A Synthesizer, several models of which have been designed by Donald (Frederick) Buchla (b Southgate, CA, 17 April 1937) and manufactured by Buchla Associates (later Buchla & Associates) in Berkeley, California, since 1964. Between 1969 and 1971 CBS Musical Instruments had manufacturing and marketing rights to the original model. Donald Buchla gained experience in electronics by building devices such as a sonar-like guide for blind people and also constructed acoustic sound sculptures; in 1962 he began designing voltage-controlled electronic music modules for the San Francisco Tape Music Center (SFTMC), and in the following year a complete Buchla synthesizer was installed there. The instrument became commercially available in 1964. A close collaborator in this development was the co-founder of the SFTMC, the composer Morton Subotnick, who with his tape works produced on Buchla instruments (including several created for gramophone recordings) became their best-known exponent.
Although they are classified as such, Buchla has never called his instruments ‘synthesizers’. His models include the Modular Electronic Music System (Series 100, 1962–70), the Electric Music Box (Series 200, 1971–78), the larger hybrid Series 500 (1971–75), the monophonic Music Easel (1974, nicknamed ‘Weasel’), the polyphonic Series 300 (1975–82), the short-lived Touché (1980–?1983), the Series 400 (1982–?1987) and Series 700 (1987–); all except the Touché and the Series 400 and 700 are modular or quasi-modular, and from 1970 most of his instruments have featured programmable computerized elements. Already in the Series 100 a special feature was introduced that characterizes nearly all the Buchla models – control by means of capacitative pressure-sensitive fixed touch-plates. In this Buchla also pioneered the Sequencer.
In 1979 Buchla constructed an electric cello (‘Essence of Cello’), and he designed the circuitry for Subotnick’s ‘ghost box’ Voltage control system. Since the late 1980s Buchla has concentrated on the development of two sophisticated MIDI synthesizer controllers, Thunder (1990; an array of 50 programmable touch-sensitive touch-plates on a small stand) and Lightning (1991, second version 1996; a 3-D location-sensing spatial controller, with a wand held in each hand).
GroveA (‘Buchla, Donald (Frederick)’, Stephen Ruppenthal); GroveI (Hugh Davies)
M. Subotnick: ‘The Use of the Buchla Synthesizer in Musical Composition’, Audio Engineering Society Preprint, no.709 (1970)
F.L. McCarty: ‘Electronic Music Systems: Structure, Control, Product’, PNM, xiii/2 (1975), 98–125
T. Rhea: ‘Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments’, Contemporary Keyboard, vii/4 (1981), 54 only; repr. in The Art of Electronic Music, ed. T. Darter and G. Ambruster (New York, 1984), 57–9
J. Aikin: ‘The Horizons of Instrument Design: a Conversation with Donald Buchla’, Keyboard, viii/12 (1982), 8–21; ibid., 75–83
M. Vail: ‘Buchla’s First Modular System: Still Going Strong After 30 Years’, Keyboard Presents Vintage Synthesizers: Groundbreaking Instruments and Pioneering Designers of Electronic Music Synthesizers (San Francisco, 1993), 97–101
B. Hopkin: Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones: Experimental Musical Instruments (Roslyn, NY, 1996), 38–40 (incl. CD)
HUGH DAVIES