Playing the Buchla LEM218v3: A short performance and introduction to updated 218e ideas

video upload by Joel Davel

"Joel Davel plays a layer of monophonic Buchla 208C and polyphonic piano samples using the latest 218e update, the 218e-V3/LEM218v3. (USB-MIDI goes to a computer and DIN MIDI to the Easel Command.) After the 4 minute demo performance, Joel explains some of his musical design choices and thanks collaborators."

Buchla Easel Command Desktop Modular SYNTHESIZER

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

Additional Perfect Circuit listings

"This listing is for the Easel Command with serial no. 0710 0751; images are of the unit available for sale.

The Buchla Easel Command is the newly updated 208C in a standalone desktop form with MIDI and CV control. The 208C is the module itself for use in a Buchla 200e system.

Buchla’s own Joel Davel led the charge to create a new version of the legendary Music Easel instrument with more modular flexibility and independence, while also providing the means to easily interface with more devices, such as the various DAWs like Ableton and MIDI controllers, including the very expressive Sensel Morph. It’s still fully analog in its default configuration and provides the unique and exquisite Buchla experience with greater functionality at a lower cost.

Note: the Easel Command does not include the optional USB-A MIDI Host expander; this expansion must be purchased separately."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Buchla Easel Command Explorations 1

video by Todd Barton

"Beginning a little series of my explorations into the Buchla 208c Easel Command. I'll be putting more too up on my Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/synthtodd"

For more details on the new features, demos and tutorials on this module:

BuchlaUSA w/ Marc Doty: posted here

Adam Clark: posted here

Joel Davel: posted here

Buchla Bananas Explained

Joel Davel

"A brief history and description of Buchla banana cables and jacks and the pragmatic inspirations for their colors as presented by long-time Don Buchla associate, Joel Davel. (Plus a post-credit scene for Buchla 208 nerds.)"

"Inside Out" excerpt: Joel Davel plays a historical Buchla 200 system

Published on Mar 25, 2020 Joel Davel

"I'd rather design than repair, but even more so perform. The nice thing about repairing an old modular system is being able to take it for a test drive. I used this 1972-era Buchla 200 system to generate parts for an as yet unpublished piece called 'Inside Out'. Here’s an excerpted video clip from late 2018. For Buchla nerds, this used a Buchla model 217 for touch input, model 246 to drive the sequence, 258’s are the oscillators, 284’s provide the envelopes, and a 275 drives the reverb. This the system Warner Jepson used"

NAMM 2020: Buchla 208c With Designer Joel Davel

Published on Jan 18, 2020 sonicstate

Buchla 208c posts

Snippets of Lumina controlling 208C on first test session.

Published on Nov 14, 2019 Joel Davel

"Putting the 208C 208MIDI daughtercard through it's paces just after getting the program. Rough cuts, but shareable enough for those interested in the possibilities (Timbre on blue mallet, mod amount on yellow mallet, red and green mallet notes add to pitch of the two oscillators that are played by the blue and yellow mallets that are acting as keyboard input.)"

Follow-up to this post.

208C MIDI ML Quick Demo by Joel Davel

Published on Nov 13, 2019 Joel Davel

"Buchla 208C MIDI daughterboard test using Marimba Lumina to send MIDI on 3 different MIDI channels to act as keyboard control and also to control each oscillator independently, send continuous control and trigger sequencer, random, EG, and Pulser sections of Buchla 208C"

218e driving 5 Buchla Oscillators

Published on Mar 25, 2018 Joel Davel

"Sometimes when testing the 218e and oscillators i get a little time to share the ride. I’m driving the Buchla Easel from the 218e in arpeggiation mode out to the USB utility card into a 225e and the internal bus to a 259e and 261e in order to test tuning."

Using the Sensel Buchla Thunder Overlay for Key Commands & Virtual Buchla modules

Published on May 4, 2019 Joel Davel

"Joel Davel demonstrates use of the Buchla Thunder overlay (for the Sensel Morph) not just to control music, but as a key command interface for his PCB layout software."

Thunder Sensel Overlay w Virtual Buchla modules

Published on Mar 29, 2019 Joel Davel

"Ways of using the Sensel Morph Buchla Thunder overlay to play different styles in the same live set. While I encourage people to play the physical modules, the Thunder overlay offers a flexible input for software based instruments, and one that I helped guide to fruition."

Guy Gets High Working on Legendary Buchla Covered in LSD

Update: video is back. I switched to their YouTube upload thinking it would be a better option long term for the archives, but apparently not.

Update2: bonus video on YouTube while it's up:

Web Extra: Buchla Model 100 Synthesizer at Cal State University East Bay

Published on May 23, 2019 KPIX CBS SF Bay Area

"Here more about the groundbreaking musical instrument at Cal State University East Bay and what it can do. Interviews with retired professor and composer William R. Shannon, electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani, musician and Buchla representative Joel Davel, and CSUEB Associate Professor Inés Thiebaut."

This one is in via Brian Comnes. The legend of the CSU Hayward acid/LSD soaked vintage Buchla 100 is true. Apparently it was dipped in LSD back in the 60s. It wasn't clear, however, if all panels or just the red one was dipped. You can find some additional pics of the infamous CSU Hayward Buchla 100 here. BTW, this was likely some Owsley Stanley LSD.

Left image via Todd Barton: "I love that the red panel is a 156 Control Voltage Processor which can blend, invert and mix up to 6 different CVs! You’re only as trippy as your CVs. Oh, and I love the squiggly line pattern on the faceplate 🤩"

And the article via KPIX5 San Franscico for the archives:

"SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — For years, an urban legend circulated online and in documentaries, purporting how part of a groundbreaking musical instrument — versions which are stored at a Bay Area university and other institutions — was dipped in a psychedelic drug.

Online chatter detailed how musicians who used the instrument would wet their finger, touch the device, and then lick their finger to get a little bit of mind-expanding inspiration.

Now this supposed myth may turn out to be a reality.

—

At the helm of KPIX Television, Broadcast Operations Manager Eliot Curtis tackles all sorts of technical problems to keep Channel 5 on the air. Recently however, a strange electrical transmission threw him for a loop. It happened inside his brain.

“It was … felt like I was tripping on LSD,” remarked Curtis.

It turns out that Curtis was indeed tripping on the infamous psychedelic drug known as lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD for short. He got dosed by accident at home in his workshop — in front of his wife.

“I think it’s super wild. I think this whole situation is a nice chapter in the history of the counter culture,” commented Curtis’ wife Holly.

CLICK FOR MORE »

BEMI Re-Purchased by Buchla U.S.A.

"Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments has been purchased by Buchla U.S.A.

The historic electronic music instrument company has been purchased, is under new management, and is now headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Minneapolis, Minnesota January 18, 2018: Announcing the purchase of Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments by Buchla U.S.A. LLC. The iconic electronic musical instrument company founded by Don Buchla as Buchla and Associates in the mid-1960s is now headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and headed by CEO Eric Fox.

The new company will continue to create unique, expressive, and iconic electronic performance instruments and controllers with a focus on the 50+ year history of Don Buchla. Buchla U.S.A.’s lead design and engineering is being performed by Don Buchla's right-hand-man, Joel Davel, who worked with Don for over 20 years. Production of the majority of Buchla modules is being handled by Dave Reilly, who was hand-picked by Don to manufacture Buchla products. Both design and production are located in the San Francisco bay area, as they were in the 1960s.

'With such an amazing legacy I am really excited about telling the story of Don and working closely with Joel and Dave to develop new products in the spirit of Don... and even revisiting/reimagining some of his designs that never actually made it out into the wild!' said Buchla U.S.A. CEO Eric Fox, about this historic purchase. 'I hope to involve as many of the artists and people that inspired Don as possible, moving forward. We owe it to him and the generations of new users to give them a sense of what he was all about.'

Buchla U.S.A. is committed to the continued production of high-quality historic synthesis/performance technology, a focus on and celebration of Don Buchla's legacy, and meeting the needs of Buchla customers.

By listening to the needs of composers at the San Francisco Tape Music Center, Don Buchla created one of the first modular voltage-controlled synthesizers in the mid-1960s as only a gifted designer and engineer could. His innovative and seminal musical instruments have inspired composers and listeners alike for over 50 years."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Don Buchla Memorial Concerts - April 22 & 23

Line-up /
Morton Subotnick
Alessandro Cortini
Suzanne Ciani
Richard Devine
David Rosenboom
Bob Ostertag
George Lewis
Joel Davel
Laetitia Sonomi plays Elaine Radigue
Ami Radunskaya
Marielle V Jakobsons
Peter Blasser
Ezra Buchla
Yasi

More TBA..

A two night festival in celebration and remembrance of electronic music and design pioneer Don Buchla Saturday, April 22 and Sunday, April 23rd.

Full programming and lineup announced soon..

Advance tickets: $45 Weekend Pass (Available Now!), $25 Presale per night, $30 door, $15 Student per night honored with ID.

Presented by:
Recombinant Media Labs
Buchla & Associates
Gray Area
Obscura Digital

Full details here.

Buchla Documentary by Connie Field Now on Kikstarter

Follow-up to this previous post.  via Kickstarter:

"With a passion for music and engineering, Don Buchla created electronic musical instruments the world had never dreamed of before.

When we've told people that we're preparing a documentary about Don Buchla, we get one of two reactions:

a) Wow! It's about time The man's a genius! Why hasn't this happened already?

or

b) Don who?

We want to make a movie that can live up to the expectations and desires and hopes for the people who answered a), and that can introduce Don in the best way possible to those who answered b).

Don Buchla is a legendary instrument maker whose inventions were part of the greatest musical transformation of the 20th century. His pioneering work laid the basis for what electronic music was to become by creating a unique analog synthesizer which completely changed the way people think about, compose, and perform music. The list of musicians and composers who have used the Buchla range from avant-garde composer Morton Subotnick to Nine Inch Nails, with plenty more along the way. Don hasn't stopped inventing since the arrival of the Buchla, and his other instruments combine an idiosyncratic sound with a sense of wonder and theatrical magic.

"Music is a mirror that we hold up to see how cultural structures are formed. Race, social hierarchy, class, national origin the twentieth century saw a questioning of these issues on a global level, and in a sense, electronic music was the soundtrack to that intense investigation into the human situation. Almost all traditional notions of space, time, and physicality have been reconfigured in ways that we are just beginning to understand. I think that electronic music has helped us understand the process we've lived through. Think about everything from the tones you hear coming out of your telephone to the frequencies underlying cellular communication to the algorithms used to route the information holding it all together -- most of this stuff has been explored one way or the other by the avant-garde."
--Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky)

Don was definitely part of the avant-garde. He has been called a mad scientist, a genius, an innovator, a recluse, an iconoclast, and has gathered a horde of fiercely loyal admirers by following his own visionary path, and dancing to his own muse. His name and instruments are known from Indonesia to France.

We have begun to film because there have been performances and interviews to capture that we simply couldn't pass up, such as Morton Subotnick and Ramon Sender from the San Francisco Tape Music Center, who commissioned Don to build the first Buchla; French composers Jean-Baptiste Barrière and Marc Battier; and performances by Subotnick and Marimba Lumina player Joel Davel, who has assisted in Buchla's workshop for over a decade.

But now we need to raise production funding to complete the rest of our filming. Among the other people we will be including in the film are early Buchla composer/performer Suzanne Ciani, analog synth performer/music journalist Gino Robair, Lightning virtuoso Forrest Tobey, synth maestro Alessandro Cortini (of Nine Inch Nails and Sonoio), Marimba Lumina co-designer Mark Goldstein, and, of course, Don himself. Ideally, we're hoping you can support us beyond what we're asking for here so we can also edit and do post-production for the film.

With your help, we will be able to do the legacy of Don Buchla justice."

Joel on Buchla Lightning: the "7 styles in 7 minutes" solo

YouTube via JJDavel
"Percussionist Joel Davel playing a demo Buchla Lightning solo circa 1999. The wands emit infrared light read as 2 dimensional location gestures by the optics in the foreground. Each hand is independent. Gestures are programmed to control MIDI events: strikes, virtual scales or volume controls along x-y coordinates.
Joel still does Lightning solos, though without any looping now, so no one gets confused about the real-time gestures. "Lightning is considered more of a new music tool, and I more of a new music player, but I've also played for hours at SF Bay Area parties especially 10 years ago when tech gigs were plentiful."

Absolute Deviation

"The mission of Absolute Deviation is continue support and development of the Marimba Lumina-–the only truly revolutionary mallet controller."

via Johan
"Longtime Buchla associate Joel Davel has started his own business offering support to Marimba Lumina owners. It looks like he'll be building new ones as well."

Joel Davel demos the Marimba Lumina

YouTube via JJDavel. also see these posts.
"Joel Davel explains the Buchla Marimba Lumina before a trade show in Dallas in 2000. The basics."