#190

I didn’t build my Easel myself because it came to me as a trade, but based on building other equally or more complex looking things before and browsing build documents out of personal interest, it looks sort of a next step up in complexity from a 73-75 DIY set - eg. you may want to take it at an easy pace and be prepared to learn new things & troubleshoot issues, but it’s not a huge step up in complexity.

What I can say for certain is that to my taste it’s one of the finest (read: superb sounding and fun to patch and play) analogue electronic instruments I’ve owned, so in that sense I do wholeheartedly recommend building one.

The one thing I’ve heard is that the Portabellabz’ PCB version (208P) is definitely the way to go if you want a relatively trouble-free experience with major issues fixed. That’s what the Easel I have has. As for the 218 controller side, if you are planning on building that as well, I guess the only DIY option is Roman / Electric Music Store version.

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#191

I was looking into this for a friend (hello @muncky !) who I think had also spoken to you about it. It’s pretty easy to create a little device which generates Buchla pulses from the midi clock that norns puts out. The problem is that I don’t know what is actually required to get a decent looper/clock combo going, so if you have an idea that would be great.

The norns scripts I looked at (cranes, MLR) don’t generate any clock themselves, but norns continues to put out the global midi clock. Cranes for example runs at a speed dictated by the global midi clock, but there is no outgoing signal to sync up loop start / end for instance. I am not really clear what @ghostcode is doing with the EHX setup and whether existing norns scripts can do a similar thing. Surely with crow and some coding you could make something happen. but even better if it can be more lightweight and not require a crow.

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#192

I’ll second @kbra
A 208 is a step up in complexity from a 73-75 but if you can handle that it’s not too bad. But more failure points. The PCBs don’t have the values printed on them so you have to go slow and steady. Calibration is kind of a PITA. It is kind of $€£¥.

Go for 208p, papz includes adapter PCBs for rare parts like ua276 and just made a new one for dga200.

SAmodular has a hardware kit that handles a lot of the headache of BOM ordering for some things like sliders and slider caps etc.

SAmodular also has a 218 DIY kit and sells boats and power supplies etc.

There’s apparently a new 218 being made by Buchla in early 2021 along with the 208c (and the MIDI options make it seem pretty convenient). The DIY is cheaper but probably not by /that/ much (although obv diy can be fun/satisfying and you can spread out the costs)

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#193

I’m going to look into it further - I have Crow also and some of those looper scripts output clock via Crow. I’m pretty sure it would be very easy to add a clock, as well as clock dividers / multipliers to any existing crow script (midi dividers and multipiers also) There’s Cheat Codes also I need to look at, as well as the 000000 script. Not sure about the start / end of the loop but pretty sure something can be added in the script. I’m mostly looking at Crow at the moment and less with midi as I am still waiting on the Wormhole midi for my 200e. It was mostly the Easel I was looking at for looping and using Norns midi sequencers for the 200e.

On a side note, I think the 4ms Dual Looping Delay would work really well also with having clock multiplication / division on it as well as Morphagene

#194

Has anyone considered adapting Ansible or Teletype to Buchla format?

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#195

Following this topic, as I’ve tried unsuccessfully to clock my 208r using Norns > crow. I’ve also tried running the crow clock signal through channels 2+3 of maths to boost the signal without any luck.

#196

try triggering an a/d envelope on channel 1 and using that instead? my easel prefers falling ramps to pulses, although sometimes i can get a pulse to work

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#197

I think if you are triggering the 208r it’s best to do it by sending a pulse from Crow using a card setup. (Crow to TO CARD)

There’s a link here :

https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=102509

Todd Barton here :

“This works using TO CARD from an external source with the Pulser switches set to Keyboard and Triggered respectively and a 120K resistor” :

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#198

Whoa this is great, thanks! Wish I hadn’t sold my card stack…

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#199

there’s loads of interesting stuff you can do with cards that you can’t do physically with the knobs/jacks on the 208r. Check out Todd Bartons krell card and card examples in the back of the Easel manual

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#200

FWIW a couple of sellers these days have single preset cards available for reasonable prices, eg. on Reverb, which is nice.

That’s a good tip though, I just got my Crow and a small euro case this week so should try this out as soon as there’s time…

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#201

A question to 200(e) users: There are several threads on MW on the topic of tuning/tracking. If I got it right, 200(e) sequencers/voltage sources are not exactly following the theoretical standard of 1.2 v/oct. (some would rather say: “they are all over the place” – and there are no hard- or software options to calibrate these voltage outputs. This means that you have to calibrate each oscillator to track those pitch voltages correctly – so you can’t just switch in between several sequencers (pitch voltage sources).

  • Is this really a problem if you want to create melodies according to musical scales?
  • Is there a general difference in this regard between 200 and 200e modules?
  • What does this mean for systems with several Buchla sequencers (like sequencing sequences with a MARF)?
  • Would you suggest to skip Buchla sequencers for tonal music and use MIDI instead for scaled tonal sequencing?

Currently I only have a 208C – and problems like this one might keep me from going down the 200(e) rabbit hole. Using MIDI for pitch information seems like a workaround, but this way you would loose an important part of the Buchla user interface.

#202

I have a 200e and it’s my understanding that system was designed specifically to be used with midi. By that I mean midi input is converted and sent via an internal i2c bus directly to the 261e + 259e oscillators - not via the physical jack - so it’s pitch perfect - I can confirm that. So for tonal / melodic music that is the best way to go. But If you are not using midi and using those physical jacks for pitch cv then good luck :slight_smile: There is a workaround because those jacks are not scaled and unbuffered. If you want to play melodic stuff using the jacks the cv needs to be rescaled. The best and most accurate way would be using a Studio H CSR module after the sequencer, which saves those scales in the preset system so you don’t have to do it every time.

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#203

Agree with mlogger regarding the CSR, it makes tuning from various sequencers to the same target (usually an oscillator’s pitch CV in very easy). I have one and just love it for this and 100 other reasons.

Will also add that it’s not difficult to tune any individual buchla sequencer to a 200e oscillator “on the fly.”

Guess I’ve gotten pretty good at this over the years.

For example, I want the 250e to control pitch on the 259e and follow a scale. Just quickly put in octaves on the 250e, turn the cv attenuverter on the 259e until you get octaves.

Good to go.

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#204

Thanks for the explanation! One thing though: With the 200e sequencers you ARE sending voltages directly over the internal bus directly to the oscillators, right? So would you say that the 200e sequencers are not designed for tonal/scaled sequencing in the first place? Or are they – and it’s a design flaw?

#205

I shortsightedly sold a bunch awhile ago after not using them and getting a VCS3 card. Regrets! I’ll definitely grab a couple from reverb and give this a shot.

#206

The 200e sequencers don’t send voltages over the internal bus, only through their unbuffered outputs. They only receive midi clock. I use them mainly for cv modulation / atonal stuff, clock divisions and rhythmic stuff. For tonal stuff, say 2 oscillators that need to track and be in-tune with each other, I use midi. They are 100% pitch perfect. People who complain about the e system’s poor tracking are the very same people not using the midi bus or don’t own a CSR. The 200e design choice is to use midi for pitch tracked sequences on the bus. I would say the 251e sequencer is ok’ish for pitched tonal music because you can dial in the exact voltage per step - but that voltage goes out of an unscaled output and into and another unscaled input on the e oscillators. If you are using 1 oscillator the 251e is ok, you can dial in melodic sequences by ear. But once you start using 2 oscillators you start getting into trouble. Really the 251e CV should be going through the bus, but it doesn’t. The 251e can be midi clocked on the bus but that’s all.

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#207

Thanks again! That helped me a lot to gain a clearer picture of the whole topic.

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#208

Does anyone know about the history/origins of wavefolding? I’ve seen it mentioned that Don was the first to use this circuit in an electronic music instrument, but even then I know nothing of it’s application outside this field.

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#209

mills_buchla
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In case anyone is curious – there are a few pics of this on the web, but I was going through my archive (running out of google photo storage :angry: :anger: ) and I came across a pic I took of the SFTMC Buchla (his first commissioned synth, made for Ramon Sender and Mort Subotnick) which is still in use at Mills College. I have a couple of more detailed pics but not much else. This is the synth Pauline Oliveros used on her first synth works, and I know both Ramon and Mort recorded many of their early works on it as well.
Unfortunately I’m unfamiliar with any changes that have happened to the setup (noting certain coloration differences in the sequencer, for instance) so I’m not sure if there have been any changes or if this is absolutely original – I could ask one of my old profs if people really want to know.
The TKB was particularly fun to play, especially if you lick your fingers before… gross, I know, but as the moisture evaporated the degree of modulation changed… super satisfying.

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