October Buchla 259e Improvisation
2,893 views · Published 12 November 2018 · 4:42 · Indexed 11 October 2026
Channel: AutomaticGainsay · 2018 · Music
There is something about the 259e that means that nearly every time I test one, I come up with some interesting compositional seed. I will often take a moment to record the sounds that my testing has resulted in, and this is an example of that situation. The 259e, due to its unique architecture, complexity of functionality, and especially the ability to read its internal memory as if it is a wavetable, can be responsible for almost an entire composition on its own. In this case, I needed some external modulation, so I used looping envelopes as LFOs. I don't recall, but it's possible that I may have used the audio output of another 259e in order to control the "red" and "green" "mem skews." The result was something that sounded NINish to me. Upon hearing it, I thought "this is something that would sound cool with serious drums," despite how un-Buchla what I was imagining sounded like. I programmed a decidedly now-"retro" drum part on the Korg Triton LE, and then had a VERY good time taking those relatively sedate and sterile drums and making them into something big and bashy using the wonderful Landscape Stereo Field (look for my videos on it!). The video is comprised of selected Prelinger Archives home movie snippets that I found disturbing. This video was funded by the Patreon supporters of Automatic Gainsay. Support the creation of this video and all of the Automatic Gainsay videos that have helped you by becoming an Automatic Gainsay supporter on Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/automaticgainsay
