Artist Spotlight: Benge

There are two improvisations on each system, the first two on a vintage 100 and the second two on a cloned 200  There are some significant differences in sound between the two eras, most noticeably the tone of the VCOs and the filters. I would describe the earlier VCOs as being richer, fuller and brighter than the 200 series but not as stable, and the filters being more edgy and pure in nature. The 200 system introduced the LPGs, timbre-shaping and the Spectral Processor, all of which give the system a very distinctive sound that was absent from the 100 Personally, I like the overall tone of the 100 series very much, as it has a power and richness that puts it in the same league as other early systems such as the Moog Modular and the ARP 2500. I am not sure if there is a similar power in the original 200 series modules (as opposed to modern cloned ones) as I have never been able to compare them directly, but my guess would be that various filters, VCOs and other things that Don began to introduce in the 1970s took the sound away from the more basic and simple sound of the 100, exploring and pioneering other avenues as he went towards fully digital systems in the 1980s. It is a fascinating progression, and one that is mirrored in the development of synthesisers in general between the 1960s and 1980s, as digital technology gradually took over The systems used were as follows: Buchla 100  Vintage Modules: 102 Dual Stereo Locator 106 Six Channel Mixer 110 Dual Gate 111 Dual Ring Modulator 112 Touch Control 123 Sequencer 130 Dual Envelope Detector 140 Timing Pulse Generator 144 Dual Square Wave Generator 156 CV Processor x 3 158 Dual Sine/Saw x 2 160 White Noise Generator 165 Random Voltage Source 175 Dual Line Driver / EQ 180 Dual Attack Generator x 2 185 Frequency Shifter 190 Dual Reverberator 191 Sharp Cutoff Filter 194 Bandpass Filter Cloned Modules: 110 Dual Gate 144 Dual Square Wave Generator x 3 146 Sequencer 180 Dual Attack Generator 205 Dual Matrix Mixer Buchla 200 Cloned Modules: 205 Dual Matrix Mixer 208 Stored Program Sound Source 212 Dodeca Module 218 Touch Control 224 Patchbay 248 MARF + Expander 256 Dual CV Adder 257 Dual CV Processor 258 Dual Oscillator x 2 259 Complex Waveform Generator 261e Complex Waveform Generator 266 Source of Uncertainty 275 Dual EQ / Reverb 277 Signal Delay 281 Quad Function Generator x 2 285 Frequency Shifter 292 Quad LPG 296 Spectral Processor myblogitsfullofstars.blogspot.com   zackdagoba.bandcamp.com   instagram.com/memetunestudio