[sdiy] Buchla's back

[Rainer Buchty]

>Yep. Once romplers appeared people got their dream of Any Instrument in
>a Box. Something that FM had promised but couldn't deliver unless you
>had God-like programming skills.

Well, I'd say *any* sophisticated synthesis requires god-like
programming skills or at least some fair effort...

The reason why people like subtractive synthesis is that it's easy to
understand and easy to use. At least for "standard" sounds.

>Analogue hardware was never much use for most kinds of imitative
>synthesis.

Oh, I guess it's just a matter of costs. You could do imitative
synthesis with analog hardware, but who's going to pay. (Ok, I'm asking
myself the same question having seen Buchla's actual prices...)

But with the usual 2-3 osc + vcas + vcf + final vca setup of common
machines there's not much room for synthesis, especially with limited
EGs (ADSR only) and/or semi-fixed modulation routing.

>But then cult is what his customers are going to want, and I'm sure
>he'll do okay with them.

I'm not sure if this "new old cult" really works... OTOH, with *those*
prices he's probably fine selling just 5 a year.

Rainer