Artist Spotlight: Benge

Source Of Uncertainty: A Buchla Podcast 4U

There are two improvisations on each system, the first two on a vintage 100 and the second two on a cloned 200

There are some significant differences in sound between the two eras, most noticeably the tone of the VCOs and the filters. I would describe the earlier VCOs as being richer, fuller and brighter than the 200 series but not as stable, and the filters being more edgy and pure in nature. The 200 system introduced the LPGs, timbre-shaping and the Spectral Processor, all of which give the system a very distinctive sound that was absent from the 100

Personally, I like the overall tone of the 100 series very much, as it has a power and richness that puts it in the same league as other early systems such as the Moog Modular and the ARP 2500. I am not sure if there is a similar power in the original 200 series modules (as opposed to modern cloned ones) as I have never been able to compare them directly, but my guess would be that various filters, VCOs and other things that Don began to introduce in the 1970s took the sound away from the more basic and simple sound of the 100, exploring and pioneering other avenues as he went towards fully digital systems in the 1980s. It is a fascinating progression, and one that is mirrored in the development of synthesisers in general between the 1960s and 1980s, as digital technology gradually took over

The systems used were as follows:

Buchla 100

Vintage Modules:

102 Dual Stereo Locator

106 Six Channel Mixer

110 Dual Gate

111 Dual Ring Modulator

112 Touch Control

123 Sequencer

130 Dual Envelope Detector

140 Timing Pulse Generator

144 Dual Square Wave Generator

156 CV Processor x 3

158 Dual Sine/Saw x 2

160 White Noise Generator

165 Random Voltage Source

175 Dual Line Driver / EQ

180 Dual Attack Generator x 2

185 Frequency Shifter

190 Dual Reverberator

191 Sharp Cutoff Filter

194 Bandpass Filter

Cloned Modules:

110 Dual Gate

144 Dual Square Wave Generator x 3

146 Sequencer

180 Dual Attack Generator

205 Dual Matrix Mixer

Buchla 200

Cloned Modules:

205 Dual Matrix Mixer

208 Stored Program Sound Source

212 Dodeca Module

218 Touch Control

224 Patchbay

248 MARF + Expander

256 Dual CV Adder

257 Dual CV Processor

258 Dual Oscillator x 2

259 Complex Waveform Generator

261e Complex Waveform Generator

266 Source of Uncertainty

275 Dual EQ / Reverb

277 Signal Delay

281 Quad Function Generator x 2

285 Frequency Shifter

292 Quad LPG

296 Spectral Processor

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