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Series 200e SYSTEM OVERVIEW

This year we're celebrating 45 years of building bizarre electronic musical instruments. What better way to celebrate than to revisit some old instruments - namely the 200 series Electric Music Boxes, manufactured from 1970 to the mid '80's. Why the 200 series? Because it's Don's favorite synth, and he wants an updated version. Updated how, you ask. Still straight analog synthesis. Still programmed with knobs, switches and patchcords. Same power supply voltages, same form factors. In fact, completely interchangeable with 200 series modules built in the '70s. But with some new twists. For a few years we've been designing MIDI controllers (Thunder, Lightning, the Marimba Lumina, and the Piano Bar, among others). But our controllers couldn't even talk to our own 200 series instruments (designed before MIDI was even dreamed of). Situation rectified. Check out the new 225e. The top half is a full-blown MIDI interface that can relate every nuance of expression that your controller can produce to any aspect of the 200e's sound palette. The 225e's bottom section addresses another shortcoming: how do we save a patch so that retrieval is instantaneous at some future time? Simple! Just push the store button, name the preset, and your preset is forever stashed. Other improvements include internal MIDI buses, invisible supplies, high density modules, more voltage controlled parameters, the addition of a router for signals and control voltages, the merging of a swirler with the system interface, the addition of velocity to the dynamics manager, and a reworking of the output section of the complex oscillator. Functionally new modules include an arbitrary function generator, a duophonic pitch class generator, a triple morphing filter, a multi-dimensional kinesthetic input port, and a pitch shifter / balanced modulator. Select some modules, button them up in a 200e cabinet, and you're off and running with the most sophisticated analog system ever built.

Model 201e
POWERED CABINET

MODEL 201e-18 : POWERED CABINET The Model 201e - 18 WLS Powered Cabinet is the vessel that houses and provides power for 200e series modules. Made of select Eastern Walnut and black aluminum "boats", the 201e will withstand the rigors of travel with ease. The cabinet folds for traveling, it is shown here in its extended position. Folded, its dimensions are 27 x 12 1/2 x 8 inches. Power supplies and distribution rails are concealed in the depths of the 201e. An external desktop supply provides 12 volts D.C. to the 201e. Alternatively, the system may be powered from a 12 volt battery. LED lamps are provided for dimly lit stages.. MODEL 201e-24 : POWERED CABINET Our newest addition to the 201e series, the 201e-24 adds an additional row of modules to the 201e-18. It folds up in a similar fashion, and is 7 higher when folded. Of course its carrying case is also 7 higher, but its still standard baggage for most airlines. Its measurements are 31 x 24 x 13. We would not recommend packing it around on your tour. MODEL 201e-12 : POWERED CABINET Similar to the 201e - 18 WLS, except it accommodates 12 panel units and is 18 1/2 inches wide. Its carrying case is 22 x 17 x 11 inches and features cushy foam inserts. MODEL 201e-6 : POWERED BOAT The center boat from the 201e-18 cabinet. Complete with power supply and power distribution. Accommodates 6 panel units. MODEL 201e-4 : POWERED BOAT The center boat from the 201e-12 cabinet. Complete with power supply and power distribution. These boats are provided with rack ears for mounting in a 19" rack. Accommodates 4 panel units. MODEL 201e-2 : POWERED BOX A 2 panel unit wide chassis for housing one or two panels. Complete with power supply. MODEL 201e-3 : PASSIVE FRAME This miniscule cabinet is solely for housing the tactile portion of the 222e Kinesthetic Input Port. Its a quick way to add three panel units to an otherwise saturated system. .

Model 206e
MIXER / PRESET MANAGER A six input, two output mixer with controls for level and stereo location. Two of the locations can be voltage controlled; the remaining four can be continuously panned. A preset manager is also incorporated, primarily for those who want a second preset manager (for a second cabinet), but find a single MIDI interface sufficient.

Model 207e
MIXER / MIKE PREAMPLIFIER
The top section is the same as the mixer model 206e, but the bottom section (formerly a preset manager) has been replaced by a microphone preamplifier. The top consists of a six input, two output mixer with controls for level and stereo location. Two of the locations can be voltage controlled; the remaining four can be continuously panned. VU meters monitor the output levels. The preamplifier accommodates a wide range of input levels and provides phantom power to those mikes that need it. LEDs indicate the output level and an envelope follower output is provided. The microphone gain and the headset level are not stored as part of a preset. All other settings can be stored with the aid of a 206e or a 225e preset manager.

Model 210e
CONTROL AND SIGNAL ROUTER The Model 210e Control and Signal Router directs the routing of up to eight control voltages and eight audio signals. The two sections function independently. Originally conceived of as an aid to store and retrieve patch routings, the 210e evolved into a module with some additional capabilities. In the control voltage section, each of five outputs can be connected to any one of eight inputs. (This is the functional replacement for a bunch of patchcords.) If more than one input is routed to a single output, the result is OR'ed (the highest control voltage wins). Similarly, the signal routing section allows connection of each of five outputs to any one of eight inputs (patchcord emulation). Additionally, this section provides the possibility for matrix mixing, in which an output can respond to multiple inputs, with each connection independently scalable. All 210e settings can be stored and retrieved under the direction of the model 225e or 206e preset manager, thus enabling the re-routing of signals for each preset.

Model 222e
MULTI DIMENSIONAL KINESTHETIC INPUT PORT Extend your performance technique beyond spaghetti tossing and knob twiddling to the caress of Thunder and the zap of Lightning. Mounted in the bottom row of a 200e system, this three panel unit tactile sensor responds to a feather-weight touch, or to pounds of pressure. An accompanying spatial sensor, mounted in the top row and occupying 1 panel unit, tracks the movement of the hands as they leave the confines of the surface. An ergonomic array of 27 keys sense pressure and velocity; fourteen respond to location in one or two dimensions. Arrayed into multiple user-defined groups varying in size from 1 to 25 keys, they produce user-programmed control voltages. Location, pressure, impact and tuned voltages, as well as pulses, are presented at a total of 30 outputs. The LCD based user interface is remarkably simple and flexible. Trigonometric detection of 2 wireless rings provides spatial information in three dimensions, with additional data provided by ring-mounted switches. Charging of the rings is accomplished by plugging them into special sockets on the topmost boat. All settings, including key programming, can be memorized and recalled by the 225e or 206e preset manager

The 225e MIDI Decoder translates incoming MIDI messages into analog voltages and pulses. These signals appear on three kinds of "busses" for subsequent distribution to 200e series modules. Internal busses route signals internally to 200e series modules that respond directly to MIDI messages. There are four internal busses; each conveys messages appropriate to the destination module. Pulses are routed to a 281e, velocities to a 292e, and pitches are directed to up to four 259e's or 261e's.

Note message busses handle only note messages, decoding them into front panel voltages that represent pitches, velocities and pulses with sustain information. There are four note message busses. Controller busses process only controller messages (two controllers for each of six busses), translating them into standard (10 volt range) control voltages. Any number of busses can be assigned to a single MIDI channel. Note messages so assigned can be directed to respond polyphonically. The 225e can be added to any 200 system, extending the performance resources to encompass a variety of MIDI controllers (including, of course, Thunder, Lightning, Marimba Lumina, and the Moog Piano Bar). Attached to, but independent of the MIDI Decoder, is a facility dedicated to implementing and managing presets. Functioning only with 200e series modules, this Preset Manager can store, name, and retrieve the settings of nearly all system variables.

NEWS FLASH
The 225e has an additional capability - that of displaying the current firmware version for any e series module in a system. Compare your firmware to the latest version click here, and send us cards for whatever modules you'd like updated.

Model 223e
TACTILE INPUT PORT You dont care for spatial control? The 223e substitutes an innovative arpeggiator for the rings of the 222e This three panel unit tactile sensor responds to a feather-weight touch, or to several pounds of pressure. An additional (1 panel unit) module houses the outputs, the arpeggiator controls, and the edit facility. The tactile surface is normally mounted in the first row of a 201e-12 or 201e-18 cabinet: alternatively, it may be mounted in the recently announced 201e-3u frame, relieving spatial binds in crowded systems. An ergonomic array of 27 keys sense pressure and velocity; fourteen respond to location in one or two dimensions. Arrayed into multiple user-defined groups ranging in size from 1 to 25 keys, they produce a variety of user-programmed control voltages. Location, pressure, impact and tuned voltages, as well as pulses, are presented at a total of 30 outputs. The LCD based user interface is remarkably simple and flexible. The arpeggiator features multiple patterns, internal and external clocks, and many other sundry features. All settings, including key programming, can be memorized and recalled by the 225e or 206e preset manager

Model 227e
SYSTEM INTERFACE The Model 227e System Interface facilitates the equalization, location, mixing and routing of audio signals in 4-channel studio or performance environments. There are a total of 9 signal inputs. Four are primary inputs, and can be individually located in 2 dimensional space under voltage control. Additionally, automated movement around a quad space can be implemented with voltages controlling rate, direction and radius. Indicators are provided to display activity and to aid in accurate bus assignment. Another four inputs appear as a separate four channel mixer with a single output; the inputs may optionally be connected to the four main outputs. A microphone preamplifier with envelope detector is also provided. Equalization can be applied to front and rear channels; a spectral tilt function is introduced that compensates for the high treble energy frequently characterizing electronic sounds. Individual masters for front and rear are also provided. Monitoring facilities include VU meters on each channel, and a headphone driver for front, rear or all channels. Certain parameters of the 227e can be stored as part of 200e series setups; for this, a 225e or 206e preset manager is required.

Model 230e
TRIPLE ENVELOPE TRACKER / PREAMPLIFIER We took the old 230 envelope detector, changed its name to better identify its function, improved its performance a bit, added a microphone preamplifier for use with live signals, and of course added capability for storing and retrieving presets. The 230es envelope trackers have adjustable gains and variable response times. Their output levels are 10 volts full scale, with LEDs indicating intermediate values. Pulse outputs are triple state, responding to signal level changes as well as steady states, and may be coupled so as to respond to transient information even in the presence of background activity. Like pulling drum triggers from a mix. LEDs indicate pulse activity. Wrapping up the 230e are three preamps, each with variable gain and dual input connectors (TRS or XLR). Balanced or unbalanced microphones or instruments can be accommodated; phantom power may be engaged if needed. The preamplifier is provided with input and output connections to facilitate its use as a mixer; outputs are normaled to the envelope trackers inputs, enabling independent use of the devices. The microphone gains are not stored as part of a preset. All other settings can be stored with the aid of a 206e or a 225e preset manager.

Model 250e
ARBITRARY FUNCTION GENERATOR The Model 250e Arbitrary Function Generator is a 16 stage function generator, featuring direct and immediate access to each stages' control and timing voltages. Each stage stores the values of two control voltages, which are set with an array of 16 potentiometers. Time values are adjusted with a parallel array of smaller potentiometers, and can serve as a third control voltage. Both control voltages and times may be interpolated, quantized, or replaced with externally applied voltages for selected stages. There are also two programmable pulse outputs, as well as a facility for voltage control of stage position. Loop counters are associated with each stage; loops can be nested to any level. Current stage number is indicated with a circular array of orange LEDs; edit position is indicated with blue LEDs. Editing can be performed while the sequencer is progressing. The 250e's database can be stored and retrieved with the 225e or 206e preset manager.

Model 255
CONTROL VOLTAGE PROCESSOR The Model 255 Voltage Processor is an eight channel lag processor, in which each output voltage is a scaled and (optionally) inverted replica of the corresponding input voltage. Additionally a delay time can be inserted that is variable from .01 seconds to 10 seconds. This delay is separately controllable for positive and negative excursions. Note that the 255 is a specialty item; it is not an e series module, and consequently cannot stash its current state as a preset.

Model 256e
CONTROL VOLTAGE PROCESSOR The Model 256e Quad Control Voltage Processor is a resource for applying simple algebraic functions to control voltages. Each processor has two stages - the first stage provides for voltagecontrolled panning between two inputs, and the second establishes a linear transformation between input and output. Additionally, a single breakpoint may be added to enable non-linear transformations. The 256e controls are easily comprehended. A knob and/or a voltage controls the selection of input voltages. Additional knobs determine the output voltages for inputs of 0 and 10 volts. If a breakpoint is invoked, another pair of knobs sets the input and output values for the breakpoint. Processes supported include scaling, inversion, addition, multiplication, weighted averaging, and voltage controlled selection. LED's provide graphical representations of the transformation functions and of the output levels. With a little help from a 225e or 206e preset manager, the settings of the 256e can be stored as part of a system preset.

Model 259e TWISTED WAVEFORM GENERATOR

Popular demand does work occasionally - weve resurrected and renamed the original 259e Complex Waveform Generator. The new 259e is practically identical to the original, and is replete with all of the original digital waveshaping, aliasing noise, and foldover frequencies. However, weve added new self-modifying, screeching, snarling responses that reflect weird internal origins. Hence the name twisted. Otherwise similar to the 261e Complex Waveform Generator, with voltage-controlled modulation of pitch, amplitude, and timbre, both hard and soft synchronization, and pitch tracking. In conjunction with the model 225e MIDI Manager, the 259e's pitches respond to internally routed MIDI messages. Up to four 259's can peacefully co-exist in a single system, each with its private MIDI channel. As in all 200e series modules, the settings of the 259e's pots and switches can be memorized as a part of a preset configuration. Provided you have a 225e or a 206e in your system. The accompanying picture is actually a photo of a previous 259e. The new one is not quite identical, but has yet to be photographed. The new twisted version is completely software and hardware compatible with the earlier (complex) version. (Suitable for ages 10 28)

Model 260e DUOPHONIC PITCH CLASS GENERATOR

The Model 260e Duophonic Pitch Class Generator consists of two independent, voltage controlled pitch class generators. (A pitch class generator produces a singular pitch in every perceivable octave.) Frequency modulation inputs and a five band spectrum-shaping facility are provided. When switched to the "barber pole" mode, an internal computer takes over pitch control of both generators, and issues pulses for triggering an external envelope generator (a model 281e, for example), which in turn can drive a voltage controlled amplifier (like a model 292e dynamics manager). When the 260e's output signals are gated through the latter, Shepard tones and other auditory illusions (such as the tri-tone paradox) may be produced. The rate of change is variable to 2.5 octaves per second in either direction, and is voltage controllable. Additionally, the pitch intervals can be adjusted from quarter-tones to tri-tones to continuous (for Risset tones). With its multi-voicing, equalization, envelope shaping, and frequency modulation capabilities, you will find the 260e musically more interesting than the standard Shepard tone generator employed in perceptual psychology experiments.

Model 261e
COMPLEX WAVEFORM GENERATOR The Model 261e Complex Waveform Generator features voltage-controlled modulation of pitch, amplitude, and timbre, and a multi-dimensional, voltage-controlled timbre space. All of the 261e's timbre processing is performed by analog circuitry, thus eliminating the aliasing that can be introduced by waveshape table driven systems. A separate modulation oscillator can be synchronized to the principal oscillator or to note-on MIDI messages. Its waveshape is voltage controllable, and can be continuously varied from sine to pulse. The modulation oscillator can track the pitch of the principal oscillator with variable offset. In conjunction with the model 225e MIDI Manager, the 261e's pitches respond to internally routed MIDI messages. Up to four 261's can peacefully co-exist in a single system, each with its private MIDI channel. As in all 200e series modules, the settings of the 261e's pots and switches can be memorized as a part of a preset configuration. You'll need a 225e or 206e to accomplish this.

Model 266e
SOURCE OF UNCERTAINTY The Model 266e Source of Uncertainty is a general source of musical unpredictability. Divided into 4 sections, each section serves a unique function. Noise comes in three flavors. White noise is electrically flat, but acoustically balanced toward the high end of the spectrum (+3 db/octave). Integrated white noise has a low spectral bias (-3 db/octave). Musically flat noise has a flat spectrum (constant energy per octave) and is a particularly useful source for subsequent processing. Fluctuating Random Voltages are continuously variable, with voltage control of bandwidth over the range of .05 to 50 Hz, making possible changes that vary from barely perceptible movement to rapid fluctuation. Quantized Random Voltages change on receipt of pulses. Their number of states is voltage controllable from two to twenty-four, and their distribution can be varied both spatially and temporally. Stored Random Voltages have three parameters under voltage control. Degree varies the amount of randomness; chaos alters the distribution from just a little uncertain to total chaos; while skew biases the randomness toward one extreme or the other. All settings of the 266 may be stored and recalled under control of the model 225e or 206e preset manager.

Model 281e
QUAD FUNCTION GENERATOR The Model 281e Quad Function Generator has four function generators organized in 2 pairs. All four normally function independently. A momentary switch selects one of three modes: transient, sustained, and cyclic. An illuminated LED indicates the selected mode. On receipt of a pulse, the output voltage ramps up to 10 volts at a rate determined by the sum of an applied control voltage and the setting of the attack time knob. If in the sustained mode, the voltage will stay high as long as the input pulse is maintained. If not in the sustained mode, or when the input pulse terminates, the output ramps down to zero at a rate determined by the sum of the decay voltage and the setting of the decay knob. At the end of the decay, a transient pulse appears at the pulse output. If in the cyclic mode, the cycle now repeats. The time range for both attack and decay is from .001 to 10 seconds. In the quadrature mode, generators A and B (or C and D) operate in tandem to provide functions shifted by ninety degrees. The mode is selected with a switch and indicated with LEDs. An OR function can be invoked to generate more complex envelopes (ADSR). The model 225e or the 206e preset manager can issue commands to store and recall the 281e's settings. The 281e can respond directly to MIDI signals received by the model 225e MIDI interface.

Model 285e
FREQUENCY SHIFTER / BALANCED MODULATOR This module is the e series reincarnation of the 285. A long time coming, but well worth the wait. The top section performs frequency shifting; up and down outputs are simultaneously available. The reference frequency can be externally applied or internally generated; the later can be voltage controlled and f.m. modulated. The bottom section is independent, and functions as a balanced modulator of applied signals. The degree of modulation is voltage controlled, and the reference frequency can be internally generated or externally applied, as in the frequency shifter. A separate output is dedicated to classic ring modulation, a subset of balanced modulation. All settings of the 285e can be stored and retrieved with the 225e or the 206e preset manager.

Model 291e
TRIPLE MORPHING FILTER The 291e Triple Morphing Filter consists of three voltage controlled filters operating independently or in parallel. The amplitude, center frequency, and bandwidth of each filter may be independently voltage controlled. Each may be modulated with externally applied signals. The morphing capability might be described as moving through a series of snapshots of the filter, with each snapshot consisting of a complete description of the filter parameters, and with each parameter continuously varying between snapshots. Morphing is accomplished with an applied voltage, or alternatively can be initiated with a pulse, with each stage time independently set. Up to eight stages may be employed. A solo switch provides editing convenience, and an expand input allows ready expansion of the filter.

Model 292e
QUAD DYNAMICS MANAGER The Model 292e Quad Dynamics Manager is functionally identical to the original 292, with the exception of two new features - the 292e has velocity inputs, allowing controllers to control note volumes with performance gestures. And its settings can be stored as a part of a 200e series preset. The 292e sports four independent voltage controlled amplifiers. Each has a signal input and output, a control voltage input that varies the unit's gain from -120 to +3db, an offset adjustment, and a velocity input. The latter adds further control to the gain when employed and becomes transparent when unconnected. A switch selects one of three operating modes: straight gate (VCA), lowpass filter (VCF), or a combination of the two, in which the spectral response varies as the gain is changed. Frequency domain gating imparts a dynamic tonal variation that gives the listener a sense of absolute loudness. This quality is characteristic of all acoustic instruments (the harder you strike, pluck, or blow, the richer the overtone structure). A mix of the four output signals is also provided. Aided by the model 225e or the 206e preset manager, the settings of the 292e can be stored and retrieved.

Model 296e
SPECTRAL PROCESSOR

A 16 channel bandpass filter with built-in analysis and synthesis capability, the 296e can function as a real time performance filter, a programmable compound equalizer and even as a spectrum transferring vocoder. Center frequencies are selected to complement the ears discrimination curve. Each frequency band has its own VCA input and envelope follower output, allowing for rather intricate transformations. The 296e can be split into two 8 band filters, with vocoding interconnections internally provided, or two 296es can be cascaded (with a behind-the-panel connection) with one performing spectral analysis, and the other synthesis. A unique user interface can present instantaneous envelopes, thus creating a real time spectrum display, or two response curves may be entered, stored and edited in real time. Modulation may be applied to the response curves, creating some rather strange effects, and a freeze facility allows for storage of the instantaneous envelopes. Envelope decay times are adjustable, and pre-emphasis may be applied to smooth the frequency response when vocoding. All settings can be stored as presets in systems with a 225e or a 206e preset manager.

Model 297
INFINITE PHASE SHIFTER The Model 297 Infinite Phase Shifter displaces the phase of an applied signal by up to 1800 degrees, depending on frequency and number of stages selected. The phase shifted signal may be combined with the original to create a moderately warped comb filter with complimentary outputs. Notch density and depth can be varied through feedback (resonance) and stage selection. A wide range sweep oscillator enables the familiar cyclical phase shift effect. All parameters (phase shift, notch depth, sweep rate, sweep depth, resonance) are voltage controlled, with processing control inputs where appropriate. A built-in envelope follower facilitates the creation of amplitude-dependent effects. The 297 is capable of "barber pole" phasing, with the phase shift (and the consequent filter peaks and notches) continuously moving in one direction. Unique circuitry provides (or consumes) the extra time involved in this process. The rate of change can be varied up to 2.5 octaves per second in either direction and is voltage controllable. Note that the 297 is not amongst the e series and its settings cannot be internally stored.

Price List
201e - 24 24-panel Powered Cabinet $2500 201e - 18 18-panel Powered Cabinet $1900 201e - 12 12-panel Powered Cabinet $1650 201e - 6 6-panel Powered Boat $700 201e - 6u 6-panel Unpowered Boat $300 201e - 4 4-panel Powered Boat (rack ears included) $650 201e - 4u 4-panel Unpowered Boat (rack ears included) $250 201e - 2 2-panel Powered Box $300 201e - 3u 3-panel Passive Frame (for 222e) $150 206e Mixer / Preset Manager $1050 207e Mixer / Mike Preamplifier $900 210e Control and Signal Router $1500 222e Multi Dimensional Kinesthetic Input Port $2850 223e Tactile Input Port $2550 225e MIDI Decoder / Preset Manager $1400 227e System Interface $1950 230e Triple Envelope Tracker / Preamplifier $1600 250e Arbitrary Function Generator $1700 255 Control Voltage Processor $1000 256e Quad Control Voltage Processor $1200 259e Twisted Waveform Generator $1600 260e Duophonic Pitch Class Generator $900 261e Complex Waveform Generator $1600 266e Source of Uncertainty $850 281e Quad Function Generator $800 285e Frequency Shifter / Balanced Modulator $1400 291e Triple Morphing Filter $1750 292e Quad Dynamics Manager $900 296e Spectral Processor $4600 297 Infinite Phase Shifter $1450

System #1 1 Model 201e - 12 Powered Cabinet 1 Model 225e Midi Decoder/Preset Manager 1 Model 227e System Interface (2 panel units) 2 Model 261e Complex Waveform Generator 1 Model 281e Quad Function Generator 1 Model 291e Triple Morphing Filter 1 Model 292e Quad Dynamics Manager Total Panel units - 8 System Price - $9950

The Addition of a Router, a Source of Uncertainty and an Arbitrary Function Generator bring us to the second suggested system:

System #2 1 Model 201e - 12 Powered Cabinet 1 Model 210e Control and Signal Router 1 Model 225e Midi Decoder/Preset Manager 1 Model 227e System Interface (2 panel units) 1 Model 250e Arbitrary Function Generator (2 panel units) 2 Model 261e Complex Waveform Generator 1 Model 266e Source of Uncertainty 1 Model 281e Quad Function Generator 1 Model 291e Triple Morphing Filter 1 Model 292e Quad Dynamics Manager Total Panel units - 12 System Price - $14,000

Next, we present two fully loaded 18 panel unit systems. One with the 222e...

System #3 1 Model 201e - 18 Powered Cabinet 1 Model 210e Control and Signal Router 1 Model 222e Multi Dimensional Kinesthetic Input Port (4 panel units) 1 Model 225e Midi Decoder/Preset Manager 1 Model 227e System Interface (2 panel units) 1 Model 250e Arbitrary Function Generator (2 panel units) 3 Model 261e Complex Waveform Generator 1 Model 266e Source of Uncertainty 1 Model 281e Quad Function Generator 1 Model 285e Frequency Shifter / Balanced Modulator 1 Model 291e Triple Morphing Filter 1 Model 292e Quad Dynamics Manager Total Panel units - 18 System Price - $19,650

And one without the 222e, but with more of the other goodies: System #4 1 Model 201e - 18 Powered Cabinet 1 Model 210e Control and Signal Router 1 Model 225e Midi Decoder/Preset Manager 1 Model 227e System Interface (2 panel units) 1 Model 250e Arbitrary Function Generator (2 panel units) 1 Model 256e Control Voltage Processor 4 Model 261e Complex Waveform Generator 1 Model 266e Source of Uncertainty 2 Model 281e Quad Function Generator 1 Model 285e Frequency Shifter / Balanced Modulator 1 Model 291e Triple Morphing Filter 2 Model 292e Quad Dynamics Manager Total panel units - 18 System price - $20,300

Remember - this is a modular system. Include whatever modules compliment your style. The only limitation is that no more then one Model 206e or 225e can function in a cabinet. Old 200 series modules are also candidates (if you are fortunate enough to have any). If you have any holes in your system, we'll fill them in at no charge (with blank panels). Evaluation A thirty day evaluation period is included, with a returned system (in perfect condition and original packing) incurring a 15% restocking charge. Modules (in perfect condition, and in current production) may be traded in on other modules at any time and with no restocking charge. So try them out - if you don't like it, trade it in. Guarantee 200e series modules are built to the highest professional quality standards. Parts and workmanship are guaranteed for two years, with the customer paying only transport expenses. Firmware Complete system firmware in the form of memory cards is included with the 225e or 206e preset managers..

FAQ 200e ELECTRIC MUSIC BOX Can I add 200e series modules to my existing 200? Yes, but with limitations. Form factors and power supplies are identical, but without the 201e cabinet (or some serious modification of your present cabinet), you will not enjoy the preset manager or firmware download features. Nor will the internal MIDI bus be enabled. Can I add the 225e to my present system? Yes. The 225e is a MIDI interface that may add considerable flexibility to your 200. The preset manager is a part of this module and can be used to save your MIDI setups. But without a 201e cabinet (or modification of your present cabinet), it will not function with other 200e modules. The MIDI Interface will work fine, except for the four internal MIDI busses. Can I add 200 series modules to my 201e cabinet? In general, yes. There are some physical constraints, and occasional power supply restrictions. Consult us for details on specific modules. What is the resolution of the 200e's ADC's and DAC's? There are many data converters in the various modules. They vary in speed (from 10 to 500 ksps) and resolution (from 6 to 16 bits). Their characteristics are selected to enable accurate representation of underlying perceptual parameters. What is the delivery time for 200e systems? Currently, we're running three months from order date to delivery. This will undoubtedly change, but we'll keep this slot updated. Are the 200e modules going to remain in production? Judging by the initial acceptance, production will continue in a limited but unabated fashion. How does the 225e remember the patch cord routings? It doesn't; only knob settings and switch positions are stored. Sorry if we gave the wrong impression. However, the model 210e Router can store and recall interconnection data for a small number of patches. You refer to the 200e as an analog system. But your oscillators use digital techniques. What gives? The common meaning of these terms (analog vs. digital) stems from historical association between user environment and supportive circuitry. An analoc synthesizer is one that uses analog elements, such as knobs and wires, for user interaction. The knobs are analog; the wires carry analog control voltages and analog signals. In bygone years, the circuitry tended to be analog because the cost of converting from one domain to the other was high, and little was to be gained by doing things digitally. Now, production costs favor digital circuitry, and the proliferation of samplers demands it. The user interface has become digital for the sake of economy. A single switch can accomplish

many functions; multi-level menus, data selectors, and LCDs provide a compact and cheap-tobuild facility. These systems do not consider the user interface to be of paramount importance. Parallel access is impossible, alternative interconnection improbable, performance is dependent on MIDI controllers connected with preconceived notions on what each aspect of the controller should accomplish. Now things have changed. It costs practically nothing to convert between digital and analog respresentations. The designer can provide the user with whatever interface he likes, and proceed to design circuitry that efficiently implements the desired functionality. The user need never know the circuit design, and should not be able to readily discern its premises. We define the 200e synthesizer as analog. By that, we are describing the aspect that the user contacts as analog. The underlying circuitry is a hybrid mix, constantly flowing from one domain to the other - not even predictable from one module to the next - always designed for uncompromising performance - never for adherence to a design style. For those who can benefit from further discussion, we shall present some of the design considerations that were used in designing circuitry for a few of the 200e modules. First, we'll consider the 225e MIDI Interface. This gadget has a single digital input (MIDI) located on the back of the system. On the front you'll find 20 analog signals, decoded with 20 digital to analog decoders (DACs). Inside the box are velocity conversion tables (digital) polyphonic logic (digital), assignment directories (digital), and other logic, all tasks best performed digitally. Outside the box - it's strictly an analog world. Next we'll look at the 261e Complex Waveform Generator. The 261e's user environment is again analog. But much of the internal circuitry is digital. Why digital? For two very significant reasons: 1. The timbre demands are extraordinary. We want to vary timbre in multi-dimensional ways that would be completely impossible with analog circuitry. 2. Requirements for stability and accuracy far exceed what can be accomplished with analog circuitry. This results from a desire to use micro-tunable scales, as well as the demands imposed by the implementation of polyphony. Since there are no compelling reasons to employ analog circuitry in the oscillators, we went mostly digital, converting from analog to digital in the control section, back to analog in the sync section, back to digital for wave shaping, and converting to analog in the final output section. Again, presenting a 100% analog environment to the user. All in all, performing 15 analog to digital and 4 digital to analog conversions, in just this one module. Let's look at one additional module, the 292e Quad Dynamics Manager. This one has compelling reasons for digital control paths and analog signal paths. Digital control paths because of the necessity for patch storage and retrieval; analog signal paths for the following two reasons: 1. The enormous dynamic range and extremely low distortion that characterize this module demand specialized analog circuitry. 2. The peculiar non-linear combination of lowpass and amplitude functions also calls for analog circuitry. A digital implementation would have been possible, but far more complex and demonstrating no advantage. The design approach used in the 292e is similar to that used in several of the 200e series modules. We employ digital techniques for control structures because of the ease of storing and retrieving presets; we use analog techniques in signal chains for optimal dynamic range and to satisfy various perceptual requirements. And, importantly, the user encounters an analog environment.

Do you provide operations manuals? Yes, in the form of notes that accompany each module plus a system overview. Are Software updates possible? Yes. A tiny card containing the latest software version does the trick. There is no charge for software updates. Why do you have separate interconnection schemes for control voltages and audio signals? There are several reasons for maintaining this distinction: 1. The wires required are specialized in purpose. Signal wires must be shielded, while control voltage connections need no shielding. We chose to employ 1/8" plugs for their compactness and banana plugs for their stackability. 2. Modules can be optimized for performance in their domain of destiny. As a simple example, the parameters that characterize a good mixer are dissimilar to those that make a good control voltage summer. There are definite compromises made in the design of modules that serve both functions. 3. The interconnections are different. Signals work best with exponential input pots, low output impedances and lots of headroom. Control voltages work best with bidirectional input multipliers, asymmetric output impedances, and no headroom. By choosing yet a different scheme for conveying timing information, a single pulse connection can carry both sustain and transient information, and have both inputs and outputs indefinitely paralleled. 4. It is a simple matter to provide both sorts of inputs to those parameters that make sensible use of signal as well as control voltages. For example, our oscillators use both f.m. inputs (with exponential attenuators) and control voltage inputs (with linear, bidirectional, multiplying c.v. inputs). 5. There's the matter of deciphering the intent and action of a patch. When the signal paths are easily differentiated from the structural aspects, such decoding is immensely simplified. 6. With microcomputers serving to store patches, the differentiation is essential. Audio signals stay in the signal domain, while control voltages are digitized and stored as parts of presets.

BUCHLA 200e
System Overview
Buchla has always had his own unique view of electronic instrument design. You could make a case that the System 200e is as much a work of art as it is a musical instrument. But then, so is a grand piano. And while the 200e may not require quite as many years of practice to master as a piano, its not quite plug-and-play. Some dedication and commitment will be required to get great music from it. The front panel is colorful, thanks to the red, yellow, green, and blue LEDs, and is densely packed with knobs, jacks, and buttons. While you have to plug in at least a few patch cords to get a peep out of the 200e, it would be a mistake to think of it as a purely analog synth. As well see, this is very much a modern analog/digital hybrid, not a throwback to those glorious days of yesteryear. The designs of many of the modules are based on Buchlas 200 series, but all of them have been enhanced. Control voltages are routed using banana plug cables, so several plugs can conveniently be stacked on a single output jack. Audio signals are routed using 1/8" mini-plug cables, which are

shielded for low noise. As a result, the system makes an ironclad distinction between the two types of signals. You cant run a control voltage through a filter or VCA, for example. Modules are 7" high, and a panel chassis (which Buchla calls a boat) is a little over 25-1/2" wide. A typical three-boat system opens up, but is hinged to fold neatly into a carryable shape, somewhat thicker and longer than a briefcase but with a handle. This is a brilliant bit of hardware design. The folded-up synth is light enough to carry one-handed, which is emphatically not the case with a lot of modular instruments this complex. The lump-in-the-middle external 12V power supply runs hot, but I had no problems with it. Even the names of Buchlas modules are unusual. What the rest of the world calls an oscillator (or, more accurately, an oscillator/LFO pair), Buchla calls a Complex Waveform Generator. In place of envelope generators, he offers Quad Function Generators. The Dual Arbitrary Function Generator might more familiarly be called a step sequencer. Most of the knobs rotate smoothly, but a few are stepped to allow entry of precise values. Flat pushbuttons are used for stepping through various switchable options (such as the sawtooth, square, and triangle waves in the Mod Osc section). The filter, MIDI, and 249e sequencer modules have small two-line blue-on-black LCDs for displaying parameter values and other essentials. Tying the system together are the MIDI/USB Decoder, which allows up to eight-note polyphony via MIDI (though youll need extra oscillators to go beyond four notes at a time), and the Preset Manager, which is physically part of the same module. Each module in the system is capable of storing its own knob and switch settings in up to 30 user presets. Even patch cord routings can be stored, to a very limited extent, using the Control and Signal Router module. Presets can be saved and loaded using a small memory-card slot on the rear panel. This slot can also be used for firmware updates. While I was working on the review, Buchla sent me a new software rev that fixed a couple of bugs and added new features to the 259e oscillator. Cant do that on any other modular. As usual with an instrument this complex, you shouldnt expect to find every detail discussed in these pages. Overall, I found the 200e system stimulating to work with. The initial release, which contained four 259e oscillators, was less than entirely satisfying sonically, for reasons that are discussed below. But just before press time I drove back into Berkeley for a preview of the 261e oscillator, which sounds much, much better. I also spent an hour patching and listening to the 256e Quad Control Voltage Processor ($1,000) and 250e Arbitrary Function Generator ($1,700), both of which are discussed below.

259e and 261e Complex Waveform Generators

The 259e and 261e each contain two sub-modules an audio oscillator and a simpler modulation oscillator. You can modulate the main oscillator with the mod osc without using a patch cord, but the mod osc has its own output jacks (one each of audio and CV), so it can modulate other things as well. While the 259e and 261e share this basic design, they diverge in many particulars. Since the review system contained four 259e modules, well start by discussing them, and then turn to the 261e, which is priced identically. The 259e mod osc has three basic waveforms (triangle, square, and sawtooth). The main 259e osc has a more complex timbre control section consisting of a dual waveform selector and knobs labelled morph and warp. In simple terms, this oscillator uses a sine wave to sweep two digital wavetables. Each table contains a single-cycle waveform. The warp knob determines how much of the wavetable is swept higher warp values produce higher overtones and the morph knob controls the blend of the two wavetables. Each side of the morph has a choice of eight tables. And of course, both warp and morph can be voltage-controlled for vivid waveform animation. Did he say digital? Yes, the 259e is a digital oscillator. Analog purists may not be pleased about this. Im happy to have lots of waveforms at my fingertips, but I found that many of the wavetable

combinations produced aliasing. Pure sine waves, which dont alias, are available among the waveforms, and it was possible to coax some sweet tones out of the 259e, especially at low warp settings and at lower pitches. However, the higher-pitched tones of most of the waveforms alias spectacularly, making them ideal for edgy, glitchy mixes but not desirable for traditional definitions of beautiful. According to Buchla, this design was intentional. I found that feeding a voltage into the oscillators CV in made the pitch slightly unstable. With pitch sweeps, the instability wont be apparent, but when I used the 249e sequencer to play a melodic pattern that had sustained pitches, the oscillators jittered in an unpleasant, nervous-making way. The jitter was so slight that it was perceived as timbral changes rather than pitch changes imagine a smooth surface on a painting with tiny flecks of sand embedded in the pigment. The only way to make the sand go away is not to use the CV input, which makes the sequencer and MIDI input less useful. Buchla tells me hes aware of this problem. A fix has been implemented in the 261e, and it will shortly (perhaps even by press time) make its way back into the 259e. He views the entire 200e system as a work-in-progress. Both the main and mod oscillators in the 259e have continuous full-range tuning knobs, plus a finetune knob, but no octave or semitone switching. The mod osc will operate in low-frequency, high (normal) frequency, or pitch track mode, and can sync to the main osc for waveform sync sweeps. When I switched it to hard sync and listened to the output, the tone was harmonically related to the main osc, but I didnt hear the classic analog hard-sync effect used for lead patches. The tone was more grainy. Personally, I dont feel the low-frequency range goes as deep as it should: The slowest this LFO will go is .25Hz (one cycle every four seconds). Sweeps lasting ten times that long are musically interesting. The 281e Quad Function Generator will slow down to a 20 second period, or even slower with voltage control. Separate CV inputs with attenuators are provided for main osc pitch, mod osc pitch, warp, morph, and mod amount. In addition, both the main and mod oscillators have audio FM inputs with trim knobs. The FM has a more gurgly character than is typical for actual FM synths, making it suitable for brash effects but not mellow bell-like tones. Missing from the 259e oscillator is a finely calibrated CV input for reliable pitch tracking. I was told I could get calibrated pitch tracking by turning the CV amount knob up all the way, but when I programmed diatonic scales or arpeggios over several octaves with the 249e sequencer and applied them to the oscillators, the scale was a bit stretched, making tonal music somewhat problematical even in the absence of pitch jitter. I had a much more enjoyable experience with the new 261e. Like the 259e, the 261e can produce a wide variety of waveforms, and several dimensions of waveshape are voltage-controllable. However, the 261e is anti-aliased and uses analog waveshaping. Some may prefer the more untamed sound of the 259e, but if I were ordering a 200e system, I would probably specify four 261es. The 261e has three waveshaping parameters, whose knobs are labelled Timbre, Symmetry, and Order. Turning up Order shifts the waveform energy away from the fundamental and into the upper overtones. Anything from a sine wave to a rich bell-like tone can be produced with ease. The CV input for modulating timbre has a trimpot, while the symmetry and order CV inputs dont. The 261e mod osc has a continuously variable waveshape. When locked with hard sync, the mod osc tracks the pitch of the main osc, which opens up even more tone color possibilities. One other detail: the 261e main osc has a recessed trimpot, allowing its CV input to be calibrated precisely to the Buchla standard of 1.2V/octave (.1 volts/semitone).

291e Triple Morphing Filter

Whats a Triple Morphing Filter? Glad you asked. This module includes three separate resonant bandpass filters (the triple part) and its own eight-step sequencer memory (the morphing part). The three filters can be used independently, or run in series by patching the output of filter A into the input of filter B and/or the output of B into C. They can also run in parallel using the all input and output. The three share one set of knobs for cutoff frequency, bandwidth (resonance), amplitude, and modulation depth. To select which filter you want to edit, you press the Node button. The cutoff knob is stepped rather than smoothly rotating. Its calibrated in half-steps, which is great when you want to run white noise through it and dial in a chord. But if you were hoping to be able to move the cutoff manually for smooth sweeps, youll be disappointed. The CV inputs have a smooth response, however. Each filter within the module has its own CV inputs for cutoff, bandwidth, and amplitude control. The amplitude control affects only the all output, but turns out to be surprisingly useful for setting up rhythmic patterns with rests and accents. Each filter also has an audio modulation input jack. Audio-rate modulation can be applied to amplitude, bandwidth, and cutoff frequency in any combination. The level of this modulation is programmable from a knob, but the CV inputs have no trim pots. This is a real shortcoming: If you want to scale the envelope amount going to filter cutoff (a common necessity), youll have to attenuate the voltage using a signal path within the 210e Control And Signal Router or the 256e Quad Control Voltage Processor. The 210e cant invert voltages, so youll need a 256e if you want to be able to invert filter envelopes. CV signals will modulate the cutoff, amplitude, and/or bandwidth of all of the steps when the filter is being morphed, because the CV input amount is not morphable. There are three ways to move through the eight-step morphing sequence: You can set a time value for each step (which will be multiplied by an incoming voltage), move around in the memory space with a voltage, or pulse the steps with an external clock. The three filters within the module will all use the same step at the same time, but each of them can have its own parameter values for a given step. When using the filters internal time settings, you can choose whether to jump or glide from step to step, creating either smooth contours or sharp accents. It was when I started exploring the 291e that I really started having fun with the 200e system. By setting up a master clock in a Quad Function Generator, a three-step sequence in one 291e, and a four-step sequence in the other, I was able to create a complex rhythmic drone (buchla2_filters.mp3) that would be difficult to achieve on any other synth.

281e Quad Function Generator

The 281e has four separate stages, each of which can function as an LFO or as an attack-decay or attack-release envelope generator. These three modes (which Buchla calls cyclic, transient, and sustained) are selected with pushbuttons. Each of the stages has its own attack and decay time knobs, which can be set from .001 second to 10 seconds. Both knobs are voltage-controllable. Each stage has a pulse input for triggering it, and also a pulse output that fires at the end of the cycle. Thus two or more stages can be chained to fire in order for complex contours. Stages A and B (or stages C and D) can be linked in a quadrature mode to provide ADSR envelopes. However, the sustain level is not stored in the 281es memory.

256e Quad Control Voltage Processor

The 256e was not included in the system I had for review, but I later got a preview of it, and I recommend it highly for inclusion in a system. It has four separate and identical sub-modules, each of which can scale, offset, invert, and process control voltages.

Each sub-module has two CV inputs, plus a third input that crossfades between the other two. If only one of the two main inputs is connected, the third will scale it up or down. The resulting signal then passes through a transfer function, which has four knobs and an LED display to give you a rough picture of what its doing. The first knob controls the voltage output when the input is 0 volts, and the next knob controls the output when the input is at 10 volts. By turning the first all the way up and the second all the way down, you simply invert the CV as it passes through. Between those two extremes is a breakpoint, which is controlled by both X and Y knobs. Setting the two outer values low and the breakpoint high (or vice-versa) effectively doubles the frequency of an LFO signal. Other curves are possible, and the sub-modules can even be patched to one another in a positive feedback loop for some quasi-chaotic modulation.

292e Quad Dynamics Manager

The 292e contains four separate VCAs, each with an audio input and two audio out jacks. Theres also an all out jack, so you can use the 292e as a four-in, one-out, voltage controlled mixer. You can also adjust the levels of the signals manually with knobs rather than using control voltages. MIDI velocity from the first four MIDI busses is hardwired to the 292es channels, but this signal can be overridden with a voltage if desired. The velocity input does nothing unless a primary envelope is being received or the VCA is opened manually, but once a signal is passing through, the velocity input can vary it continuously, not just at the start of a note, so complex doubleenvelope rhythms are possible. Each VCA can operate in one of three modes standard (affecting only amplitude), lowpass (in which the cutoff frequency corresponds to the amplitude), or a blend of the two. The combination mode is quite useful for creating natural-sounding dynamic variations.

227e System Interface

The 227e has four input channels for receiving internal audio signals and routing them to the four output channels. Quarter-inch outputs are included on the rear panel, and each output channel also has a pair of jacks on the front panel. In addition, the 227e sports a mic input with a preamp and an envelope follower, allowing the system to process external audio. Left/right and front/rear panning can be voltage-controlled for each input channel. Each input channel also has a quadrophonic swirl mode, with which the signal can be automatically swept around the four output channels with voltage-controlled rate and depth. A 4-in, 1-out submixer (not programmable) is included in this module for convenience, with an in the mix button for routing it monophonically to the main outputs. The front and rear channels have their own non-programmable level knobs and three-band EQ.

225e MIDI/USB Decoder

With the aid of the 225e, a System 200e can respond to up to eight MIDI notes (a maximum of four per channel) and up to 12 controller message types on up to six different channels. Pitchbend and channel aftertouch are included among the controller types along with all 128 Control Change messages. The outputs are spread across 14 MIDI busses, eight for notes and six for controllers. Note busses from among each group of four can be cascaded for polyphonic operation, assigned to separate MIDI channels for multitimbral operation, or assigned to the same channel monophonically for doubling or layering. The first four MIDI busses are hardwired internally to the four oscillators, to the four sections of one of the 281e quad function generators (which receive gate information for envelope purposes), and

to the four channels of one of the 292e quad VCAs (which receive velocity information for amplitude control). This is a sensible system. In the unit I had for review, MIDI pitchbend data was not sent to the oscillators, but Im told this has now been fixed. Likewise, Buchla reports that MIDI sustain pedal messages now sustain notes. Note-on, pitch, and velocity voltages from the second four MIDI note busses appear on front-panel jacks, where theyre available as general-purpose control sources. Ten preset velocity response curves are available, including three reversed types suited for velocity crossfading. Notes can be transposed up or down by up to 24 half-steps, and 1/10-semitone fine tuning is available for each bus. The first time I tried using the internal busses for controlling the pitch of the 259e, I heard small tuning discrepancies up and down the keyboard. This turned out to be user error: The FM amount inputs for the oscillators have to be turned down to zero for reliable MIDI pitch tracking. Even after I zeroed out these knobs, I still heard small pitch errors at the low end of the keyboard. When I played a scale in octaves, some octaves were dead on, while others had slow beats. Buchla reports that this is due to the 1Hz resolution of the MIDI-to-pitch conversion. At 50Hz, he said in an email, there is an uncertainty of 0.5Hz, or about 15 cents. The pitch resolution of the ear is worse at these frequencies, so I let it pass. I am aware of no user objections, and actually doubt that users will perceive the errors. While USB is mentioned on the panel of this module, the system I had for review had no USB port.

249e Dual Arbitrary Function Generator and 250e Arbitrary Function Generator
If the words step sequencer conjure up memories of early Tangerine Dream for you, youll understand about one percent of what the 249e and 250e can do. Yes, either module can step robotically through a simple pitch pattern. But both the rhythm and the looping can be controlled in complex ways. The system I had for review included the 249e, but I later got a look at the 250e, which is similar in many ways but more interactive. The 249e consists of two independent 24-position step sequencers. Each has its own pair of CV outs, another pair of programmable pulse outputs, and a pulse output that fires each time the sequencer moves from step to step. Each step defines the value that will be sent from the two CV outs, on/off switching for the two pulse outs (suitable for triggering envelopes on certain steps, for example), a time value, and some logic functions. The decision to advance from one step to another can be handled by the sequencers internal clock, by an external pulse, or by a continuous voltage that sweeps through the steps. Programming is handled by tapping a button to call up one of half a dozen menus in the little blue LCD. You choose which step to edit by rotating a knob in the center of the modules panel. Entering the data to define a sequence is a fiddly process, not something youll likely want to do during a concert. (The 250e is much better for live use, as explained below.) The two CV outs for a step can be programmed in increments of 1/100 volt 1/10 semitone increments at 1.2 volts per octave. If you switch on interpolation for either CV at a given step, the voltage will glide at a fixed rate from the previous step. Instead of outputting a predetermined voltage, a step can output the voltage value at one of four external input jacks. To program sequences of less than 24 steps, the tool of choice is the jump button, which can be programmed with a jump to another step. The jump can be given a probability of less than 100% or made conditional on the current value of a loop counter. This counter, in turn, can be set or decremented by another step. Each step can be given a time value of up to 30 seconds in .01-second increments. A time scaling knob can be used to accelerate or decelerate globally between 0.5x and 2x these values. CV inputs allow you to stop or start/advance the sequence with an external command. Instead of using the clock at all, you can select the step directly with a control voltage or, alternatively, with two control voltages in an X/Y configuration, suitable for the output of a two-

dimensional touchpad controller. Plugging separate LFOs into these two inputs is a fun way to sweep the sequencer rapidly through its 24 steps in a semi-controlled way. The 250e has only a single 16-step sequencer. This has dual CV outputs, pulse outputs, and clocking options similar to those on the 249e. It differs in having individual pitch and time knobs for each step, making it very playable. In place of the two-line LCD is a pair of blue two-digit LEDs, which are used for programming jumps. The voltage range for each step is selectable, which makes it practical to rotate a pitch knob within a musically useful pitch range.

260e Duophonic Pitch Class Generator

If the 260e werent included in the system, few musicians would miss it. Its purpose is to produce Shepard tones, an acoustic illusion of a tone that rises or falls forever. The module can do this in either stepped or continuous fashion, but in continuous mode it glitches, which rather destroys the illusion. Id recommend purchasing a 256e, which is the same panel size, instead.

266e Source of Uncertainty

Across the top of the 266e are four audio outputs supplying noise in three different colors. But most of the module is devoted to generating quasi-random control voltages. It has three sections: Fluctuating Random Voltages, Quantized Random Voltages, and Stored Random Voltages. The fluctuating outputs (there are two) supply a sort of LFO-like contour that speeds up and slows down at a random rate. The quantized outputs (again, there are two, with separate triggers) can assume an adjustable number of repeating states, with a few choices for distribution curves. The result is a stepped pattern in which the output voltage is chosen at random from among a fixed group of values. By tuning the CV input amount in a receiving oscillator, you can step randomly through a whole-tone scale or the notes in an augmented triad (check out buchla3_uncertainty.mp3). The Stored section comes closer to the classic sample-and-hold. It has three controls, all of them voltage-controllable: skew, degree, and chaos. When degree and chaos are low and a voltage is applied to skew, the stepped output is indeed a sample-and-hold. The degree control introduces randomness in the steps, and increasing the chaos control allows more of the random steps to be large. The two stages within the Stored section can be clocked independently, but share the same set of knobs and control inputs. Part of the fun of a modular synth, of course, is that you can apply a stepped random voltage to other things than pitch (buchla4_uncertainty2.mp3).

210e Control and Signal Router

The 210e, a unique and very valuable module, has two separate routing matrices, one for audio signals and the other for control voltages. Each has eight inputs and five outputs. They operate similarly: After choosing an input and an output with a pair of pushbuttons (which cause the matching LEDs in a grid to light up), you adjust the level of the signal from that in to that out using a knob. The audio matrix has an Input Solo button, which is very handy. The CV sections level knob has two LEDs, one marked <0 and the other >0. This led me to expect that the 210e was capable of inverting control voltages. This proved not to be the case. Since the 210e is programmable, it can be used to a limited extent as a patch cord routing memory. For instance, if you always plug the eight outputs from the 281e stages into the eight CV inputs, and route the five outputs to five of the cutoff frequency CV inputs of five of the systems six filter stages, then filter envelope depth becomes programmable. But if you should need to repatch the CV cables for any other purpose, this modules memory wont know what youve done.

Conclusions
Musicians who perform and record with hardware-based modular synthesizers are sure to embrace the 200e system. Its programmable memory puts it in a class by itself, and its unique feature set opens up a vast range of sonic possibilities. There are, of course, less expensive analog synthesizer modules on the market. But its extremely difficult to make a fair across-the-board comparison between modulars, because each system, and indeed each individual module, has its own strengths, limitations, and peculiarities. To assemble a system from another manufacturer that had the same functionality as the 200e would probably cost almost as much (if you could do it at all), and the resulting instrument would undoubtedly weigh three to five times as much. In 2005, the competition for the 200e includes not only other hardware modular synths, but also software-based instruments like Native Instruments Reaktor and Cycling 74 Max/MSP, both of which sport far deeper feature lists than the 200e and are extensible in ways that no hardware instrument could ever be. Given the power and sound quality of todays software, the high price of the 200e is bound to limit its appeal. But Don Buchla had no illusions about this when he designed the 200e. For the true hardware fanatic, though, comparisons with software are beside the point. If you get sweaty palms when you see real knobs and patch cord spaghetti, youd be foolish not to consider a 200e system as the centerpiece of your rig.

BUCHLA SOUND ON SOUND

Overview Before looking at its modules, which I'll do in detail next month, there are many global aspects of the 200e that need discussing. That's because there's little about the instrument that's obvious. For example, it's not a modular synthesizer as you would normally use that expression, nor is it an integrated synth, nor is it semi-normalled in any conventional sense. Furthermore, despite misleading marketing that describes it as employing 'straight analogue synthesis', the 200e is not a pure analogue synth. But it's not purely digital either, nor is it what we would normally describe as 'digitally controlled-analogue'. It's a hybrid, but not in the same way as other hybrid analogue/digital synths. Confused? I don't blame you. The 200e is remarkably small, taking up about the same amount of room as a Minimoog with its control panel flipped up, but it feels significantly lighter. It comprises three rows of modules mounted in three cases (known as 'boats') arranged in a neat wooden design that flips open for use. When the 200e was first announced, owners of existing Series 200 systems speculated that the two systems would be completely inter-compatible, allowing you to run 200 and 200e modules in the same cases, and off the same power supplies. However, that has proved not to be the case. While the depth of the boats is just sufficient to house the deepest of the 200e's modules, some of the earlier 200-series modules are too deep to fit. There are 16 modules installed in the review instrument (see the detailed picture over the page) but their functions are not always obvious, because Buchla (as on many of his products) describes modules and functions with rather obscure, non-standard names. But the overriding impression is one of density. There are more knobs, buttons, sockets, LEDs and screens per square inch than on anything else I can recall. This makes the 200e incredibly rich in features, and has an attractive side-effect: it lights up like the Oxford Street decorations at Christmas. Mind you, I would have thought that, on an instrument costing this much, it would have been reasonable to ensure that all the modules lined up perfectly with nicely finished edges, and that it would be finished with solid wood end cheeks (and nicely polished ones, at that) rather than cheaply stained nine-ply. But nine-

ply it is. And don't get me started about the cheap plastic clips that hold the 200e closed for transportation (see picture, below right). My concerns about the build quality do not end with the cosmetics. The pots wobble to an alarming degree, and while I accept that there are 30-year-old Buchlas still working out there, I admit to concerns about the reliability and longevity of the 200e's controls. In the same vein, Buchla has maintained his time-honoured habit of differentiating between audio signals and control signals (as explained in the 'Making Connections' box overleaf) by using 3.5mm sockets for the former and banana sockets for the latter. The banana sockets require a significant amount of force to insert and remove the plugs, which ensures a good connection, but I just feel that, if I push or pull at an angle, something is going to snap. This makes me nervous. Round the back, each boat has two cut-outs for I/O sockets. On the lowest boat, both cut-outs are covered with blanking plates. The middle boat has one cut-out blanked off, but the second offers MIDI In and a second presumably MIDI Thru socket. I say 'presumably', because neither is marked. There's also a small, blanked-off and unmarked space for a third socket. I suspect that this is for USB, because it lies behind the Model 225e MIDI/USB Decoder module, but once again, there's no legending. The uppermost boat also has one cut-out blanked off, but the second offers four quarter-inch audio signal outputs and a female XLR microphone input (shown opposite). You only get these if you have the Model 227e System Interface Module installed. If it is not, you have to use 3.5mm frontpanel sockets as outputs. There has been some concern expressed on the Internet about the electrical specifications of the 200e, and its ability to interface with other modular synths. This is well founded; the 200e's pitch CV scaling conforms to neither the common 1V-per-octave or Volt-per-Hz standards. To maintain compatibility with the original System 200s, the scaling is a little less than 1.2V-per-octave, so you're not going to be able to take a pitch CV from the 200e and use it to drive other manufacturers' synths, nor vice versa. Indeed, if you don't have the 200e's own MIDI/CV converter, you're going to find it very difficult to play conventional melodies on this synthesizer. Happily, the other voltages lie in standard regions. Control voltages and timing pulses are +5V (signals with sustain) and +10V (transients only), and summed audio signals peak at around 10V peak-to-peak, so these should be compatible with most other manufacturers' devices. However, the 200e's 'wall-wart' power supply is rated at just 12V, which means that notwithstanding the depth of the boats the 200e is not as compatible with Series 200 modules as many people first thought. That's because some of the original 200 modules ran off 15V rails. Indeed, Buchla's web site admits that the 200 and 200e are only compatible with 'some physical constraints, and occasional power supply restrictions'. Analogue or Digital? The ability to patch the 200e as a conventional, analogue, modular synthesizer does not mean that it is a conventional, analogue, modular synth. The documentation describes the 200e as an analogue synthesizer because, as it states, "we are describing the aspect that the user contacts as analogue". In other words, because the 200e presents you with knobs and analogue patch points, it's an analogue synthesizer. Many people have great difficulty accepting this, and I count myself as one of them. As Buchla admits, the sound generation itself is an ad hoc mix of analogue and digital techniques, and the use of it was to some extent determined by economic factors, as well as by the obsolescence of some of the components used in the original 200-series modules. Take the 259e Complex Waveform Generators as an example. Buchla states that 'there are no compelling reasons to employ analogue circuitry in the oscillators', so both oscillators within a 259e are digital. In essence, only their controls and outputs are analogue. The same is true for the 260e Shepard tone generator and the various S&H sources in the 266e Source Of Uncertainty. In contrast, many of the remaining modules use digital control signals coupled to analogue signal paths.

These facts alone are enough to cause paroxysms in analogue purists, but what limited information that exists about the digital side of the implementation also concerns me. That's because, while Buchla claims that there is no zipper noise in the 200e, he stated some time ago that control parameters are quantised at between eight and 12 bits, depending upon their purposes. The FAQ page on Buchla's web site states that the range of resolutions in the ADCs and DACs in the 200e is six to 16 bits, but I understand that the 16-bit converters are used only for audio signal conversion, not CVs. Anyway, although 12 bits are adequate for many functions, they may be insufficient for others. To illustrate this, consider the example of two oscillators tuned to almost, but not exactly the same pitch. The differences in beat speeds between subtle degrees of detune is extremely important when creating 'chorused' timbres and, depending upon how demanding you are, even 12-bit resolution could be insufficient for adequate control over such sounds. As regular readers of SOS will know, I'm not an analogue purist. Provided that it's advanced enough, I don't think that the use of digital technology in the audio path is anything to be ashamed about, especially when it offers sound-generation opportunities that would not otherwise be possible. Consequently, I'm mystified as to why Buchla who has been designing digital oscillators since the Model 500 in 1971, and who seems willing to use the most appropriate technology for the task would seek to obfuscate the issue by describing the 200e as 'straight analogue synthesis'. Patching & Routing What's not apparent until you start to use the 200e is that there are 14 busses within the synth, some provided as patch points, and others running between the modules and boats along cables tucked away within the chassis. You manage and control these from the upper panels on the Model 225e MIDI/USB Decoder. This is, for most purposes, the heart of the synth. Ten of the busses provide voltages derived from MIDI/CV conversion, and all of these appear on banana-socket outputs on the face of the 225e. Those named E, F, G and H are transposable note busses that respond to individually user-defined MIDI channels and velocity curves, and each offers pitch, velocity and gate outputs. The other six (J, K, L, M, N and P) each provide the analogue equivalent (with a zero to +10V range) of two user-selected controllers derived from the channel chosen for each. Unfortunately, although aftertouch is one of the menu options, it does not seem to be functional on this system. Indeed, there seem to be a number of unfinished functions and bugs in the review unit the manual even admits that 'MIDI is only partially implemented. We'll finish soon.'

The other four busses (A, B, C and D) are not accessible via patch points but, with all the appropriate Remote Enable switches on, are hard-wired to their destinations, conveying (on the

SOS review configuration) pitch information to the four 259e modules, velocity information to the A, B, C and D sockets on both 292e modules respectively, and Gate signals to the A, B, C and D sockets on both 281e modules respectively. In many ways, these busses are the keys to the 200e, because they cause the oscillators to track incoming MIDI notes, they trigger the contour generators, and they provide velocity information to the combined filter/amplifier modules. They should also respond to pitch-bend messages, but, again, this would appear not to be implemented yet. Of course, you won't get a peep out of the 200e unless you patch its modules together (the bussing provides only the converted MIDI control signals, not the sounds and CVs themselves) but with the busses set up correctly and the right connections between the modules, you're in business. For example... Given that you can set each of A, B, C and D to an independent MIDI channel, and that this 200e system incorporates four primary oscillators, eight contour generators and eight filter/amplifier pairs, it's simple to patch it as four independent monophonic synthesizers. Alternatively, set each of the A, B, C and D busses to the same MIDI channel and to 'Poly', and incoming notes will be distributed correctly to the oscillator/contour/amplifier sets of modules, which you can then mix into a conventional four-voice polysynth. Once you've done so, you'll be able to develop sounds that are unlike anything you'll obtain from any simple, integrated MIDI synthesizer.

Making Connections One significant difference between Buchla's approach and that of Bob Moog was his separation of the signals used in synthesis into three distinct classes. First, there were the audio signals, which could be generated by oscillators, or injected into the system from devices such as microphones or tape machines. Secondly, there were the control voltages. Finally, there were timing pulses, which we nowadays call clocks, gates, and triggers. By today's standards, the audio levels were quite low (about 1V peak-to-peak) and the CVs and pulses were rather hot, with a maximum voltage of around 15V, but the strangest thing about them was that Buchla used different types of sockets for each class, so that you couldn't interconnect them. In contrast, Moog saw every signal as simply a signal, without differentiation, and it was this approach that would later become the overriding model of analogue, subtractive synthesis. While Buchla accepted that there were advantages to the non-differentiation of sounds and the signals controlling them, he justified his approach on engineering grounds: specifically, that if a signal has to work in both ways, the circuitry has to be a compromise. For example, he suggested that DC offset is irrelevant in the audio domain a view that I don't necessarily accept but is important in the control domain. Conversely, he stated, a certain amount of harmonic distortion is largely irrelevant in the control domain, but has obvious consequences in the audio domain. Those arguments have some merit, but his assertion that using two types of sockets and cords made it easier to see what was going on is, to me at least, more questionable. On the 200e, the CV and timing sockets are colour-coded as follows: the CV inputs are black and grey, and the CV outputs are blue, violet, and green. The pulse inputs are orange, and the pulse outputs are red. There seem to be no differences between the colours used for CV inputs, and between those used for CV outputs, so I suspect that the multiple colours were chosen for nothing more than aesthetic reasons. 225e MIDI/USB Decoder As discussed last month, the 225e is the heart of the 200e, converting MIDI information to analogue control signals and then supplying these by patch cable and buss to the dozens of destinations in the synth. The Preset Manager in the 225e is also capable of saving and recalling the values of most (but not all) of the knob and switch values in the system modules with an 'e' in their names. The method is a bit clunky, because you have to 'Remote Enable' the connection in each of the modules whose values are to be saved or loaded, and it's important to know which

values are not stored, so that you can jot down their values manually. And of course, the 225e has no way of knowing which cables are inserted, so it can't provide a true patch memory system. If you fancy patching the 200e in a single, unchanging configuration, and using the 210e Control and Signal Router (see page 153) to control a limited number of CV sources and destinations in the same manner as an integrated synth with routing switches, you can get closer to saving and recalling sounds in their entirety, but only by sacrificing the flexibility of patching freely from anywhere to anywhere. Nevertheless, the Preset Manager is a big step forward from no memories at all. You can name and store up to 30 presets, and select them using the last/next buttons on the panel. You can also step through them by presenting timing pulses to the associated inputs. This could allow sounds to switch themselves to the next (or the previous) patch in a sequence! The final set of facilities in the 225e is called Global, and handles functions such as formatting memory cards, saving to them and recalling presets from them. Unfortunately, the cards seem to be proprietary. With USB memory so cheap and easily obtained, I am surprised that Buchla didn't adopt this approach. 259e Complex Wave Generator The four 259e modules in the lower boat are the guts of the 200e, each including a Principal Oscillator and a Modulation Oscillator, or Mod Osc. Let's start with the Principal Oscillator... In the bottom right of the module, you'll find a coarse tuning knob calibrated from 27.5Hz (MIDI note A1) to 7040Hz (MIDI note A9), giving it a huge tuning range of eight octaves. This is echoed by the 4 octave transpose range offered by each of the internal busses, which override the position of the tuning knob if you control the 259e via MIDI. Beneath the tuning knob, there's a 3.5mm (audio) FM input with an amplitude control knob, plus a CV input with a bi-polar amplitude knob. If you're playing conventional melodies using a MIDI keyboard, you need use these only for effects, because the 200e's internal busses take care of standard pitch control duties and, when controlled by one of these, a 259e tracks very well. The final control in this section is a tiny, unmarked knob for fine-tuning. Although the only waveform generated by the Principal is a digitally generated sine wave (the first of the waveforms shown in the box on page 154), this is passed down two signal paths ('green' and 'red') with eight waveshaping positions, whereupon it is either passed unmolested to the output (position 1) or warped into more complex shapes (positions 2 to 8). The amount of warp for each position is determined by the Warp knob, and the mix of the green and red channels is determined by the Morph knob. Both of these controls can be modulated by dedicated CV inputs, and the amount of Warp and Morph modulation can be determined independently by the adjoining bi-polar amplitude controls. Setting Morph to one extreme or the other and sweeping Warp (as I did to create the waveforms shown on page 154) demonstrates that the sounds generated by the positions are very different from one another, and very different from the positions in the other channel, with the 'red' timbres typically having the less complex harmonic structures. When testing the 259e in this fashion, it soon became apparent that it sounds nothing like a conventional analogue oscillator. In stark contrast, it sounds like nothing so much as a wavetable synthesizer being swept though its more esoteric tables. It even generates a significant amount of aliasing if you play the more complex waves at high pitches. This is not surprising. As far as I can gather, the 259e uses waveshaping tables to distort the initial sine wave into all its other waveforms, with the Warp knob controlling the position in the tables. As you can imagine, the sonic complexity offered by two warpable, mixable waveforms is immense, but that's far from the whole story, because alongside the Principal, there's the Mod Oscillator. This has a low-frequency range from 0.25Hz to 64Hz, but also offers the same audio range as the Principal; eight octaves from A1 to A9. Like the Principal, this too has FM and CV

inputs with amplitude control knobs, and it has a Pitch Track option that connects it to the appropriate buss (A, B, C or D, depending upon which 259e you're adjusting). This means that each 259e module in the system is a true audio-frequency dual-oscillator device. What's more, the Mod Oscillator generates its LFO waveforms sawtooth, square and triangle waves in the audio domain, so you could use it (at least in theory) to generate 'analogue' timbres that are hard to obtain from the Principal. However, there's a caveat; the Mod Osc aliases like crazy when used in this way (once again, see the box on page 154 for more on this). The Mod Osc can be directed internally to any combination of the Principal Oscillator's pitch, Warp and Morph, and can do so in either range, so you can create modulations ranging from gentle vibrato to outlandish screams of harmonic anguish, without a patch cord anywhere in sight. The amount of modulation is determined by the Modulation Index knob, and this can itself be modulated using the associated CV input and bi-polar amplitude control. The only facility I've yet to mention on the 259e is Sync. At the touch of a button, the Mod Osc can be hard- or soft-sync'ed to MIDI Clock or to the Principal Oscillator. The first of these is useful for reinitialising low-frequency modulation to keep tempo with MIDI-sequenced music. The second allows you to produce those instantly recognisable sync lead and bass patches. Finally, at the top of the module lie four outputs. These comprise two identical audio outputs for the Principal, plus a CV output and an audio output (which carry the same signal) for the Mod Osc. There's nothing stopping you from taking these outputs and feeding them back to the inputs on the same 259e to generate yet more radical (and usually cacophonous) sounds.

292e Quad Dynamics Manager The 292e is a combined VCA/VCF module offering four devices called A, B, C and D in deference to their internal connections to the busses of the same names. There are three modes of operation VCA-only, low-pass VCF only, and combined VCA/VCF and the response for each device is determined by the CV inputs to the left of the module. Further control is provided by Velocity CV inputs, and the Remote Enable connects this to the MIDI velocity on busses A to D if desired. The only knob per channel is an Initial Gain control that passes signal unimpeded from input to output. You'll notice that there aren't any filter Cutoff Frequency and Resonance knobs. This isn't the only way in which the 200e fails to conform to the 'accepted' model of analogue synthesis, as we'll see. 281e Quad Function Generator Back in 1969, EMS confused UK synthesists by introducing a module that they called a 'Trapezoid'. This was a contour generator that provided Attack, On, Release, and Off stages or, when cycling, a range of low-frequency waves shaped by the Attack and Release values. The 281e is simply four such trapezoid contour generators. Shaping a contour is achieved using just two knobs, Attack and Decay (which I would call Release). Both of these can also be adjusted using CVs. Three modes are provided ASR, AR, and repeating AR, independently selectable for each trapezoid and the output appears at each generator's blue socket. The red outputs provide timing pulses at the end of each contour or, when cycling, at the end of each cycle. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The four contour generators again called A, B, C and D are arranged as two pairs that are capable of generating more complex contours. There are two architectures for doing this. Firstly, you can use the logic in the lower right-hand corner to mix the A&B (and C&D) trapezoids to create four-stage ADSR and five-stage AD1D2SR-type curves. It does this by allowing you to create a transient on (say) A, followed by an attenuated sustained section on B. Buchla's system (which he calls an 'Or') then determines the highest voltage at any given moment and presents this to the output (see the top two diagrams on the opposite page). Unfortunately, the attenuation levels for B and D are not stored in a 225e preset, so alas, you cannot store these contours as part of your patches. The second method for creating complex contours is called 'Quadrature Mode', and is accessed by pressing the 'A-B' and/or 'C-D' buttons in the lower left of the module. In this mode, the linked pairs operate as follows (using 'A-B' as an example). Firstly, the A buss is triggered, and A enters its Attack phase. When this is completed, A remains at its maximum level, and B begins its Attack.

When this is completed, everything is sustained (when in Sustain mode) or A begins its Decay (when in Transient mode) while B maintains its maximum level. B then begins its Decay. At the end of all of this, if A is in Cyclic mode, the entire process repeats ad infinitum.

Two 281e contours, one an AR transient, the other an ASR sustain.

Summing the two contours while attenuating B by 50 percent.

Two dissimilar 281e ASR contours, A and B.

Summing A and an offset version of B to create a new contour.

Buchla & Associates describe this algorithm as having the two contour generators 90 degrees out of phase with one another. That's not as daft as it seems; there are four stages, and B lags A by one stage. In the lower two diagrams opposite, you can see what happens in a simple case, and the contour that you obtain if you stack the CV outputs of A and B. Happily, the straightforward trapezoid contours, quadrature contours and Or contours are available simultaneously (with some logical restrictions), making each 281e enormously flexible once you get your head around what's going on. The 281e's fastest attack is quoted as a remarkable 1ms, and my tests verify this. I passed highfrequency noise through a VCA 'blipped' by one of the contour generators in Transient mode, with Attack and Decay set to 0. The VCA was open for a total of around 190 milliseconds, with an almost instantaneous Attack. The Decay took much longer in total it dropped back to zero in around 15ms, but took another 140ms to settle. I suspect that this profile is generated not by the contour generator, but is the response of the VCA in the 292e. Either way, this was surprising... so I duplicated the test, passing a high-frequency audio wave through one channel of a 292e in VCAonly mode. This verified the earlier result; patches shaped by a 281e and a 292e combine an extremely snappy attack with a much more sluggish release. The Manual If there's one thing that annoys me about the 200e, it's the manual. At just 22 pages of loose-leaf text, this is like the synth itself densely packed, with a surprising amount of information in such a small space. But it offers no help to the novice, and even expert users will have to try to work out what's happening. You don't expect to have to take a voltmeter, oscilloscope or spectrum analyser to your $20,000 synthesizer just to find out how to use it, nor should you have to!

291e Triple Morphing Filter The 259e, 292e and 281e module together provide superlative waveform possibilities and flexible contouring, but very basic filtering, so it's no surprise to find that the 200e has another filter module. As its name suggests, the 291e (shown overleaf) contains three digitally controlled analogue band-pass filters, with control over centre frequency, amplitude and bandwidth, the last two of which imitate the resonance of traditional band-pass filters, but without self-oscillation. You can pass signals independently to the A, B and C filters (not to be confused with the busses of the same names) and treat the 291e as three (mostly) separate filters with independent outputs. You can also pass the same signal through all three filters using the All input, using the 291e as a three-band formant filter. If that description seems straightforward, the reality isn't. Notwithstanding the method of selecting the nodes to edit them, and of keeping track of which filter is doing what to which signal, the 291e is a fiendish module that some are going to love, and others will hate. This is because each filter offers eight snapshots that you can jump between (for sample & hold-type effects) or morph between (for dynamic filtering effects). Numerous ways of moving between these stages are provided, and the ability to sequence filter parameters is interesting. But if you take a step back and analyse what's happening, the amount of control that you have over each filter frequency, width, amplitude, and step time is little more than you can obtain by applying CVs to the centre frequency and resonance of a conventional band-pass filter. Even the various morph modes one-shot, looping and so on are nothing more than you can obtain by applying appropriate CVs to the traditional filter. Perhaps in deference to this, each of the three filters in each 291e has CV inputs plus global modulation inputs (which are, strangely, on 3.5mm sockets) and these CVs can be directed to any combination of frequency modulation, bandwidth modulation and amplitude modulation. You can achieve interesting effects by combining the internal morphing with external control (and, in particular, voltage control of the morphing!) but I'd have to question how musically valid the results are. I have three more points to make about the 291e. Firstly, the maximum filter frequency is quoted as a little over 4kHz. You can't view this in the same way as a low-pass filter with a maximum cutoff of 4kHz, but it still places constraints on the range of effects that you can obtain. Secondly, the quantisation of the filter frequencies is clearly audible when you control them using the Freq knob, and the only way to fine-tune the filters is to apply static CVs. Thirdly, two aspects of the 291e escape me even now: how to use the 'expand input', and how to adjust the individual stage times for each filter. The manual states that you can do these things, but it doesn't tell you how! Making a pair of formant filters the primary sound shapers in the 200e is a bold move, and in some areas, it extends the synth's palette far beyond what traditional high-pass and low-pass filters can achieve. But you can't live forever on the esoteric, and sometimes sausages and mash is preferable to the finest gourmet cuisine. 259e Waveforms The waveforms reproduced in this box give you some idea of how far removed the sound generation in the 200e is from that of an analogue synthesizer. The first (top left) shows the unadulterated sine wave obtained from either the green or red channels of a 259e Principal Oscillator in position 1. The next (top right) shows the output from the green channel, in position 4, with the Warp control set to 0. The considerably different third waveform (bottom left) shows the same output, this time with Warp set to 10. These last two were measured at the same audio frequency, although the perceived octave differed depending upon the strength of the harmonics present at different Warp settings. The final waveform trace (above) shows the sawtooth wave output by the Mod Osc. Though this seems like a perfect sawtooth, the square wave from the Mod Osc is very unlike an ideal square wave; it generates numerous additional enharmonic components, and sounds harsh and metallic as a result.

260e Pitch Class Generator The 260e (shown opposite) is perhaps the oddest module in the 'e' family. It comprises two 'Pitch Class Oscillators' that generate the same pure note (a digitally generated sine wave) in all the octaves of the audible spectrum. You can modulate the pitches of these using standard CV inputs and audio FM inputs, each with its associated Amplitude control. Below these lies an in-line fiveband graphic EQ, and the output from this provides the raw material for the mis-named 'Escher's Barber Shoppe'. Mixing two metaphors the rotating barber's pole that continually spirals upwards but never ascends, and MC Escher's visual paradox of the never-ending staircase this takes the equalised pitch class signals and generates a number of audio paradoxes from them, the most famous of which is the Shepard Tone. This tone, which sounds like a rising (or falling) pitch that never actually climbs (or descends) has been used on numerous recordings, but it strikes me as strange that anyone would use an expensive module location (and, for that matter, an expensive module) to obtain it. Having said that, the 260e is elegant, and it offers numerous alternatives on the same theme, including continuous glide, chromatic glissando with up to 24 divisions per octave, and variable rate. The only restriction appears to be that you cannot use the FM or pitch CVs simultaneously with the barber pole effect. One other facility deserves mention; when set to either of the quantised modes, pulse outputs fire on each pitch step. You can use these pulses to control other modules (such as contour generators) which can then further modify the basic effects being generated. It's all very flexible. Unfortunately, the review 260e had a fault; it created a thump at the end (or start, depending upon how you look at it) of every cycle, rendering it useless for its intended function. 266e Source Of Uncertainty When I first saw the name of this module, I wondered why a noise generator could not simply be called a noise generator. But the 266e has four noise and sample & hold sections, and far more control than is offered by any conventional noise generator, so its name is justified. The uppermost section is the simplest, simultaneously offering white, pink and red noise. Below this, the Fluctuating Random Voltages provide two channels (A and B) of unquantised, low-speed fluctuations, with the rate of change of each affected by dedicated knobs and CV inputs. Next come two channels (C and D) of Quantised Random Voltages. These require pulses to change state, and you can determine the number of states from 2 to 24 as well as the statistical distribution of the randomness obtained. To describe the voltage randomness in the simplest terms, a flat distribution means that all states are equally likely, so extreme voltages are just as likely as small ones. At the other end of the scale, a 'bell' curve means that the likeliness of a state is (roughly speaking) inversely proportional to its deviation from the centre, resulting in a 'tighter' sounding range. The time distribution seems to do a similar thing in the time domain, determining how likely a given state is by considering how long it has been since it last occurred. I should mention that the outputs at C and D are different from one another, even though the parameters controlling them are common. The fourth and final panel in the 266e is called 'Stored Random Voltages with voltage controlled probability distribution'. This is similar to the Quantised Random Voltages, but the voltages are not quantised, and you can determine the maximum spread of the output voltages, the distribution, and the degree of skew from favouring low voltages to favouring high ones. In short, far from being a footnote in the 200e family, the 266e is an excellent module that offers far more than you might think. 210e Control & Signal Router Up to this point, I've said little about patching the 200e, but this is a hugely important aspect of its operation, and the strongest weapon in its armoury is the 210e. This has two, independent sections (audio and CV) and allows you to make up to 80 connections using two 5x8 matrices.

To use the CV section, you connect the CVs that you want to use to the eight inputs on the left of the module. Second, you connect the five outputs to the destinations of your choice. Having done so, you can make a connection between an input and an output (say, #5 input to #3 output) by stepping across and down the matrix and then turning the Level knob once you have reached the desired 'co-ordinate'. Not only is the signal routed as you wish, but you can scale it from minus infinity to unity gain. You might think this would save on patch spaghetti, but it doesn't. In fact, you need more cables than you would if you patched directly from each source to each destination. However, it allows you to direct one CV to multiple destinations without the dreaded voltage droop that occurs when you stack banana plugs one upon the other. Better still, the routings and levels within the 210e can be stored as part of a 225e Preset so, with a bit of luck and lots of forward planning, you can make all the connections for a particular sound at the touch of a button. Buchla's marketing blurb states that if you route more than one input CV to a single output, the 210e acts as another logical 'Or', selecting the highest voltage and transmitting this to the destination. But my tests showed that the output was the sum of the scaled inputs, and this is far better, because it allows you to sum CVs without side-effects. The audio section works in the same way, except that the maximum gain for each connection is +10dB rather than unity. The fact that you can mix scaled audio signals means that the 210e not only acts as a powerful router, but as an even more powerful 'matrix' mixer. This allows you (for example) to direct one percentage of signal A and another of signal B to output 1, while at the same time directing a third percentage of A and a fourth percentage of signal B to output 2. Excellent stuff! 227e System Interface The final element in the audio path is the 227e (shown opposite), a mixer and output module that allows you to position your sounds in a quadraphonic soundfield. Each of the four primary channel inputs (1, 2, 3 and 4) can be mixed to the four outputs (A, B, C and D again!), each of which has dual 3.5mm outputs at the top of the module, as well as a quarter-inch output on the back of the boat. The 227e provides dynamic panning from left to right and front to back, as well as 'Swirl', which rotates the signal clockwise or anticlockwise, and allows you to determine the amount of channel separation so that you can control the amplitude of the effect. Master volume controls are provided for the front and rear pairs, as are two-channel EQs. These provide a maximum of 15dB of gain at either extreme, and also allow you to tilt the overall spectral response by up to 12dB in favour of high frequencies, or up to 18dB in favour of low frequencies. A further four inputs (A to D again!) exist in a separate sub-mixer. You can direct these straight to the four primary outputs, whereupon 1 and A are summed, 2 and B are summed, and so on. You can also direct the mixed output to the destination of your choice by patching. There are two further facilities: a stereo headphone output that allows you to monitor the front or rear pair, and a mic preamp with an XLR input mounted on the rear of the upper boat. This offers three gains 10dB, 25dB, and 40dB and in addition to line-level outputs, has an envelope follower that generates a standard CV. 249 (DArF) Buchla & Associates describe this module (shown overleaf) as 'two multi-segment function generators drawing from a parallel database', which is in itself enough to discourage purchasers. OK, so it's a complex and sophisticated module, but why not call a sequencer a sequencer?

Put more simply, the 249 DArF (Dual Arbitrary Function Generator) provides two rows of 24 steps, each with two programmable pitch CVs and pulse outputs. However, despite the claims that the four CVs generated by the sequencer are internally connected to the four 259e oscillators, I can find no way to make the module in this system drive them without patch cords. This is irritating, because the pitch tracking of a 259e when responding to its CV inputs is less precise than when it's driven by the internal busses. Given the lack of the letter 'e' in the 249 name, I wondered whether a module from the original 1970s Series 200 had been installed by mistake, but there was no 249 back then, only a 248, and it looked nothing like this. It beats me. Overlooking this, you'll find that programming simple sequences using the centre section of the 249 is relatively straightforward. You can determine the pitches of each pair of CVs, determine the duration of each step, and create loops with a defined number of repetitions. You can ask any step in the sequence to glide from one value to the next, and to jump to any other step, either as an absolute value or relative to where you are in the sequence. You can even set a probability of a jump occurring, thus creating quasi-random sequences using the determined notes. The true complexity of the 249 starts to become apparent when you invoke the Stage Select, Status and Time Scaling panels to each side of the main section, the External Inputs at the bottom, and the more esoteric logic and timing functions. You can do things such as enable steps only when a pulse is present at an appropriate input, or only when the pulse is absent, or use the external CV inputs to determine the pitch and timing, or as multipliers for other pitch and timing values... and so on. Most confusing, perhaps, is the Stage Select, which provides numerous ways to force a sequence to a particular step. Of these, the one I found most intriguing was the X/Y option, which allows you to apply one CV to move a sequence 'vertically' and another CV to move it 'horizontally'. In doing so, you can create all manner of cyclic, discontinuous sequences, some of which appear to be random whilst actually operating to well-defined rules. If you're wondering what all this is for, I found an interesting use in synthesizing the character of a picked guitar. I set all the notes in the sequence to those of a six-note chord and then used the X/Y inputs to fire the steps in different orders. By moving some of the notes onto different CV rows and outputting them to different oscillators, I could envelope the sounds in interesting ways and recreate the feel of strumming. I then extended the idea by using the output pulse at the end of a given number of repetitions to demand a new preset from the 225e Preset Manager, thus changing chords and the voicing of some or all of the destinations while the sequence was playing. The possibilities were enormous, but I'm not sure whether it was worth it, because the amount of work involved was horrendous. There's much, much more in the 249, and some users are going to love it. But I fear that it crosses the boundary from musical instrument to educational tool. You may feel differently, but I'm prepared to bet you're not going to sit down in front of the 249 and bash out a quick sequence the first time you use one. The Sound Of The 200e If you think that $20,000 is going to buy you the equivalent of five Moog Voyagers (let alone 10 vintage Minimoogs, or 60 second-hand SH101s) you're in for a big disappointment. In fact, it won't buy you the equivalent of one of these, because that's not what Buchla synths do. Patching what you might consider to be a typical analogue lead synth sound on the 200e, a task which would take me a minute or so on a conventional analogue synth, took about an hour, because the 200e simply isn't designed to produce those kind of sounds. This tells you something important; if you want conventional synth sounds, buy a conventional synth! But on the other hand... when I took the patch cord out of the Mod Osc and stuffed it into the output of the Principle Oscillator alongside it, I immediately obtained gritty, harsh, PPG-esque timbres that would be impossible to obtain from a conventional analogue synth. Adjustment of the wave position and the amount of Warp generated all manner of excellent sounds, ranging from almost acoustic to almost percussion, to almost analogue, to almost something you've never quite

heard before. Now the situation was reversed, and I was obtaining serendipitous sounds that even if possible would have taken forever to patch on a conventional modular synth. While I was doing this, I discovered that I preferred the results if I disconnected the signal passing through the morphing filter, connected another 259e (or two, or three) and experimented instead with dynamic control of the various Warps and Morphs. This made me realise something very important about the underlying philosophy of the 200e. The best way to approach it is to forget the conventional VCO/VCF/VCA model of analogue synthesis, and to start to think in terms of harmonic modulation, waveshaping and mixing, rather than filtering. In the Buchla universe, the absence of resonant low-pass filters is not a problem (any more than it is, say, on a Synclavier II), and we can view the triple filters as powerful effectors rather than fundamental components of the signal path. Casting aside the acquired skills and preconceptions learned over 30 years of programming and playing modular analogue synths isn't easy when you're sitting in front of a modular analogue synth, but once I had accomplished it, the 200e and I finally started to make friends with one another. Price & Prejudice It's impossible to review something costing $20,000 without being aware of the huge amount of alternative equipment that this could buy. But is the 200e really that expensive? If you carefully consider what it might cost to purchase a modular synth with similar features from elsewhere, as I have done with a number of other modular manufacturers, the Buchla can almost seem cheap. But such comparisons are hard to make, not least because there are so many features in the 200e that have no close equivalents in any other manufacturers' systems. Furthermore, the sound and character of any alternative system will be totally different from that of the Buchla. There's also no sensible way to place a value on the amazing portability and convenience of the 200e, nor on the immediacy of alternatives from Analogue Systems, Doepfer, MOTM, or whomsoever. Given the feature-count in the 200e, it seems almost impertinent to ask if anything is missing, but it is a valid question. I'm not going to cry out for a classic Moog filter that simply isn't part of the Buchla model but the lack of inverters is a pain and, while the 266e is excellent, I think the synth would benefit from at least one genuine Sample & Hold (to be fair, you can force the 249 to act as a S&H, but that's an extremely expensive way to obtain a basic facility). I feel that the 200e would also benefit hugely from a CV converter that produces precise 1V-peroctave pitch CV inputs and outputs for interfacing with other analogue synths, but since this is not on the horizon, the thing that I would add to the review configuration is another 210e Signal Router. The mixing and patching facilities of the one already installed proved to be very useful and, happily, the 225e will support two of them. Ultimately though, all this speculation is pointless, because there's nowhere left to squeeze anything in, unless you dispense with existing modules or purchase yet further Buchla boats and modules. Conclusions The 200e is a highly unusual synth, born of one man's creative vision, and his unswerving refusal to embrace commerciality. As such, it commands great respect. But I suspect that that will be irrelevant to some potential owners who will view the 200e as a status symbol or a piece of technological art. Others will see it as an object of ultimate synth lust. Here's my final thought. If you want the Buchla experience, you need a Buchla, and the only Buchla in production is the 200e. It's as simple as that.

Modules
200e synthesizer platform includes several modules that roughly correspond to the canonical analog synthesizer's ones:

Voltage-controlled oscillator: 259e, 260e, 261e Voltage-controlled filter: 291e, 292e, 297 Voltage-controlled amplifier: 227e, 292e Envelope generator: 222e, 225e, 249e, 250e, 266e, 281e Low frequency oscillator: 259e, 261e, 266e, 281e Ring modulator: ??? Sequencer: 249e, 250e, 266e Mixer: 210e, 227e

But the Buchla 200e modules were not designed to fit perfectly into these categories. Rather, each module implements and crosses category boundaries according to Buchla's vision of analog sythesis. The synthesizer sound basics entry offers a helpful introduction to understanding how to compose sound. With that as background, there are two ways to think about making sounds with the 200e: the electronic view and the sonic view.

The electronic view represents three networks: the audio network (which results in the ultimate audio signal that is actually heard), the continuous control voltage network (where voltages ranging from zero to 10 volts DC represent the full scale of all parametric values), and the pulse network (which conveys transient and sustain information). The sonic view is that sound is perceived as having a characteristic pitch (or not in the case of noise), a characteristic timbre, and a characteristic sound that notes have when played and released. This view can be represented as a sonic pipeline that starts with an oscillator (or noise) feeding a filter (timbre) contained in an envelope (attack, decay, sustain, and release or ADSR).

Taken together, the electronic view allows us to explore the sonic properties of networks we can construct with the hardware available, while the sonic view helps us focus on how to make the electronic connections necessary to realise a sound we have heard only in our minds.

Creating audio tones

Since both views begin with an oscillator, we will begin with a description of the primary modules for generating an initial pitch and timbre, the 259e and the 261e Complex Waveform Generator. Both the 259e and the 261e have two oscillators: a modulation oscillator and a principal oscillator (aka a carrier wave). The 259e can produce two distinct audio signals (one from each type of oscillator), while the 261e can also produce a pre-processed signal in each oscillator. The preprocessed signal of the 261e modulation oscillator is presented as a sine wave (i.e., before being shaped by the variable wave shaper), whereas the pre-processed signal from the 261e principal oscillator is presented after LFO modulation but before timbral modulation. Thus the 261e can generate a total of four distinct audio signals. As a control voltage, pitch on the 200e is represented as 1.2 V/octave (0.1 V/semitone). Since the 200e was designed to maintain 0.01 V accuracy, it means that tuning is within 10 cents. If we assume that 440 Hz/A5 is 5 V (the center of the 10 V control voltage scale), then the pitch control knob ranges from 27.5 Hz/A1 through 7040 Hz/A9 (see piano key frequencies) and voltages are as follows

A1 is 5 V - 4.8 V = 0.2 V A2 is 5 V - 3.6 V = 1.4 V A3 is 5 V - 2.4 V = 2.6 V A4 is 5 V - 1.2 V = 3.8 V A5 is 5 V A6 is 5 V + 1.2 V = 6.2 V A7 is 5 V + 2.4 V = 7.4 V A8 is 5 V + 3.6 V = 8.6 V

A9 is 5 V + 4.8 V = 9.8 V

There are two basic ways to control audio oscillator pitch for each oscillator, and there are differing rules for what works in what mode, but the math works something like this: and if pitch tracking (and remote enable) is off, then each oscillator of both modules implement Vpitch = Vfreq + CVin * CVscale By feeding MIDI pitch into the control voltage inputs it is possible to scale tuning from essentially flat (increases in MIDI pitch voltage are exactly offset by increased negative scaling of the control voltage) to 2 semitones per semitone of MIDI pitch. And with the 256e voltage control processor, additional stretch tunings can be achieved. Pitch need not be constant, as the vibrato entry teaches. The vibrato effect can be realized by modulating the principal oscillator with a low-frequency oscillator. The modulation oscillator of both the 259e and the 261e can be set between a range of 1/4 Hz and 64 Hz and both modules support an internal connection whereby the modulation oscillator can modulate the pitch of the principal operator by selecting the "pitch" MOD TYPE with no external cables are needed. But other LFO sources may be employed. See the Extra-Low LFO using the 281e section for information on constructing other LFOs. Pitch need also not also be constant as the portamento entry teaches. It would be wonderful if portamento were an intrinsic function of the 225e MIDI controller, not least because it would have the benefit of stable and reliable pitch. See the Portamento using the 266e and 256e entry in the Neat tricks section for details on how to work around this apparent limitation.

Creating initial timbre

259e
Once pitch has been established, timbre is next. The modulation oscillator of the 259e offers three baisc wave shapes: falling sawtooth, square, and triangle. As audio signals (the "hi" range of the modulation oscillator), these shapes have the timbre of a bowed violin string (sawtooth), a classic synth lead (square), and a woodwind instrument such as a clarinet (triangle). The principal oscillator of the 259e offers far more variety: a sine wave is used to drive two digital wave tables, which are called "red" and "green". The "morph" voltage pans between the two tables and the "warp" voltage controls the amplitude of the sine wave that drives the tables. (In Keyboard Magazine Jim Aikin's review of the 200e claims that warp produces higher overtones by sweeping more of the digital wavetable.) In both the red and the green tables, the first wave table is a simple sine wave (meaning that what goes in is what comes out, and that increasing the amplitude of the driving wave merely increases the amplitude of the resulting output wave). But waves 2 through 8 are different between red and green, and each one offers a palette of unique timbres. Moreover, it appears that the higher the warp factor the more high harmonic content is present in the resulting waveform. TODO: build a table of screenshots using xoscope images. TODO: Identify which Buchla wave sequence looks like the Shaper sequence of the K2600. Who is copying whom? Because the 259e uses digital wave tables, the output waves exhibit aliasing when used at frequencies above their nominal frequency. Aliasing artifacts are quite audible above 440 Hz in both the modulation and the principal oscillators, hence the 259e is likely best used for bass and low melody notes unless aliasing is a desirable feature of the timbre. Another source of aliasing can come from the way the oscillators are synchronized. When synchronized to MIDI note events, the oscillator waveform resets to its initial state when a note on event is received. If the waveform was near the peak of its amplitude when the note on event arrives, one may hear an audible "click" as the waveform resets to zero. (Such momentary aliasing can be eliminated by running the signal through an envelope with a non-zero attack value.) Similarly, if the modulation oscillator is

synchronized to the principal oscillator using "hard sync", then every time the principal oscillator completes a full wave cycle, the modulation oscillator is reset, regardless of where it was in its wave cycle. The aliasing caused by hard sync is periodic as opposed to momentary, hence it really affects timbre (usually making it sound hard or edgy). The "soft sync" option uses a phase-locked loop to bring the modulation oscillator into step with the principal oscillator without an abrupt discontinuity (or audible aliasing). The point is: among other factors, timbre is affected by aliasing effects. <it>Caveat approximator,</it>. The 259e has a special internal connection between the modulation oscillator and the principal oscillator. This connection is established by selecting one or more MOD TYPE connections and then adjusting the MODULATION INDEX (which seems to be another way of saying modulation amplitude). When the MOD TYPE is "freq" and the modulation oscillator runs in the audio range, the 259e acts as a dual operator FM synthesizer, albeit a very non-standard FM synthesizer. FM Synthesis is achieved by modulating the frequency of a carrier signal with a modulation signal that is harmonically related to it (usually the 1st, 2nd, or some other Nth harmonic). Sine waves present the most simple case: sine waves are fundamental tones, so the harmonic relationship between the two waves is precisely the relationship between the two fundamentals. A sawtooth, square, or triangle wave consists of a rich set of harmonics, which means that even if there is a simple harmonic relationship between the fundamental of a sawtooth modulator and a sinusoidal carrier wave, the relationship of all the other harmonics gets complicated very quickly. If the carrier wave is also a complex wave, the result is going to be "complex". Technically the 259e is capable of FM synthesis, but it is not capable of the most basic form of FM synthesis: a sine wave carrier modulated by a harmonically related sine wave. I concur with Jim Aikin that the FM synthesis using the 259e may be suitable for brash effects, but not mellow, bell-like tones.

261e
At this point we introduce the 261e, the other Complex Waveform Generator in the 200e line. The 261e modulation oscillator can generate a sine wave, and the 261e principal oscillator can also generate a sine wave, so that simple, "classic" FM synthesis can be accomplished using the 261e. (Indeed, when connecting the modulation and principal oscillators using the internal modulation bus, only the pre-processed sine wave is used regardless of the modulation oscillators wave shaping parameter.) And the 261e is 100% analog across its whole range, which eliminates a major source of aliasing that the 259e can produce. And the controls are a bit more intuitive, since all selections are based on a continuum of descriptive elements (rather than the obscure nature of "green 3" or "red 4" and the equally mysterious effect of warp on each). Indeed, by using the internal connection between the modulation oscillator and the principal oscillator, it is quite easy to dial up familiar FM tones from mellow to brassy. That's the good news. The bad news is that it is not obvious how to get similarly good-sounding results by routing the modulation oscillator output signal into the "fm in" signal input of the 261e (or the 259e for that matter). Instead of a pleasing FM tone, the sound gets really grainy as soon as the knob related to the "fm in" input is moved beyond its zero position. This is very unfortunate, because if this worked as expected, one could build some complex, but controlled, FM operators. I have found one workaround which suggests an error in design and/or implementation: by attenuating the modulation output (which can be accomplished by routing it through a 210e Control and Signal Router attenuating the connection a few clicks below unity), results are more in line with expectations. For now, absent any other information or known work-arounds, the best way to do conventional and controlled FM is to use the internal connections, which means that two-operator FM synthesis is the order of the day. Another source of confusion for me is why, when applying audio-rate frequency modulation to the principal oscillator, the pitch appears to go sharp or flat. I'd expect the pitch to remain stable and only the timbre to change. In any case, the principal oscillator of the 261e has three timbre-shaping parameters which are voltage controlled:

Timbre, which generates rich, analog overtones High Order, which seems to control something like a high-pass filter Symmetry, which seems to asymmetrically drive up the rising edges of the wave without affecting the falling edges. When Symmetry is applied turned up on a sine wave, it becomes a sawtooth wave.

260e
The Duophonic Pitch Class Generator (260e) generates its tones at all octaves, thus an "A" on the 260e generates sine waves at 27.5 Hz (A1), 55 Hz (A2), 110 Hz (A3), 220 Hz (A4), 440 Hz (A5), 880 Hz (A6), 1760 Hz (A7), 3520 Hz (A8), and 7040 Hz (A9). The timbre of such a tone sounds very much like a pipe organ with all ranks open. The 260e has a "barber pole" mode in which an internal computer controls both pitch class generators. One parameter controls how rapidly the pitch changes (+/- 2.5 octaves/sec) and the other controls the number of steps per octave (from 2 to 24; 2 steps per octave are tri-tones; 12 steps per octave is the familiar semitone scale; 24 steps per octave are quarter-tones). A mode setting controls whether the steps are continuous (portamento), quantized (ordered), or eccentric (randomly ordered). The 260e can also be used to generate Shepard tones which are best heard when wrapped in a staccato or marcato envelope. Such envelopes can be created using the 281e and 292e modules as illustrated below.

266e
The Source of Uncertainty (266e) generates white, pink, and blue noise--not a very controlled oscilator, but it is a generative source of an audio signal, albeit one without a pitch, so we introduce it here, though we will treat it in more detail elsewhere. Noise can be pitched by feeding it through one or more narrow band-pass filters.

Creating envelopes
With the basics of how to establish initial pitch and timbre introduced, we can now look at forging our tones into notes. When using only the audio generators by themselves, we can make continuous tones that have some distinguishing characteristics. But without distinctive beginnings and endings, we cannot really call these tones notes; drones, perhaps, but not notes. To make notes we need to have beginnings and endings. This takes us to the opposite end of the audio production chain: the envelope.

281e
In his pioneering work, Vladimir Ussachevsky established the concept of an envelope comprised of Attack, Decay, Sustain, and Release (or ADSR). The 281e Quad Function Generator makes it possible to create a variety of envelope models. To create a classic ADSR with individual control over each component, two Function Generators can be coupled as follows:

A Attack of X milliseconds (ms) D Decay of Y ms S Sustain level of Z% R Release of W ms Set the input mode of the A (resp. C) generator to single impulse. Set the input mode of the B (resp. D) generator to sustained impulse. Set the attack of both the A and B (resp. C and D) generators to X ms. Set the decay of the A (resp. C) generator to Y ms. Set the decay of the B (resp. D) generator to W ms. Wire the Pulse input of the A and B (resp. C and D) generators together.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. Set the OR output level for the A OR B (resp C OR D) to Z%.

The A OR B (resp. C OR D) output is the ADSR envelope function, and is driven by a pulse delivered to the A or B (resp. C or D) input. For the special case where the sustain level equals the attack peak (such as a pipe organ, i.e., there's no decay between attack and sustain), the sustain input mode suffices directly and no complex hookup is needed. Similarly, for the special case where there is no sustain, just attack and release (such as an acoustic guitar), the impulse input suffices directly. The Quadrature Mode, generators A and B (resp. C and D) operate in tandem as follows:
1. When a pulse is received, A (resp. C) transitions from low to high according to its Attack parameter 2. At the end of A's (resp. C's) attack, B (resp. D) transitions from low to high according to its Attack parameter 3. At the end of B's (resp. D's) attack, A (resp. C) transitions from high to low according to its Decay parameter 4. At the end of A's (resp. C's) decay, B (resp. D) transitions from high to low according to its Decay parameter

One use of quadrature mode is to implement delayed attack and delayed release (with the A (resp. C) generator implementing the delay parameters and the B (resp. D) generator providing the delayed attack and delayed decay envelopes). It is important to note that the Quad Function Generator operates solely on control voltages--they do not, themselves, alter the dynamics of an audio signal. To do this, the 292e Quad Dynamics Manager is needed. In its simplest mode as a VCA, this module controls the signal level of four separate audio signals (plus a mix of all four signals if that's useful) based on three separate control voltage parameters: a level parameter (such as the output of a Function Generator), an optional Velocity parameter (typically taken from the 225e MIDI Decoder), and a knob setting that can range from full off to full on (in which case the signal passes through unchanged). Thus, with three modules (or four if you want to decode MIDI notes into control voltage signals), one generating a tone, one generating an envelope, and one applying the envelope to the tone, we have the basics of an analog synthesizer than can play notes, albeit one at a time. It should also be obvious that we can implement tremolo by feeding the output of an LFO into either the level or velocity input of one of the Quad Dynamics control voltage input. Since control voltages sum when banana plugs are combined, tremelo can be added to circuits that already have both level and velocity assigned without using an additional dynamics control circuit.

249e and 250e as envelope generators

The 249e and 250e Arbitrary Function Generators can be used to create quite complex envelopes, with any combination of smooth and stepped stages, looping segments, etc. This may seem like overkill, but you would be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive envelope generator on any modular instrument.

Creating complex timbre using filters

Let us now return to timbre, something as intrinsic to audio tone as color is to light. We have already discussed using modules to create tones that have an initial timbre. And we have talked about carving notes from tones by using envelopes. We will now talk about carving "that sound" from timbre. In the documentary film Moog (film), Robert Moog talks about one of the greatest influences of the synthesizer on modern music: the sound of "wow" (say it slowly, w-o-w). The sound of "wow" (or

wah-wah) is perhaps the most cliched timbric modulation. It can be synthesized by applying a bandpass filter to a harmonically rich tone such as a sawtooth wave (sine waves need not apply!) and moving it from 200 Hz to 1000 Hz and back again. With the right filter parameters and the right envelopes driving the filters, we can perceive the production of a dynamic, shifting formant. This effect, which sounds almost linguistic, suddenly imparts a whole new dimension to the way we interpret the tone.

291e
The 200e has two modules that filter audio signals: the 291e Triple Morphing Filter and the previously mentioned 292e Quad Dynamics Controller. The 291e provides three bandpass filters that can operate separately or in parallel. It also provides a summing input so that multiple 291e modules can be ganged together. Filter frequency, bandwidth, and level are each controllable via voltage. The module allows up to eight different filter "snapshots" to be defined (a mini-sequencer) which it can then "morph" over time. To achieve the rhythmic pattern of dotted-quarter/eighth note ("da-- di da-- di da--") at a 4/4 tempo of 100 bpm, two stages are needed in a loop. The duration of the first stage is 3/2 * 1 * 60 / 100 = 0.90 seconds and the duration of the second stage is 1/2 * 60 / 100 = 0.30 seconds. The morphing filter will then update the parameters from the values set in the first stage to the values set in the second stage and repeat. Transitional options allow the filter parameters to "jump" from one setting to the next, otherwise they transition smoothly ("morph") during the stage. To make the transition smooth and still distinct, stages can be broken into two phases, a stable phase and a morphing phase. If we want the morph in the previous example to take place in the time of a 1/16th note, the four stages would be
1. 2. 3. 4. 0.90 - 0.15 seconds = 0.75 seconds 0.15 seconds 0.30 - 0.15 seconds = 0.15 seconds 0.15 seconds

The 291e also supports frequency modulation of each input which makes it possible to build both simple and complex FM operators. The fm circuit of the 291e is different than that of the 259e and 261e and less prone to aliasing. Combined with a 210e, the 291e supports the following FM algorithm constructs:

M -> C This is the basic FM operator, where the ratio of M and C are simple integers, usually N:1, but can be whatever you choose. The 291e can provide three such operators. (M1 + M2) -> C A complex parallel FM operator (requires a 210e to sum the modulation signals). The 291e can provide three such operators. M1 -> M2 -> C A complex series of FM operators. This requires two 291e inputs. (M1 + M2) -> M3 -> C A more complex series of FM operators. This requires two 291e inputs. M1 -> (M2 + M3) -> C A more complex series of FM operators. This requires two 291e inputs. M1 -> M2 -> M3 -> C Requires all three 291e inputs. This basic algorithm has numerous variations as M1, M2, and M3 can each be summed (or not) with additional modulation inputs.

Thus a 291e can be a powerful FM workstation independent of its filtering abilities.

292e
Bandpass filters are great for synthsizing formants, but two other filter types are also quite useful for creating "that sound" from a timbre: a low-pass filter and a high-pass filter. Consider the square wave which theoretically has an infinite number of only odd-order harmonics. If we want to "soften" the sound, we need to remove all the higher-order harmonics above whatever frequency we perceive as "harsh". For example, let's say that harmonics above 2.2 kHz are objectionable. For a square wave at A5, that's the 5th harmonic and above. For a square wave at A3, that's the 7th harmonic and above. For a square wave at A6, that's the 3rd harmonic and above. A low-pass filter can uniformly remove all offending high-frequency signals regardless of whether they are the 7th, 11th, or 13th harmonics, creating a greater consistency of tone than merely saying "let's just

compose a wave consisting of the 1st, 3rd, and 5th harmonics", which gets it wrong for the higher registers. The signal chain of the 292e Quad Dynamics Manager has a voltage-controlled low-pass filter that can operate in tandem with or instead of the VCA (aka gate). There appears to be no way to control the slope of the low-pass filter; it is fixed at 12db/octave. A popular enhancement to lowpass filters is resonance, which compensates (or overcompensates) for signal attenuation at the cutoff frequency. Since a resonant peak overlaid on a low-pass filter sounds a lot like a band-pass filter with some extra mojo, resonant low-pass filters have formant-forming qualities. The 292e does not support a resonance parameter, but the signal from a 292e can be added to a bandpassed signal from a 291e to create a similar effect. FIXME: how do we tune the two different modules so that we know the resonant peak and the low pass filter are really in agreement? FIXME: is there some trick way to combine the two audio signals without burning a column of the 210e? One way to achieve the effect of a high pass filter, other than possibly the warp control of the 259e and the timbre control of the 261e, is to mix together a lopass filtered signal with the original signal, with one of them inverted in polarity. Buchla mixers are a single inverting stage and therefore running one signal through the simple mixer on the 227e before mixing them together in the final mixer will make that happen. This is untested on a 200e, but has been proven on an original 200 system.

Neat tricks
4-pole LPF using 292e
I'm guessing that the 292e implements a 2-pole (aka second-order) LPF, but what if one wants a 4-pole LPF? Simple, just allocate 2 292e circuits, feed them with identical CV inputs, apply identical knob settings, feed the signal to be filtered into the first, the output of the first to the input of the second, and the output of the first will be a 4-pole LPF. If I'm wrong and the 292e just implements a first-order filter, the above will give the effect of a second-order filter and all four units will need to be connected to implement a fourth-order filter.

Portamento using the 266e and 256e

Here is a method I've discovered to jury rig a portamento effect by using the 266e Source of Uncertainty in a certain way. The basic idea is simple: since portamento is a glide between one pitch and another, we need a way to capture a pitch so that when a new pitch is played we can glide from the original pitch to the new target pitch. We do this by configuring the Stored Random Voltages section of the 266e as a Sample-and-Hold function: set "skew " to none (leftmost, not middlemost position) and "degree" and "chaos" to zero. The output of the Sample-and-Hold function is our original note (sort of) and the current MIDI pitch (as a control voltage) is the target pitch. To glide from one to the other, we put the two pitch voltages into the two source inputs of a 256e Control Voltage Processor circuit and use the output of a 281e Quad Function Generator to pan from the original pitch to the new pitch. The Attack parameter of the 281e defines the glide speed. The pulse network is a bit tricky: the MIDI note on pulse triggers the 281e envelope, which is configured in transient mode. The output of the 281e drives not only the selection logic of the 256e, but also a second circuit in the 256e. This second circuit is configured to generate a pulse at the end of the attack phase by using a breakpoint function (in value = 8 V, out value = 0 V). The output of this second circuit drives the "update" input of the 266e. The 281e produces a pulse at the end of the decay phase of the envelope, but that is too late: we need to sample the pitch before the decay, else our selection logic will drop back to the initial pitch and we'll hear a glitch. By sampling the pitch just as we reach the top, there won't be a glitch when the 281e envelope decays and the first 256e circuit switches back from MIDI pitch to sampled pitch.

Would that it were so simple! For reasons I do not yet understand, the 266e flattens out voltages, which has the effect of changing an octave scale into something not quite an octave. If it stretched pitch instead of shrinking it we could fix the problem with a single 256e circuit. This is because we could raise the Output @ 0 V, lower the Output @ 10 V, creating a transfer function of something like 0.8:1 and the product of the two would be a nice 1:1 transfer function. Since the incoming scale is flattened, we need a transfer function that's more like 1.25:1, and that requires two 256e circuits. The first circuit uses a breakpoint function to produce 10 V at approx 8 V input. The second circuit uses a breakpoint function to produce 0 V at approx 2 V input. By running these in series we get our (> 1):1 transfer function, and pitch is restored (to within perhaps 20 cents, because all these pitch transformations add up their pitch errors). The output of the corrected sample pitch is the actual input we use for the 256e selection circuit, not the output of the 266e directly. Of course we can also use this portamento method to drive the frequency of a 291e or 292e filter to get the classic ELP effect of a glide opening up with a big "BWAHH!" at the finish. n.b. It is also possible to save two 256e circuits by doing the following. By using two separate pitch busses on the 225e unit we can tune the offset of each separately. Let's call the first bus the Hold bus (used to feed the 266e Sample-and-Hold circuit) and the second bus the Now bus (the pitch currently being played). By using a 210e CV circuit, we can flatten the pitch of the Now bus so it has the exact same slope as the output of the 266e (which is fed by, but is not itself, the Hold bus). Tuning the offsets of the two pitches helps set the slope correctly across a range of notes. Now that both inputs to the poramento selector circuit behave the same for a given pitch, we can correct the flat slop by using a breakpoint function. By setting the breakpoint out value to zero and setting the in value to around 2 V, we create a slope that is greater than unity, offsetting the less-thanunity slop of the 266e and the intentionally less-than-unity 210e output. We tune the 256e circuit until the slope of the breakpoint function cancels out the slopes of the input functions and now we can feed the CV output to the CV input of an oscillator like the 261e, tune it to 1.2 V/octave and we're good to go. It's a good idea to conserve 256e circuits because they can be useful for other things...

Constant Rate Portamento

The previous method gives a constant time portamento: whether the pitch difference is one semitone or 48, it takes the same amount of time to g-l-i-d-e up or down to the next pitch. A constant rate portamento moves some number of semitones per second, meaning that the portamento between notes close together will be almost imperceptible, whereas notes several octaves apart will give a very strong portamento effect. To do this we need to calculate the difference between two pitches and use that as a factor of how quickly the Attack parameter of the 281e envelope changes the selection between the original note (which we'll call P1) and the target note (P2). To calculate the difference between two notes we need two circuits of the 256e and a summing circuit from the 210e. The first 256e circuit is configured as a negative transfer function giving us 10 V - P1 for an input of P1. We use the 210e to add (10V - P1) /2 with P2/2, giving 5 V + (P2 - P1) /2 and feed this output to the input of the second 256e circuit. The second 256e circuit is configured as a non-linear transfer function that looks like the letter V. I.e., it gives 10 V - 2*Vin when Vin <= 5 V and 2*Vin - 10 when Vin > 5 V. When P1 is near P2, then 5 V + P2 - P1 is near 5 V and the non-linear transformation gives us a value near 0 V, a very short time for the portamento glide time. When P1 is two octaves (2.4V) less than P2, then 5 V + P2 - P1 is 7.4 V and the nonlinear transformation gives us 14.8 V - 10 V or 4.8 V, a good amount of glide time. Similarly when P1 is two octaves above P2 (2.4V), then 5 V + P2 - P1 is 2.6 V and the non-linear transformation gives us 10 V - 5.2 V = 4.8 V, an equally good amount of glide time. In either case, the 4.8 V can be multiplied by the attack time of the 281e unit to get the right amount of portamento time. This setup uses 3 210e inputs, 4 256e circuits, 1 266e input in the Stored Random Voltages section, 1 281e envelope generator circuit, and 2-3 MIDI pitch outputs of a 225e circuit, not

including the number of oscillators, evelope generators, filters, and VCAs needed to generate a sound.

Extra-Low LFO using the 281e

When the input mode is set to periodic, the 281e Quad Function Generators can function as Low Frequency Oscillator with a frequency ranging from 1/20th Hz (producing a triangle wave) to 1/10th Hz (becoming a rising or falling sawtooth wave), to any type of wave in between triangle and sawtooth up to 500 Hz.

Tips and hidden features

You can enable or disable the Remote Enables of all modules in a system with the Preset Manager section of the 225e. Use the DATA switch to select "global". The top line of first global page reads Remote Status. The DATA knob will now enable and disable remote all the modules in a system.

Gotchas
The "Remote Enable" switch has a dual meaning on several modules.

259e and 261e: causes the principal oscillator to track midi notes. This can lead to surprising results when you've configured your oscillator to run off a CV pitch and use Remote Enable just to restore other parameters of the module. 281e: causes the envelopes to open for MIDI note on events. Again, this can lead to surprising results when you just want to restore envelope attack types (continuous, transient, or sustain) or quadrature mode. 292e: causes the "VCA"s to react to Velocity

Contact
Buchla and Associates
Please address inquiries and orders to: Buchla and Associates P.O. Box 10205 Berkeley, CA 94709 tel: 510 528 4446 email: mail@buchla.com subject line MUST contain 200e