Musicality of Buchla / Serge etc...

[Kendall Station]

So I've yet to see a video of Buchla are Serge noodling that is "musical". I don't want to get in a discussion about what defines 'music' but I mean in the traditional sense....notes, scales, etc....

Anyone got any examples??

[hpsounds]

Just check this !

[video][/video]

Hédi K.

[dougcl]

Honestly I can't believe this thread is possible. It's insane.

[confusional]

Redacted.

[bar|none]

Or just listen to Alessandro's new album here http://www.sonoio.org/

[parasitk]

There are tons. Really.

There are also tons of Euro, Frac, 5U (etc.) videos of noodling too. Nature of the modular user beast.

[Luka]

Just check this !

[video][/video]

Hédi K.

wow

is that appegiator like sound come from ASR?

[dkcg]

The 200e doesn't do music.

[dougcl]

The 200e doesn't do music.

The 200e does you.

[polyroy]

[video][/video]

This is some lovely stuff

[Thonk Support]

[video][/video]

[Pockets McCoy]

Honestly I can't believe this thread is possible. It's insane.

I make a serious effort to hold my tongue in a lot of situations, one of my primary goals in life is to not be a douchebag, so sorry if I am as a result of what I'm about to say. And I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone. Honestly.

Now that that's out of the way...

Buchla/Serge/Wiard/Anything like them I'm forgetting are nauseatingly deep and limitless systems designed and built by people who pretty obviously had no interest in being "musical" (or, at least, had no interest in building a synthesizer with the primary focus being "musicality") beyond the simple courtesy of providing things like quantizers for users who chose to use their systems for such purposes. As a result, those systems are, for the most part, in the hands of people with similar philosophies. As a result of THAT, most videos/recordings tend to be of the "this shit is WAY TOO WILD not to document, or no one will ever hear anything like this ever again" variety rather than the "man, that's a fat-ass bass sound...time to tickle them ivories!" type. And I have to more-than-wholeheartedly agree with Doug again: you don't fuck around with these synths, they fuck around with you and you hold on for dear life. So if you're looking for something to plug a keyboard into to play tonal, equal-tempered "musical" sounds in a traditional "instrument among others" setup, these are probably not what you should be lusting after. Don't let it be a lifestyle-alteringly expensive disappointment.

I'm not going to go off on another diatribe about THIS side of things because I don't see it nearly as often, but people building dotcom systems in the hopes of creating self-playing generative chaos patches with feedback systems for days and a really unruly temper are looking in a similarly very wrong place for similarly very wrong reasons.

I also realize the OP is only asking about videos and not about what system to purchase, just in case it sounds like that's what I'm trying to answer.

And not to drag on too long, I know I ramble, but I think the definitive answer to the question is this:

As I've mentioned, these are the most complex and well-equipped synths ever devised. The quality of construction and the attention to detail is second to none. The complement of modules are similarly more-than-well-rounded with every conceivable function and convenience included and then some. Everything serves about a million purposes other than the one it's designed to be best at, just in case you need something weirder. In short, if you can't set it up to play equal-tempered scales with sounds that aren't so timbrally abused as to come off as entirely atonal regardless of what the actual frequency/pitch is, you're either not trying hard enough or you don't want it bad enough.

[mojopin]

Or just listen to Alessandro's new album here http://www.sonoio.org/

yeah, find the videos of him playing one. they are the best for seeing the potential in terms of songs. but remember, any modular can do beautiful melodic music. its all in how one uses it.

[NV]

There was a time a few years ago when finding more intricate videos of these systems was rare, but at this point I have to echo the sentiments that you should really commit to a search of something if you're truly interested in finding answers. Just a cursory search of "Buchla" in Vimeo or YouTube yields videos like this, this, and this, plus dozens more.

[jonkull]

I always enjoyed this one...

[video][/video]

Actually...forum member Lyonel has posted some really nice 200e stuff that would fit the OP's definition of music.

[haven]

http://soundcloud.com/lyonel

Epic

[cluster]

^ that is really incredible!

[Nelson Baboon]

Well, of course it's false to say that they, or any music system, is limitless.

I"m also not into this fanboy stuff.

If just really comes down to something very simple - how could you really not know that while these synths can do that kind of thing, that is really not what they are designed for? So, you are mostly addressing this question to people who don't think that this goal is particularly important, at least when it comes to these kind of tools/music.

I mean - you want to play pretty melodies - why spend all of this fucking money when you can get there a lot more quickly and imitatively with cheaper tools?

Honestly I can't believe this thread is possible. It's insane.

I make a serious effort to hold my tongue in a lot of situations, one of my primary goals in life is to not be a douchebag, so sorry if I am as a result of what I'm about to say. And I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone. Honestly.

Now that that's out of the way...

Buchla/Serge/Wiard/Anything like them I'm forgetting are nauseatingly deep and limitless systems designed and built by people who pretty obviously had no interest in being "musical" (or, at least, had no interest in building a synthesizer with the primary focus being "musicality") beyond the simple courtesy of providing things like quantizers for users who chose to use their systems for such purposes. As a result, those systems are, for the most part, in the hands of people with similar philosophies. As a result of THAT, most videos/recordings tend to be of the "this shit is WAY TOO WILD not to document, or no one will ever hear anything like this ever again" variety rather than the "man, that's a fat-ass bass sound...time to tickle them ivories!" type. And I have to more-than-wholeheartedly agree with Doug again: you don't fuck around with these synths, they fuck around with you and you hold on for dear life. So if you're looking for something to plug a keyboard into to play tonal, equal-tempered "musical" sounds in a traditional "instrument among others" setup, these are probably not what you should be lusting after. Don't let it be a lifestyle-alteringly expensive disappointment.

I'm not going to go off on another diatribe about THIS side of things because I don't see it nearly as often, but people building dotcom systems in the hopes of creating self-playing generative chaos patches with feedback systems for days and a really unruly temper are looking in a similarly very wrong place for similarly very wrong reasons.

I also realize the OP is only asking about videos and not about what system to purchase, just in case it sounds like that's what I'm trying to answer.

And not to drag on too long, I know I ramble, but I think the definitive answer to the question is this:

As I've mentioned, these are the most complex and well-equipped synths ever devised. The quality of construction and the attention to detail is second to none. The complement of modules are similarly more-than-well-rounded with every conceivable function and convenience included and then some. Everything serves about a million purposes other than the one it's designed to be best at, just in case you need something weirder. In short, if you can't set it up to play equal-tempered scales with sounds that aren't so timbrally abused as to come off as entirely atonal regardless of what the actual frequency/pitch is, you're either not trying hard enough or you don't want it bad enough.

[Soundwave]

maybe i make some people angry, i don't know, but i heard from people who have buchla systems and ems synthesizer and have lots of years synthesizer experience that:

with the buchla 200e it is difficult to play tonal to other things, the oscillator just don't track very well, maybe that's also a reason??
the same i heard from the ems synthesizers, bad tracking... they are more fx machines

or does anybody have really good tracking buchla 200e oscillator modules? maybe there is a variety to them

[sascha.victoria]

About a 1 - 2 years ago it was much harder to find diatonic Serge / Buchla videos. Now you'd have to be lazy to not find them in a search.

Interestingly I never thought that Serge or Buchla wasn't capable of diatonic music. I always thought that people who were making the videos were more from the "oh my god this sound is so amazing I have to document it" perspective rather then this is an amazing composition. When I was in Euro I felt the same way since most videos I came across were crazy sounds.

I've said in other threads, I think MacBeth gets tons of hype because he's pretty much the only builder that does demo videos that are mostly diatonic. Then about half way through he makes them go crazy. I feel that it's much easier to do totally crazy sounds vs "traditional diatonic" sounds.

Lastly, Serge is the only system I know of where you can set up insane cross modulations, plug in 1v/oct, and have the sound track for more octaves then you'd ever use. So think of the craziest Serge video you've seen and then imagine that tracking on your keyboard. Pretty bad ass indeed.

[sandyb]

searching, even just on this forum, yields many examples.
start here:

viewtopic.php?t=17362&highlight=tonal

[Luka]

what does it actually take for a synth to be musical?

[astroschnautzer]

what does it actually take for a synth to be musical?

A musician to program it musically.

[rezzn8r]

what does it actually take for a synth to be musical?

A musician to program it musically.

and a listener to appreciate it

[jonkull]

What is music?