Buchlaesque modular in progress

Comments

5 responses to “Buchlaesque modular in progress”

1. 

   David

   January 6, 2012

   Your cabinet, as well as the modules you have made, look absolutely awesome! I can’t wait to see the finished product.

   BTW, where did you find those black, vintage-looking Davies knobs? Although I’ve found several sources of Davies knobs for Serge synths, I can’t seem to find the knobs for Buchla synths anywhere. Do you know if these knobs have a special name or perhaps a model number that I can reference them to?

   Like you, I also have a MOTM modular. Within the next 6 months or so, I plan to build at least 15 modules that will either be identical to or very similar to Buchla 100 & 200 Series modules. But right now, I can’t make up my mind whether to modify these Buchla modules so they will interface with my MOTM modular, or whether to build a brand new Buchlasque modular synth that will contain clones or near clones of various Buchla modules.

   Of course, if I do decide to build a 2nd modular synth that is strictly dedicated to Buchla-type modules, I will probably change the look of my front panels from my current all-black, MOTM-type format to a front panel style that closely resembles Buchla 100 and/or Buchla 200 modules. This means I’ll probably switch from all 1/4″ jacks to a mixture of banana jacks (for control voltages) and either Tini-D or 1/8″ jacks for audio signals. However, there is also a good chance that I may use 1/4″ jacks for the audio inputs and outputs since they are much more robust than 1/8″ jacks. (I also like to use 1/4″ switching jacks for normalized inputs and outputs.)

   It looks like you have already dealt with these questions. You decided to build a 2nd modular synth that looks almost identical to a vintage Buchla modular. May I ask what finally convinced you to go this way?

   Reply
   1. 

      andre

      January 8, 2012

      Thanks!

      I bought the black Davies knobs at Mouser. The big knob is type 1600BM (Mouser part no 5164-1600BM), the smaller one is 1610AA (Mouser part no 5164-1610AA). There are also clones of the Davies knobs available.

      At first I wanted to built my Buchlaesque modular with the Buchla 200 or 200e look which I really like but the knobs needed for that are a bit hard to source in small quantities so I decided to go for the vintage Buchla 100 look as the Davies knobs are easy to source.
      I decided for this Buchla modular as I really like the way Don Buchla designed his modules. They offer lots of functionality in one module. The fact that this modular is a lot more compact than a MOTM modular also appealed to me as my studio is rather small and doesn’t allow for more full sized MOTM stuff in there 😉

      Reply
2. 

   David

   January 21, 2012

   Thanks for the info, Andre! I’ll be checking back from time to time to see the finished product! Good luck!

   Reply
3. 

   Gabor

   January 30, 2015

   A silly question.
   Who was the manufacturer of the front panels?
   Looks awesome!

   Reply
   1. 

      Andre Theelen

      January 31, 2015

      The panels were made by a local Dutch company, specializing in printing on Aluminium. I’m sure you can find some company doing the same local to you.
      However, it probably is expensive to do this for just one panel. I think I had 20 or 30 panels made (for myself and a couple of other synth builders) so the price per panel was much lower.

      Reply