Buchla/Tiptop 259T | A Legend Revived
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- Опубликовано: 1 янв 2025
- I don't think this module needs any introduction in Eurorack. Don Buchla inspired countless complex oscillators before it inspired Serge Tcherepnin and digital FM pioneers like John Chowning who brought FM on a chip to Yamaha. The 259 is a landmark VCO. One could assume it would sound 'old' compared to modern gear like the DPO, Cs-L, Furthrrr, Brenso, Verbos CO and many more, but the 259 has a unique sound you will not find anywhere else and it will never grow old.
There's 50 years between the 259c and the Tiptop recreation. A lot has changed. The original featured eight vactrols, but the 259t has none due to Hazardous Substance Regulations (RoHS).
However, the response is exactly the same which is a landmark achievement.
Autotune wasn't finished yet, it relied on the forthcoming 300 series that never took off. Remote/local control relied on Easel programming card tech which is useless in its eurorack incarnation. Tiptop decided to add ART support, a proprietary protocol which supports autotuning VCO's.
Real Buchla 259's are extremely rare, they're mostly faithfully recreated clones. So I had no idea how the real thing sounds and the 1M $ question is obviously 'does it sound the same'. Spoiler alert: it does.
This video also concludes my 259 origin story, so it's episode 04 in the 259 playlist, and episode 09 in my Tiptop 200 series playlist. It's a bit confusing but it it makes sense to me.
Bottom line, it's a beauty.
I love it how so many "old" designs aren't old, they are foundations. Buchla, ARP, Moog, and more, the designs and sounds are still valid and valuable. It isn't retro, it's all fragments of a future we have yet to explore.
So well said, thanks for sharing.
Great video. Dying for some more serge too!
This is E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-T!!!! Fantastic "Final Jam". Thank you so much for sharing!
Sounding great as always! My 259t arrives soon... looking forward to that experiment! -- I think the 261e is the current version of the complex waveform generator. There was temporarily a 259e complex generator which was a digital version of the 259, but that was replaced by the 259e twisted waveform generator, which is a complex wavetable generator. All of those oscillators are modules I hope to spend more time getting to know...
If I were a contemporary manufacturerr I think I would seek inspiration in the E series, but then again, I am happy they do not :).
Finally feeling ready for a proper complex oscillator, I was about to pull the trigger on this- then spotted an IME Hertz Donut Mk III for barely half the price. The 259t will follow in due course- it’s not going anywhere, but the HD was just too good an opportunity to miss!
The IME is a great digital VCO to complement a future 259. It reminds me of the Noise Engineering range and inevitably a bit of the Schlappi Three-Body. I don't have anything from IME because of the small displays but they definitely love what they're doing.
thanks for this video... amazing sounds as always... really love the "easel-part"!!!
Received the Intellijel Springray 2 yesterday. Now I can finally add that must-have real spring reverb sound :).
I got this complex osc , it really responds to audio rate modulation like not other as well .great videos too .
And this is the video we been waiting for.
Ordered one today from Milk Audio in Rome.Been looking forward to this.
That was rad as shit dude. My heart felt so full and inquisitive listen to your performance.
The end jam takes me back to early 2000's when I used to listen radio at nights because I could't sleep and there was this show called avaruusromua and I heard this weird but so facinating music made by modular synths.
Man...sounds like pure electricity❤
Ok so I’ve been at this for a few years but still obviously a lot to learn… what exactly are you “striking” on the 529t with the envelopes at like 5:06 and beyond? Is there a VCA cv input on the module? To do similar to Cs-L, where would I patch a snappy envelope? Or just run though vca like vinca and strike it there as normal?
cool
BTW I approve of the Buchla'ized Beads! I did the same thing with all of my MI modules to remember the easter eggs in the manuals. e.g. Beads should have Freeze & Seed - orange, Right Output - red, Pitch & Density - white. The one that blew my mind is Marbles' Rate & Spread - white!
Fascinating 😊
I got two Vactrol 292's from the USA, I wonder why they didn't do a vactrol version like they did the 292
Because the EU is cancer.
So true
Hey! Sorry, I didn't know where to post this so that you would see it sooner. Would you still recommend the Plinky Synth?
Would you say it's even a great synth as a stand alone unit and/or if I don't rack it, but keep it next to my setup?
I just wanted your thoughts before I splurge on a few things. Thanks in advance for your advice and for all your incredible videos!
I absolutely love it, I'd give it a 10 of 10 if I did reviews. It's a great synth on its own (check out my Meta video if you wish, where I play 'guitar' on it thanks to the built in distortion), but it's also a great controller for eurorack (dual notes, gates, pressure). And it's bloody forking cheap. What else can I say :).
@@CinematicLaboratory Awesome to hear! You sold me! Haha. Did you get the DIY kit or the built version? It doesn't seem to save that much doing the DIY version...
Vactrols are elicit in the EU?
Buchla represents a wonderful set of mysteries that I would love to explore. The Benjolin also inspires some similar ideas as well.
Thank you for sharing this!
@@ChrisMills-AmbientSpace Yes, and no. I had to buy my 292t from Perfect Circuit direct- but just last week I bought a pair of Intellijel LPGs from a UK dealer that they had only themselves received a few days earlier. It may simply be that TipTop won’t ship to the UK or EU, but other mfrs will- admittedly in defiance of RoHS.
It's complicated. Equipment with vactrols are not allowed for import, but what's in stock here can still be sold. The EU is the first entity that doesn't alllow them, but the rest of the world will follow sooner or later. It's a rule that's hard to enforce since customs doesn't know what's on a panel. MakeNoise managed to ship the last batch of QMMG's to EU countries which have eight of them on the back. The Tiptop 292T isn't available in the EU, but you can still take the risk of ordering one outside the EU. The 'green' version is expected by the end of 2024. MakeNoise DXG is also a clear sign of change, it's their frst vactrol free LPG. I think the EU is about discouragement so they will naturally phase out. Furthermore, the original Vactec vactrols (hence the name) are now very rare and expensive so cheap chinese alternatives are used, or people make them DIY. But you will never find those on a Buchla.
@@CinematicLaboratory 292T with vactorals being sold by SynthGuru here in Italy..Pricer than the non vactoral version.
@@elektrenai219 Yes, I've seen it and I almost bought it.
@@CinematicLaboratory He's still got 1 left 😀
Ok this video didn’t help at all..:in a good way! I was not sure wether to sell the furthrrrr generator and get the 259 to complete my tiptop system, after this video I’m even more confused because the 259y sounds really amazing…I actually think I could switch! Thanks man awesome video as always
I am planning to do a compare soon. Probably next week. Both have a lot in common but they're also very different. In the first episode of the 259 origins playlist you can hear the Furthrrrr's harmonics and timbre. Respectfully I'd say it sounds like Endorphines. It's not a clone or recreation, it's 'inspired by' and I'd say it's very mellow. The 259T however, sounds like a Buchla and it's a beast. Not a monster like the DPO and not as hi-tech as the Cs-L. I have work to do :)
thanks, yeah I agree with what you say here, waiting for the video!!! @@CinematicLaboratory
Damn and I thought I was done buying oscillators with Cs-L…. Where am I gonna fit this thing?? 😂
R*S has announced Medusa for eurorack. Have you ordered it yet? :)
Looking forward to your ART video….you should try the triax8
Yeah, I should but it's not released yet and it's not even on their website. I only have the ART quantizer coming in tomorrow.
The V/Oct is a very nice module, especially the chord function
even if one exactly clones original schematics, parts choices will affect sound. In listening to OTHER TipTop Buchla modules, their spectral processor DESTROYS other maker takes for nailing that soaking wet rubbery sound as well as this module in another demo that's made me lust for an entire Buchla row. too bad all the modules are so big that you can't fill a row without at least one smaller mismatched module. Buchla just has an awesome organic sound, and the other demo I heard for this makes me want one. that, and I've figured out, I'm almost TOTALLY west coast kind of guy... thumpy LPG envelopes? ESSENTIAL! insane organic textures from sawtooth partials spectral processing (STILL into vocoders!)? check. distortion of signals... I mean "wave folding"? yep, I dig that and even frequency shifting? I was already into that when I heard doepfers FAT sounding shifter, not even realizing it was a buchla thing. you can keep the sequencer and mixer, but this VCO makes real anti-digital organic tones that maybe only other clones can. buh bye akemie's castle! never was really into FM anyways.
I absolutely love the 2nd patch & it's talking sounds! Is it something unique to the 259t?
No I don't think so. I will investigate this and see how it works. Any complex VCO with AM, FM and Timbre Mod should be able to do it. But how? Don't know yet. Still, it immediately came out and it was also present in the 2007 video on the real thing.
They released the freq shifter ???
It's almost there. According to Gur it should be coming in November already.
Can vactrols not be simulated easily by a very small microprocessor? After all it is just a transfer function?
Yes it can, Mutable Streams is a decent example, and Rabid Elephant's Natural Gate is also digital, but it sounds just excellent. Update, Chief Gur from Tiptop wrote to me that they faithfully recreated the vactrol response using a combo of a VCA and a LP roll-off, so they did their very best to simulate it. Respectfully I think the response is still more VCA (fast) than vactrol (slow) but it's no big deal and I have no idea how the original Buchla Associates 259C sounds when struck. I am looking into it because I want to know, but it's not important. This is a true 259 :).
Beads undercover 👀
To even suggest you might have used too much reverb may anger the god of reverb... I mean Omri 😂
Totally agree but the 259 is one of those rare VCO's that's just amazing without any. It's a DRY martini, shaken not stiirred, with a little olive.
@ You just had to go and say that 🤑
Don't EV batteries have the same crap (or worse) as the vactrols that are banned? In "slightly" larger quantities?
Nickel Cadmium is also banned, but Lithium is ok. And battery acid.
@@CinematicLaboratory In EV's it's not cadmium that kills or permanently disables first responders. It's other heavy metals they are allowing in the lithium chemistries and conveniently overlooking. If an EV battery goes into thermal runaway in say an underground parking structure, anyone exposed to the fumes is totally screwed.