Music Easel (retro)

This past month at Superbooth, we showed off our completed Music Easel and the Limited Edition 50th Anniversary Easel. The love for the Anniversary Easel was strong, but the retro-at-all-costs build with guest artist preset cards, publication, signed artwork, and special edition LP was not within everyone’s range. When we returned, we set out to determine if we could incorporate the retro appeal of the Anniversary Easel into a more affordable package that could be built in higher numbers. The answer: “yes.”

The Easel has been extended with five additional banana CV connections, with which knobs and faders can be controlled and pulses can be sent independently to different inputs. If there is no aux input, the module produces analogue white noise. The top row layout has been made more logical and there is now an LED indicator for the operation/control mode. The pulser has its own single pulse switch and mode discrimination. The modulation oscillator section has been coloured green so that each main section has its own colour. The listed oscillator frequencies are more accurate and the scaled fader input range can now be set to 1.2 V/oct. In addition, the new modulation oscillator and envelope generator inputs can be trimmed to typical input ranges.

The Touch Activated Voltage Source has been completely redesigned. Buchla's original capacitive touch keyboard has been redesigned and now features better pressure detection, an optimized interface with a better feel and polyphonic MIDI.

Features of the Buchla Music Easel Retro:

• compact eight-panel aluminium case
• Consists of a Buchla Easel Command and a Buchla LEM218, with inputs and outputs streamlined to audio and MIDI
• Expandable with the Buchla Program Manager Card
• Ground connection
• Sustain pedal connection on the front panel