BUCHLA!

The Buchla sound synthesizer is the most cumbersome, complicated, impractical, bizarre and fascinating "music" instrument I've ever seen- and heard! The development of the Buchla parallels in many ways that of the better known Moog, except for, among other things, the little detail that inventor Don Buchla never saw much use for a keyboard. Unlike conventional synthesizers, Buchla instruments are controlled by a variety of triggers, some bearing no more than a passing resemblance to a piano keyboard.

The resulting sounds are truly disturbing and amazing, check it out!:



It's a good thing I did not have one of these when I was a teenager studying in Baldwin High- my father would have told me to "turn it down" so many times...

The Buchla was used in the disco version of the Star Wars theme music in 1977, making all the squeaky noises that mimicked laser blasts and all that. That was the work of Suzanne Ciani, who is the biggest Buchla expert in the whole world, with the exception of Don Buchla himself. I still keep and treasure a copy of the June 1979 issue of Keyboard Magazine which featured her in the cover.


Ciani reappeared in the 1980's making solo albums in the Private Music label.

This is some awesome footage of Ciani showing off her synthesizer and other fancy sound gear on David Letterman's short-lived daytime show on August 14 1980:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5tyWRLbfhw

I heard that Michael McDonald wrote the theme music for that show, but I digress...

Pink Floyd apparently used a Buchla synthesizer in "On The Run", a track on the "Dark Side of the Moon" album. My brother says Roger Waters handled the Buchla's controls and made all the crazy sounds in that "song", if it can be called a song. Can anyone confirm this?


FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Ciani

Suzanne Ciani in concert with a Buchla Synth in the late '70s.