I make films, photographs and electronic music. I build electronic musical instruments
Inevitability I have been building a lot of Buchla stuff last couple of years but I also built a few 5U modules. As my 5U modular cabinet was pretty much filled up I finally reached that inevitable point in time: the cabinets were completely full and I still had a couples of modules which had […]
After watching a few demos of Music Thing Modular modules I decided to build them myself. However, these modules are in Eurorack format and I don’t have any Eurorack. So I designed 5U panels for them and ordered those via Schaeffer AG in Germany. Not the cheapest solution but the quality is great and the […]
Experimented with light painting today. This photo was taken at 40mm with a shutter speed of 20 seconds and an aperture of f14. ISO was at 400. While taking the picture the room was pitch black and I used a small flash light to paint the light during exposure. I entered the I Dream of […]
I’ve been working on my new Buchla inspired modular on and off for some time now and finally had some front panels made. They turned out great and it inspired me to put some more energy into getting the modular done. I already finished the cabinet and rails for mounting the panels six months ago. So, last […]
“I Dream of Wires: The Modular Synthesizer documentary“, previously known as “Modular: The Documentary”, is a new film project looking for crowd funding on IndieGoGo. It’s a documentary about modular synthesizers and why people like to built them and use them for making music. I watched the trailer and really liked it. It’s not […]
Lately I’ve been working on building a mutant version (that is: with non-vintage components) of the timbre/symmetry section of the famous Buchla 259 complex waveform generator. I used the schematic Mark Verbos posted on his website as a starting point. I replaced all opamps with the TL072CN. All other components are common resistors (I used […]
I came across a very interesting audio recording of a lecture of Alessandro Cortini (ex Nine Inch Nails) about modular synthesizers, musical interfaces and the Buchla 200e. He gave this lecture at the Concordia Electroacoustic Studies Student Association in 2009. I can relate to a lot of what he has to say about using physical […]
The last couple of days I have been fighting with a DIY variant of the Buchla Dual Oscillator Model 258. I couldn’t get one of the two PCBs to output the right waveforms. Tonight I wired the second PCB and was finally able to fix the first PCB. I will not bore you with the […]
The cabinet is almost done now! It is made out of 18mm Birch plywood and there are 4 layers of Mahogany stain applied now. I still have to do one or two layers of protective lacquer. Today I made four Aluminum rails where the modules will mount to. Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish the last two […]
Finished the basic structure of the new cabinet today. The cabinet is glued together now so I have to wait until tomorrow for the glue to dry. I changed the side panels a little bit. They are now a fluid line instead of the three angled slopes in the Sketchup design in my previous post. […]
I wanted to start working on the cabinet but due to circumstances I didn’t have time today. Instead, I played some more with the design and came up with something better. The footprint of this cabinet is larger than the previous one but it looks much more Buchla. So this is the one I’m going […]
I worked on a couple of front panel prototypes for my Buchla 200 modules today. I used the same technique as I used for the Buchla 291 clone I’m building: designing in Front Panel Designer, print out on paper and using 3mm scrap wood for the prototype panel. From left to right: Dual Oscilator Model […]
