EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 41, Issue 01 This issue's topics: Buchla Thunder & Lightning (13 messages) Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 10:38:32 EST From: Jon Crystal Subject: Buchla Thunder & Lightening Has anyone had hands-on experience with these alternate controllers? I'd be in terested in hearing any and all stories, and also whether someone may have eith er available for sale. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 11:06:39 EDT From: metlay Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening > Has anyone had hands-on experience with these alternate controllers? I'd be in > terested in hearing any and all stories, and also whether someone may have eith > er available for sale. I had a brief opportunity to play with a Thunder belonging to Chris Koenigsberg (who may be on EMUSIC-L). Very interesting machine, but far too deep to investigate in one sitting, especially when it was hooked to a synth I knew nothing about. The layout was very appealing, but the lack of tactile feedback (the keys don't move) was a little weird. I have been kicking around actually buying one, which would be a major step in a particular direction for me and hence a non-trivial decision. This machine is not for the casual user: to make it even DO anything requires a lot of hard work. -- Mike Metlay metlay@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu Atomic City, P.O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 13:21:44 EDT From: metlay Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening > Interesting comments, since my recollection was that it was supposed to > simplify things. Is it just complicated if you want to get in and do your > own thing ? What sort of things did you do with it ? Would you mind > telling us a little more? or maybe some others on the list have had > some experience?... The machine doesn't SIMPLIFY anything at all! Where did you get THAT idea? The whole point of the Thunder, from my understanding of what Buchla has written about it, is that it is to be a flexible MIDI control device that is not limited by ANY existing traditional music paradigms. What that means is that you, the user, must determine for yourself precisely what each key and switch does when you touch it, and how. Key number 17 on the Thunder could play an e flat, or play a chord, or transmit pitch bend, or set off a sequence of notes, or reconfigure a synth's status via sysex. It's different for every user. It allows the user to customize it to the point where no one else, even another Thunder owner, can sit down and play their unit and know what precisely will happen. If the Thunder has "presets," I would imagine that almost everyone who buys one would blank them as soon as their tutorial value was past. It's the realization of a dream: you have a machine in front of you, with a nifty set of controls, but you wish that this slider over here did something other than what it's set to do-- so you change it! The machine I tried was hooked to a Yamaha TX81Z, and depending on the program, played notes, altered operator relationships in realtime, etc. I was drooling to hook it up to my Xpander, but never got the chance. Nowadays, though, I believe that while the Xpander would be very well served by the machine (especially if page and dataknob sysex packets can be transmitted by the Thunder, which I believe it can do), I think the best synth to hook it to would be the MicroWave. Every patch has about twenty different external modulation patch points, all of which are accessible via the Thunder. -- Mike Metlay metlay@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu Atomic City, P.O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 13:54:17 EDT From: "D. Yuen" Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening Hi Jon, I hope that garbled horror of a message I tried to kill didn't get sent. If so my apologies... Anyway, once more. A friend of mine has a lightening which she purchassed from Buchla. One caveat would be to take any delivery dates they may give you with a grain of salt. I was thinking about both Thunder and Lightening myself, so (as possible controllers for my own pile of antiques) I was always interested in following how she was progressing with her order. Or expect "shipping next week" to mean next month. But they are a small company and I don't really find this too suprising. Overall after trying to help her set it up I would agree with Mike Metlay's opinion that it takes a lot of hard work to get them set up and going usefully. My friend has two radient rings and was hoping to use the Lightening as an interpreter to her dance moves. In reality neither of us got very far along. At the moment it's still sitting as other projects took over the prioity of the Lightening. I'm not sure what she's going to do with it. I think I would let it sit and keep trying periodicly to cajole it into good behavior. If you would like more details, feel free to mail me. yuen@nadc.navy.mil Dan ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 13:10:25 ADT From: Alan Edwards Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening > > Has anyone had hands-on experience with these alternate controllers? > I had a brief opportunity to play with a Thunder belonging to Chris > Koenigsberg > (who may be on EMUSIC-L). Very interesting machine, but far too deep to > investigate in one sitting, especially when it was hooked to a synth I knew > nothing about. The layout was very appealing, but the lack of tactile > feedback (the keys don't move) was a little weird. I have been kicking around > actually buying one, which would be a major step in a particular direction > for me and hence a non-trivial decision. This machine is not for the casual > user: to make it even DO anything requires a lot of hard work. > Interesting comments, since my recollection was that it was supposed to simplify things. Is it just complicated if you want to get in and do your own thing ? What sort of things did you do with it ? Would you mind telling us a little more? or maybe some others on the list have had some experience?... Alan ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1992 11:42:18 EDT From: metlay Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening > But, the Thunder does have *one* "preset" in some sense: the layout of the > keys (and the basic operation of the controllers). This must be deliberate > on Buchla's part, for ergonomic reasons. Or did he just want something > bird-shaped? Both. The key layout allows the user to rest both hands on the machine and reach everything easily with the fingers, thumbs and plams, without any arm movement. I think the layout of the keys reminded him of a Thunderbird, so he extended the parallelism. > What you describe in your article holds equally well for a conventional > keyboard connected to a Mac running MAX. No need to buy a Thunder here, > unless the layout and ergonomics of the "keyboard" are conducive to a > different playing style (quite possible), and/or the programming interface > is better (which I'm inclined to doubt, to be honest). The former, not the latter (in fact, I personally would hook a Thunder up to MAX if I had the chance). The Thunder's keys are velocity and pressure sensitive, but also sense movement of the finger on the key, and some of the larger pads are divided into layerable zones so they can act like joysticks of a sort. The overall effect is like that of Moog's recent Multi->Touch keyboard or whatever he calls it, but at a much lower price. -- Mike Metlay metlay@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu Atomic City, P.O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1992 11:47:18 EDT From: metlay Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening > I thought the thunder has some 20 CONTINUOUS controllers, not just keys, right? The Thunder's controllers include simple touch-keys with LEDs to indicate their state, keys that sense velocity, pressure and finger movement up and down, and keys that are divided into two or three zones with different effects. > What do the "keys" sense: position, velocity? And pressure. > What is the Buchla Lightening ? First of all, it's LIGHTNING, no extra "e." (I know you're not a native English speaker, Martin, and English is a language full of stupid exceptions: "Lightning" is the electric stuff from the sky, and "lightening" is a gerund, the opposite of "darkening.") The Lightning is a MIDI gesture sensor: you hold a want with an infrared LED on it and wave it, and the direction, speed and spatial location of the wand are translated into MIDI commands. It's about half the cost of the Thunder and much more dramatic to watch in a live situation, but I like a controller I can touch, personally. -- Mike Metlay metlay@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu Atomic City, P.O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1992 10:33:02 +0000 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening >What that means >is that you, the user, must determine for yourself precisely what each key >and switch does when you touch it, and how. Key number 17 on the Thunder >could play an e flat, or play a chord, or transmit pitch bend, or set off >a sequence of notes, or reconfigure a synth's status via sysex. It's different >for every user. It allows the user to customize it to the point where no >one else, even another Thunder owner, can sit down and play their unit >and know what precisely will happen. But, the Thunder does have *one* "preset" in some sense: the layout of the keys (and the basic operation of the controllers). This must be deliberate on Buchla's part, for ergonomic reasons. Or did he just want something bird-shaped? What you describe in your article holds equally well for a conventional keyboard connected to a Mac running MAX. No need to buy a Thunder here, unless the layout and ergonomics of the "keyboard" are conducive to a different playing style (quite possible), and/or the programming interface is better (which I'm inclined to doubt, to be honest). Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1992 11:55:19 +0100 From: Martin Roth Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening Could anyone please explain a little more detailed about the Thunder & Lightning ? I thought the thunder has some 20 CONTINUOUS controllers, not just keys, right? What do the "keys" sense: position, velocity? What is the Buchla Lightening ? _______________________________________________________________________ _ Martin Roth Martin Roth ETHZ, ips, RZ F16 |\ /|_) Mail: roth@ips.id.ethz.ch Sandacker 14 g 01/256 55 68 | \/ | \ (Student of Computer CH-8154 Oberglatt p 01/850 32 75 Science / Engineering) Switzerland (F-)emails welcome! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1992 17:14:06 +0000 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening >The former, not the latter (in fact, I personally would hook a Thunder up >to MAX if I had the chance). I presume it has (documented) SysEx then...? >The Thunder's keys are velocity and pressure >sensitive, but also sense movement of the finger on the key, and some of >the larger pads are divided into layerable zones so they can act like >joysticks of a sort. Yooooo... now, that sounds good: proper integration of note gating and modification, rather than the current one-hand-plays-and-the-other-does-the-wheels business (and aftertouch doesn't count; I can't stand it). >The overall effect is like that of Moog's recent >Multi->Touch keyboard or whatever he calls it, but at a much lower price. Hmm. What sort of much lower price? Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1992 07:47:36 EDT From: "D. Yuen" Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening Metlay writes.. Lightening is...much more dramatic to watch in a live situation... Can you expound on this live performance, Mike? Having been frustrated by one it would be nice to hear about how it actually works. Dan There's no excuse for my "e" in lightning other than a public education ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1992 17:17:42 EDT From: metlay Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening > >The former, not the latter (in fact, I personally would hook a Thunder up > >to MAX if I had the chance). > > I presume it has (documented) SysEx then...? Heavily documented. > >The Thunder's keys are velocity and pressure > >sensitive, but also sense movement of the finger on the key, and some of > >the larger pads are divided into layerable zones so they can act like > >joysticks of a sort. > > Yooooo... now, that sounds good: proper integration of note gating and > modification, rather than the current > one-hand-plays-and-the-other-does-the-wheels business (and aftertouch > doesn't count; I can't stand it). I rather like it, but not for subtlety, the machinery isn't refined enough. > >The overall effect is like that of Moog's recent > >Multi->Touch keyboard or whatever he calls it, but at a much lower price. > > Hmm. What sort of much lower price? I was being flip, my friend. The Thunder, if it's still being made, sells for $1995 directly from Buchla. The Moog keyboard is one of a kind, and basically priceless as of now. No plans are in motion to build a second one, and the materials alone in the first model cost over ten thousand bucks. -- Mike Metlay metlay@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu Atomic City, P.O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1992 17:34:01 EDT From: metlay Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightning > > Metlay writes.. > Lightening is...much more dramatic to watch in a live situation... > > Can you expound on this live performance, Mike? Having been frustrated by one > it would be nice to hear about how it actually works. You wave your arms and it makes synths squawk! What ELSE the hell do you want to know?! Ahem. Sorry, Dan. Not your fault. I'm unsubscribing to this list until after my thesis defense. You people need me right now even less than I need you, if that's humanly possible. -- Mike Metlay metlay@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu Atomic City, P.O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************