Bushla Easel V

West Coast Sound Design Playground

The Buchla Easel V is the first recreation of the iconic Don Buchla instrument that helped define experimental modular synthesis from the West Coast in the early 70's. Our enhancements translate into wide possibilities for cutting-edge sound and music design.

You've always wanted to paint with sound. Now you can with the Buchla Easel V.

One look at the Buchla Easel V and you know this is a different animal. In fact, it makes you think differently about sound from the start - and the soundscapes you can create with it are as unique as the front panel matrix. To put this experience at your fingertips, we've painstakingly recreated the rare 1973 Buchla Music Easel, down to component level. As you've come to expect from our other V-series instruments, we've developed a set of enhanced features, including polyphony, innovative new modulation / control sources, step sequencer, effects, and more.

If you like to paint outside the lines, the Buchla Easel V is the perfect art tool for you.

welcome to the West Coast School of Synthesis

Your music comes out of the package. The same goes for Buchla Easel V.

Buchla Easel V faithfully reproduces Buchla's Music Easel, which helped define the focus of West Coast synthesis in experimentation and in breaking musical norms. We apply our award-winning front-panel TAE™ modeling technology to the resistors to capture everything with incredible realism.

Complex Oscillator Design, AM and FM Synthesis, Gate Combos / unique percussion filter and countless ways to modulate and synchronize almost any parameter, everything you put in the middle of a sonic sandbox. Design and play soundscapes that bubble, sparkle, pulse and evolve without ever touching a keyboard or keyboard - unless you want to add even more control. Approximately 300 presets from expert sound designers kick you off with timbres ranging from hauntingly beautiful sounds to clangorously in-ear rings.

Whether to experiment with simple sounds or create complex passages and evolving, the Buchla Easel V is a constant source of inspiration for sonic adventurers.

Create sounds no one has ever heard before

Beyond from faithfully reproducing a classic, we've infused the Buchla Easel V with even more of that vintage goodness to love.

We've made the patch even more fun and foolproof. When you drag a color-coded patch cord between patch points, only valid targets light up, saving you the frustration of making invalid connections that do nothing. The original Music Easel didn't have a noise source, so we added one to the preamp - useful for introducing rhythmic elements. We've also created a feedback loop in the preamp, so you can really make things howl. Up to four voice polyphony greatly enhances your performance capabilities too. *

With our extensions to the original Buchla design, you now have an even more intuitive programming experience, combined with additional sound options.

* Note that while our extreme component-level modeling in the Buchla Easel V delivers incredibly good analog sound, each voice in polyphony requires significant processing power to play - approximately 20 % of an i7 CPU per voice.

New control, new inspiration

Electronic music is as much about expression as it is about sound generation - and the Buchla Easel V offers expressive new features beyond your wildest dreams.

We've dramatically expanded the functionality of the original Music Easel while respecting the unique personality and philosophy of instrument design. One click reveals all new additions. The Left Hand section provides five full Function Generators, individually routed to any of 76 modulation destinations. The Right Hand section offers a modern step sequencer with innovative options. Gravity is an X/Y grid that uses the physics of a bouncing ball influenced by attraction, repulsion and collision with objects to generate unique and unexpected modulation signals. There is also a two-slot effects section for additional processing and animation within Buchla Easel V.

New additions to Buchla Easel V give you the power to create and run complex and exotic sounds that were simply impossible until now.

Key features

A component-level model of the Buchla Music Easel

Complex and modulation oscillators, dual low-pass ports, output section with spring reverb shaping

Modulation sources perfectly reproduced: 5-Step Sequencer, Envelope Generator, Pulser

Semi-Modular Architecture, Color Coded Routing and Cables

Enhanced Features, Synchronized Pulse and Clock, Oscillator Quantization

Left Modulation Sources to Create multipoint envelopes and LFOs. Add Randomness and Smoothing to Modulation

Right Side Sequencer Module

Gravity XY Modulation Source. Control the sound with the movement of a projectile flying between planets and wormholes!

10 effects, Phaser, Flanger, Chorus, Overdrive, Delay, ...

Control in modeling Vactrol for fast, medium or slow response

Up to 4 polyphony voices

256 factory presets