The Buchla Easel V Explored in Arturia

Arturia’s Buchla Easel V is a faithful emulation of Don Buchla’s iconic semi-modular instrument that was introduced in the early 1970s. Watch this course, and take a ride on the “west” side of synthesis with sound designer Rishabh Rajan!

The Buchla Easel, released in 1973, sounds as unique as it looks. It must be said that its creator, “west-coast” electronic instrument pioneer Don Buchla was a very unconventional instrument designer who created very unconventional electronic music instruments. In this course, synthesis expert Rishabh Rajan explores Arturia’s recreation of Don's “The Music Easel” -an instrument that was truly ahead of its time.

The course starts with an overview of the plugin where you learn how to navigate the interface, load presets, and how to do basic patching. Rishabh then covers the Complex Oscillator and Modulation Oscillator modules, and explains how to route them creatively via the Dual Lo Pass Gate. Next, he reveals how crazy you can get with the different Voltage Control modules, such as the Envelope Generator, the Pulser, and the Sequential Voltage Source. You also learn about the Mod CV, Envelope Out, Inverter, and all the extra goodies that Arturia added to the plugin version (spoiler: the Gravity feature is out of this world!).

So forget about musical norms! See (and hear) how far “west-coast" synthesis can take you in this Buchla Easel V exploration… Just don’t forget to come down to earth after visiting those new aural soundscapes!

The Buchla Easel V Explored

22 videos | 102 minutes | by Rishabh Rajan