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Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments Music Easel (Modern)
Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments Music Easel (Retro)
The Easel Command aka 208C from Buchla is the revised version of the famous Music Easel from the same house. Typical for Buchla and the resulting Westcoast philosophy is the sound and control concept; a different one than most other analog synthesizers. The basic sound is formed with the Complex Oscillator and the Modulation Oscillator together. With this combination, very bass-heavy, but also very overtone-rich sounds are possible; these are always just one knob movement away from subtle to extreme FM and AM sounds. The generated spectrum is processed with the dual Lowpass Gate (LPG). The LPGs are mixable in level and lead to a reverb effect as the last link in the audio chain. In addition to a three-stage envelope (attack, sustain & release), there is a pulser for modulating the sounds, a random generator, a sequencer that plays up to five steps and of course numerous control voltage inputs and outputs.
The Easel Command is housed in a "LEM Powered 3 Boat" case and impresses with some innovations. The layout is now clearer and more structured and the color scheme used has been adapted. If no cable is plugged into the preamp, a white noise is fed into the signal path. Also, the pulser is now manually switchable and the oscillator frequencies are now better scaled. Control via MIDI/USB has been integrated, so the sequencer can be included and aftertouch is converted in addition to pitch and note length. The circuit board has also been reworked, making it more service-friendly and providing a new power connector. The Easel Command can be removed from its case and mounted in a larger Buchla case together with other modules of the 200 series.
Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments Easel CommandThe 208C is a serious sound creating machine and will provide much of adventure for years. The layout and patching via banana cables is great and intuitive and interaction with other gear is smooth and straight forward. It sounds amazing and just asks you for sonic exploration. A true performance device it is. The craftmanship could be a little better; the main volume, in example, feels a quite fragile, for the price you would expect something more sturdy like Strymon knobs, but I guess pedals are for feet and the Easel Command is for hands and ears. This device makes you feel it has its own soul. You will loose hours and days into its vast abyss off timbres and soundscapes. Many might ask is the Easel Command worth of the money. Well, its not cheap and compairing it to a decent modular system it may seem redicilously limited but after a few hours of playing and exploration you propably realize that it´s really something very special and far of an elitistic music toy. After all, it's the cheapest standalone Buchla instrument and for the price it delivers big time. Im very glad I got my hands on it finally, after drooling for Buchla sound for so may many years and Im more than satisfied.
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