Don Buchla, Synth Legend, Passes Away

A quiet genius with huge influence   19-Sep-16

Its inevitable given the depth of the history of synthesis, going back to the 1960s and before, that there will come a time when the founding fathers will have all left us. That process of attrition continues with sadness, as at the weekend, design pioneer and musician Don Buchla has joined the ranks of the departed.

To the casual observer, Don Buchla is often overshadowed in history, with Bob Moog's legacy taking centre stage with his more accessible, recognizable brand that became synonymous with the synthesizer, as Hoover is to vacuum. But make no mistake,  the  influence and genius of Don Buchla  should not be underestimated. While Moog's instruments were more mainstream and mass produced, Don's were experimental and unique.

But Don Buchlas work came from a different place, first he was an electronic musician, creating devices for Morton Subotnik, though his talents as a designer and builder quickly overtook his artistic musical work, he performed regularly throughout his life.

But the difference between them, though they shared much common ground, was that Don Buchla was driven by the music and as a musician. His esoteric designs were all made to make more music, music that was different and would stretch the mind of the user.

The whole East/West Coast thing has been enlarged into a fictional battleground of conflicting philosophies in an ersatz mirror of  Hip Hop rivalry, but it never really was seen that way by the characters in that story.

Many musician's seem almost spiritually attached to Don's work with synthesizers, Alessandro Cortini is a true fan, almost a disciple and as such has used Don's synthesizers to create music of richness and accessibility. Though this is not always the case, the Buchla method, for want of a better way of putting it, seems to ally itself to an alternative way of creating , a different path to the more mainstream genres.

As with many pioneers, the business side of things was not Don's strong point nor interest. In recent years, the sale of Buchla Associates and renaming to Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments, was reputedly a difficult time for him, although the legendary Buchla Music Easel was reintroduced, the transition to new ownership was not an easy one.

At the NAMM show and other venues, we would occasionally see Don, lurking quietly to the side, not one for the ego lead banter of the music scene, he came across as a quiet, thoughtful and focused man. Sadly we never got to speak to him.

But Don's amazing legacy is still with us and will continue to be, as there are still many who have taken his approach to design and continue to push the boundaries.

As his son Ezra put it in an interview with The Guardian:

"The word 'visionary' doesn't really do justice, he had no fear of anything – leaky boats, lightning storms, failure. He couldn't have done what he did without a basic joy in his work and an innate intellectual generosity that swept people along."

RIP Don Buchla: 1937-2016

image from Buchla.com