are, by necessity, pre 227e faders. The Buchla quad mains were mixed down to stereo in Logic. The delay, when used, is the Logic Stereo Delay, and reverb is either Space Designer or Audio Damage's Reverence." Title link takes you there.

Update: module list:
Top: blank, 266e, 210e, blank, 227e
Mid: 256e, 225e, 281e, 292e, 291e, blank
Low: blank, 249e, 261e, 261e, blank

SMS Synthesizers

Update via Chris Muir on AH:

"Actually the SMS polyphonic thing was closer to the original E-Mu Audity (not the Proteus in Audity clothing that EMu sold recently).

The SMS programmable polyphonic never saw the light of day, although it had a bunch of good ideas in it. The only thing that sort of spun off of that project was the SMS Voice 400.

I put scans of some of the SMS data sheets here."