Buchla & Associates

Donald Buchla, founder of Buchla & Associates, was born in South Gate, California on 17 April 1937. Following formal studies in music, physiology, and physics, he received a degree in the latter field from the University of California at Berkeley in 1960. During his studies, Buchla conducted research in biophysics, biofeedback, and physiological telemetry systems, as well as developing his skills as a music composer. Among his earliest technological contributions was an aid he designed for the visually impaired. In 1963, Buchla responded to an advertisement placed by composers Morton Subotnick and Ramòn Sender – both working at the San Francisco Tape Music Center at the time – who were looking to hire an engineer to build a new electronic musical instrument that could be used for live performance. With a $500 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Buchla, Subotnick, and Sender designed what became one of the first voltage-controlled synthesizers, the 100 Series Electronic Music System. That year, Buchla formed his company, Buchla & Associates, and by 1965 the first 100 Series modules were available on the market. In 1969 CBS Musical Instruments picked up the 100 Series, only to drop the venture shortly thereafter, citing that synthesizers were not a profitable market. With the dissolution of his relationship with CBS and following increased demands from professional musicians and sound designers, Buchla ceased operations on the 100 Series and began designing the more sophisticated 200 Series modular system, which is usually referred to as “The Electric Music Box”, released in 1970. Although similar in style to the 100, nearly every parameter of the 200 Series was capable of control by an external voltage. Moreover, the 200 Series offered the Model 218 and 219 touch plate controllers, which were arranged in the more conventional chromatic keyboard style, as well as two mechanical keyboards, which featured polyphony, pressure, and velocity sensitivity. Unlike the 100 Series, buyers of the 200 also had the option to purchase a number of preconfigured systems; the most successful of these systems was the System 200-081, better known as the Music Easel, which was released in 1972. The Music Easel, which bore some resemblance to the contemporaneous EMS Synthi AKS, was built into a sturdy, blue Hewlett Packard briefcase, and employed a single Model 208 oscillator, and some unique features of the time such as amplitude modulation, voltage-controlled waveshaping, and a primitive form of programmability in the form of what were called ‘program cards’. Another successful preconfigured 200 Series system was dubbed the System 101, and featured a traditional, chromatic keyboard. Perhaps the most unique configuration of the 200 came in the form of the fabled Sili-Con Cello, which was conceptualized and prototyped between 1978 and 1979. The Sili-Con Cello was meant to respond to the gestural movements of acoustic instruments, and was produced specifically for cellist Ami Radunskaya. The 200 Series modules and systems were the most successful of Buchla’s early efforts, and continued to be manufactured until 1985. In 1971 Buchla designed what was essentially the first hybrid synthesizer, consisting in digital control of analog components, years before the hugely influential Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 digital-analog hybrid entered the market. The 500 was not readily available on the market, with only approximately five units reported to have ever been built. The 300 Series followed, and was, in many ways, a more refined version of the 500: both instruments employed the architecture of 200 Series modules, but incorporated microprocessors to attain digital control. A new programming language, referred to as Patch IV, was developed specifically for the 300. The Touché, something of a more streamlined version of the 300, was released in 1978. It featured three oscillators per voice – with the norm for the time typically being only two per voice – as well as eight-voice polyphony, a 16-bit microprocessor, and a new dedicated programming language. The Touché was manufactured in very limited numbers, making it one of the most rare of Buchla & Associates’ products.

In the 1980s, Buchla & Associates, now firmly established as relative outsiders in the synthesizer market, continued to experiment in the digital realm with the Buchla 400, which was released in 1982. The 400 featured three dedicated computers, each corresponding to a singular aspect of sound generation, as well as a video monitor for aiding in composing and editing functions. Another new programming language, MIDAS, was also developed for this instrument. In 1987, the Buchla 700, which implements complete MIDI capabilities, was released as a more powerful and sophisticated expansion of the 400. By the 1990s, Buchla & Associates had shifted its focus from developing synthesis machines to designing innovative alternate MIDI controllers such as the Thunder, Lightning, and Marimba Lumina. The Thunder incorporates the touch plate concept into its design, with the “keys” shifted laterally to allow the user to interface more gestural controls based on the natural resting position of the hands. The Lightning – along with its successor, the Lightning II – was a particularly innovative controller that consists in two hand-held wands that, when positioned in certain zones within a two-dimensional grid, trigger various preset sounds from an internal 32-voice synthesizer. The Marimba Lumina effectively integrates the interface of its namesake. In the early 2000s, Buchla & Associates released its final product, the 200e, a fully digital synthesizer that renews the modular structure similar to that used in the 200 Series. Throughout the decades, Buchla has acted as a consultant with numerous manufacturers, including Kimball, Yamaha, Gibson, and E-Mu. In addition to serving for a time as the technical director of the California Institute of the Arts, Buchla has received several patents, both for his contributions in musical instrument design and for his research in optics, as well as a number of grants, including those from the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2002, he was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from SEAMUS (The Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States). In 2012, Buchla & Associates was acquired by a team based in Grants Pass, Oregon, who rebranded the company as Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments (BEMI). They have since released one product, a remake of the Music Easel. In the early years of Buchla & Associates, several different locations served as the company’s headquarters – including a shipping loft in Oakland and the current site of the University of California at Berkeley’s renowned CNMAT studio at 1750 Arch Street in Berkeley – before finally settling at 1353 Curtis Street in Berkeley, where they remained for several decades.