Buchla 200 series Electric Music Box
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- 259 Programmable Complex Waveform Generator
- 227 System Interface
lower
- 292c Quad Lopass Gate
- 281 Quad Function Generator
- 296 Spectral Processor
The Buchla 200 series Electric Music Box is an electronic musical instrument manufactured by Buchla & Associates in Berkeley, California from 1970 to 1982. It is a modular analog system consisting of a collection of individual modules. Systems are assembled in cabinets designed to accept modules occupying between one and six modules spaces in width, each space being 7 inches tall and 4.25 inches wide.
Power for the modules is provided by a power supply contained within the cabinet. Voltage rails of +15, −15 and +5 volts are included on all supplies in the series. Some of the power supplies also provide +24, −24, and +12 volts. Noisy and quiet ground lines, generally those for digital and analog circuits respectively, are provided on all supplies as well. Generally, only older modules in the series require the 24-volt lines and only later ones require the unregulated +12-volt line (using it only to power LEDs). The connectors used to route the power changed over the production years, but finally settled on a 10-pin edgecard connector with pin 7 blocked to provide a directional key.
What separates the 200 series from its predecessor, the 100 series, is that almost every parameter is under voltage control. Functional density is higher, packing several functions into each module. The electronics employ op-amps, CMOS and TTL logic chips and quite often Vactrols, photoresistor opto-isolators devices used as voltage-controlled potentiometers in variable-gain amplifier (VCA) and voltage-controlled filter (VCF) sections. The approximately 10 ms rounded attack and 50 ms release[1] of the Vactrols contributes substantially to the "natural" sound that Buchla 200s are credited with. The 200 series also often shows the state of its outputs with LED indicators.
The modules that were manufactured for the Buchla 200 series are as follows:
- 204 Quad Spacial Director
- 205 Matrix Mixer
- 206 Dual Mixer
- 207 Mixer/Preamplifier
- 208 Stored Program Source (Part of the Music Easel)
- 212 Dodecamodule
- 214 Music Easel Power Supply
- 215 Power Supply
- 216 Touch Controlled Voltage Source
- 217 Multiple Touch-Controlled Voltage Source
- 218 Touch Activated Voltage Source
- 219 Polyphonic Touch Activated Voltage Source
- 221 Kinesthetic Input Port
- 226 System Interface
- 227 System Interface
- 230 Triple Envelope Detector
- 232 Frequency Detector
- 237 37 Key Organ Type Keyboard
- 238 61 Key Organ Type Keyboard
- 242 Programmable Pulser
- 245 5 stage Sequential Voltage Source
- 246 16 stage Sequential Voltage Source
- 248 Multiple Arbitrary Function Generators
- 256 Dual Voltage Adder
- 257 Dual Voltage Processor
- 258 Dual Voltage Controlled Oscillator
- 259 Programmable Complex Waveform Generator
- 264 Quad Sample & Hold/Polyphonic Adaptor
- 265 Source of Uncertainty
- 266 Source of Uncertainty
- 270 Quad Preamplifier
- 275 Dual Reverb/Equalizer
- 277 Signal Delay Unit
- 280 Quad Envelope Generator
- 281 Quad Function Generator
- 284 Quad Voltage-Controlled Envelope Generator
- 285 Frequency Shifter/Balanced Modulator
- 288 Time Domain Processor
- 291 Dual Voltage-Controlled Filter
- 292 Quad Lopass Gate
- 294 Four Channel Filter
- 295 Ten Channel Filter
- 296 Spectral Processor
- 299 Sili Con Cello Processor[2]
In 2001, Buchla returned to the 200 series and released the Barber Pole modules, models 260 and 297. The 260 is a Duophonic Pitch Class Generator, an oscillator capable of creating a sound that seems the same in every octave. The 297 is an Infinite Phase Shifter. More often referred to as a barber pole phaser, the module creates a filter effect that seems to rise or fall, but never actually changes frequency range being effected.
In 2003, Buchla released the 255 Control Voltage Processor. Although released shortly before the 200e system, it is not considered part of the 200e system, likely because of its lack of patch storage capability, and received a non-"e" model number. It was the first Buchla module to be released with the 200e's characteristic Selco knobs, which are white capped to indicate that the values will not be stored by a 225e module.