Don Buchla talks The Acid Test, NASA, and Moog | Red Bull Music Academy

[@RBMA]

You can read more on about Don Buchla here... www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/don-buchla-passing-the-acid-test

[@knobulism]

How dare you self proclaim the title of Music Academy when you cannot even find a marginally competent interviewer? Red Bull should be totally ashamed.

[@zerobject]

@@knobulism I think you ask too much from a company, named "Red Bull"

[@knobulism]

@@zerobject Ha, I suppose you have me there.

[@JureJerebic]

Can you make sure that you get competent people for interviews like this?

[@knobulism]

Amazing to see Don Buchla giving this interview. Too bad there wasn't someone with more pertinent and informed questions.

[@ZombieTactics]

+Jason Lazzara Yep, this interviewer has a rep for being maddeningly clueless.

[@PacificNatureTV]

Yeah the interviewer is so ignorant

[@LordMarlle]

This is the same guy that asked Ryuichi Sakamoto if he feels the city sounds different when it rains. That interview was almost unwatchable

[@sams.wndrfl.wrld.of.synths]

he asked dave smith 'what's an lfo thing?' 🤦‍♂️

[@automationtraveler]

Wasn’t the interviewer’s problem here. Don clearly doesn’t know how to tell simple stories. No wonder why this is one of his rare interviews.

[@matthollandsf]

Don Buchla deserves a better topic index (also a biography, someone please get on that). 0:00:00 - Early history, 100 series, 200 series. Tape music experiments. 0:05:03 - Don describe's performing and running sound at the Acid Test parties. 0:08:05 - Don describe's working at NASA 0:10:00 - Back to SF Tape Music Center and the original 100 series. 0:13:14 - Torsten: "I mean it's basically a ring modulator" :facepalm: 0:13:47 - "I never studied electronics, I just picked up a lot of it just building my own projects with NASA"" 0:16:25 - Torsten: "At this time your just tinkering more or less on a hobbyist level right?" :doublefacepalm: 0:17:44 - Don on Moog and East vs West coast design aesthetic 0:22:40 - Buchla physical panel standards 0:26:00 - Fascinating story of using tape in the absence of sequencers 0:30:40 - Beginning of discussion on piano keyboards and alternate interfaces 0:33:00 - Beginning of Don's slideshow on the history of electric music instruments 0:41:00 - Sal Martriano (I'd not heard of this guy before) 0:49:30 - Torsten diverts Don from his slideshow to ask about sending chimps to space. 0:54:44 - Awkward conversation about polyphony 0:56:56 - Leadup to discussion about Marimba Lumina 1:01:50 - Don talks about his inventions, influences, etc. with regard to string instruments. 1:08:22 - Don talks about his working relationship with David Rosenboom and EEG/EKG as music controller 1:11:00 - Don on fluorescent lighting 1:14:28 - Don discusses his attempts at technological solutions to improve the lives of blind people 1:21:55 - Don on MIDI 1:23:53 - 700 series ~10 of them made 1:25:30 - Lightning, Wind, Thunder 1:29:50 - Thunder II 1:37:11 - (still Thunder II) "I forgot I was playing an electronic instrument" 1:41:35 - Dead Presidents Society (kzbin.info/www/bejne/d36yh2CPhrF3d6c) 1:45:13 - Don discusses more alternate controllers (Lemur, Beam) 1:49:00 - Video of lightning being used in a therapeutic context. 1:52:00 - Performance with Lightning @ Stanford in 1991 2:02:00 - More discussions of controllers! (Max Mathews / Radio Drum, Palmtree Airdrum, E-Beam, Wind, Wii, var. wind controllers, other weird midi controllers etc. Don was clearly still very passionate about this) 2:18:00 - Juggling act w/ Lightning 2:19:28 - Slightly bizarre digression into animal based control systems. 2:24:43 - "I'm not reducing myself to practical applications. That's your job." 2:26:00 - Just... one question from the audience?!?

[@hamsterbass123]

the interviewer is like an ali g character. love don buchla and all he did

[@cmangrum1]

You can you really tell that Don was not vibing with the interviewer. I don’t think he had a clue who was sitting next to him, very arrogant and disrespectful! Anyway, Don is a genius and we got to get a little glimpse into his brilliance in this interview. This mans legacy and his contributions to modern music and technology need to be remembered for ever. RIP Don Buchla.

[@morganfisherart]

Typical Red Bull FFS! So many here are down on this pathetic interviewer. RED BULL READ THIS AND GET YOURSELVES TOGETHER FOR PITY'S SAKE!!!

[@AZ-zf1eu]

Never thought I could love one hat so much while also hating another hat so much at the same time.

[@insideleft3584]

lmfao

[@bigkingsha]

Interviews like this are hard to watch - they can never summarize or encapsulate the speaker's feelings and experiences. This man needs his own Netflix mini-series documentary.

[@TheSynthZone]

RIP: Don Buchla, modular synthesizer pioneer, dies aged 79. You made a difference.

[@darrelly.hamamotoph.d.7833]

Red Bull: Vet your interviewers. This Euro with the flat bill DJ hat just isn't cutting it with Don Buchla. Fortunately, he managed to talk over him and ignore DJ Boy's attempt at humor.

[@thomas_ad]

Incredible how bored the interviewer becomes with one of the greatest instrument designers of all time.

[@illustriouschin]

So he ends the interview with, "So umm,,,, yeah." Not even a thank you. BRILLIANT.

[@brianmoran8998]

You would hope the interviewer at a Red Bull Academy lecture would know his subject matter and would know how to engage with his guest.

[@dvamateur]

Fascinating man Don Buchla. The topics are not for the DJ'ing EMD crowd though. It's just passing over the interviewer's head.

[@legatedoom7182]

i really hope someone recorded a conversation between Buchla and Cortini, that would be great

[@joewessely1893]

Interviewer has the enthusiasm of a wet paper towel Don had so much to share such a shame

[@liamarunbennett8282]

it's like ricky gervais and sacha baron cohen combined into one person to play this interviewer

[@charlesmatthias9459]

You hit it,spot-on!Especially"Sacha Cohen"!Ha! Hilarious!!!! ; )

[@jim4588]

2 years later it still feels like an Ali G segment

[@illustriouschin]

I feel so bad for Don Buchla who spent his precious remaining time with these idiots. Rest in peace.

[@spk9030]

Love what Don is saying but wtf is the interviewer on lol. I thought it was just me 🤣

[@badinibeats5939]

what a legend

[@DrJ3RK8]

This interviewer is an absolute joke. However, I could listen to Don all day. So I'm glad this exists.

[@randywoodard6198]

One of the worst interviewers ever! Don Buchla is great and makes the best of it.

[@backbonebb7905]

This interviewer is a joke. Thank you Don Buchla for giving this interview. Legend

[@inevitablecraftslab]

the interviewer has no idea at all 😂

[@pernordin2641]

The interviewer gets visibly more and more bored… Not very professional. And sure, Don sort of rambles, but he is a doer, not a talker. A good interviewer would help keep him in in pace and on track. Thumbs up for Don. Thumbs down for the least professional interview to date. And also thumbs down to the camera men / editor, who so seldom shows us what Don is showing on the screen and talking about.

[@matthollandsf]

It's probably good that he let Don ramble. We got to hear what Don really wanted to say (and Torsten was clearly out of his depth anyways).

[@cmangrum1]

matt holland waaay out of his depth.

[@surfpsych]

What a pleasant genius --- who reminds me of Mike Love of The Beach Boys here.

[@WiredSpaceWizard]

Was the title of doctor for the interviewer an honorary kind of thing? It certainly couldn't have been due to his interviewing prowess. I guess I shouldn't expect more from the purveyors of liquid crack.

[@OctavianTech]

how is this the only in-depth video interview with Don Buchla online?! My labradoodle could have conducted a better interview.

[@tonyhill8963]

Buchla does a great job of taking these moronic questions and saying something interesting.

[@Rhythmicons]

RIP Buchla

[@DSoverPSP]

Gonna start referring to the Nintendo Wii a Yamaha Y2 from now on. RIP Don Buchla

[@ElSmusso]

Acid Test - build me a time machine !!! I want to play in the opium den 🎸

[@nelsone9520]

Please enable subtitles!

[@charlesmatthias9459]

Around 50:00 things' get rather hilarious!The interviewer is completely-arrogant-acting! "Don Buchla" is great,as usual! ; )At least you can derive some (pertinent information) from what "Don Buchla" has to say,about his (personal history)!The whole interview is hard to watch! Sad!!! RIP "Don Buchla"! I'm fairly sure that "Don Buchla" is having a (Cosmic-Laugh) at these comments'!

[@Gianfranco_69]

This is golden..... anyone else getting aroused looking at those Megalith speakers???

[@frankjamesbonarrigo7162]

the bob ross of electronic music

[@ehafh]

makes me a bit sad that red bull of all places was the one to interview Don Buchla. really cool to see and listen to this but dang! why didn't something more relevant ask him to do something similar? in the age of podcasts especially. i guess cheers to redbull (hate to say that). it's just weird to see something so unrelated to a sugar drink. what a strange place to leech advertising from.

[@Lexcoaster]

This interviewer doesn't seem too interested.

[@charlesmatthias9459]

Actually,the interviewer has some (real-knowledge)about(synthesizers' and electronics'),but he seems' to be more carried-away with himself,than with "Don Buchla"! I love watching the "delivery" of questions' and you can see the wheels' turning inside of (Don Buchlas')-head! After a while, I felt like "Don Buchla" might be "toying" with this (Ass),in a very subtle way!Ha!

[@53munk]

Wish they've had a better microphone setup and that we'd seen more of the slides.

[@dvamateur]

It's like Ali G. doing the interview.

[@Kittyspit562]

This is very sad to see the interviewer so uninterested in what Don is talking about. I find this extremely rude and disrespectful towards one of the greatest instrument designers of all time. RIP Don.

[@thehappyprole]

never let this guy interview anyone ever again..terrible everything about his whole approach is off. smh

[@ghostexits]

It's interesting that Buchla remembers first meeting Subotnick at a Tape Music Center event. This doesn't exactly jive with Subotnick's memory of placing a help wanted ad in the paper.

[@cmangrum1]

Ektoplasmodic Interzone I seen a lecture by Mark Doty, historian for Buchla, where he said that there was an ad put in the paper looking for someone to help create a ring modulator. Coincidentally, Don was going to the SFTMC to use their three tape recorders they had and Morton mistook him for someone responding to the ad. So Morton asks Don if he could make a ring modulator and Don says “of course”. Don had been making various different electronic components at the time. Morton followed up by asking if he could make various other components he had interest in, which Don said he could do. And the rest is history. Talk about fate and destiny! Imagine how different music might have been if this interaction wouldn’t have happened. Very thankful it did!

[@ghostexits]

@@cmangrum1 seems to me a lot of these accounts change with each iteration of the story. If Subotnick's recollection here is true, then presumably the whole notion of a self-contained electronic music box was his idea; because, as he says, he put the ad in the paper looking for an engineer to execute his conception. Although, in another interview, it's not a synthesizer he's after anyway, it's a ring modulator. Never mind that neither one of them are novel ideas at this point in time, nor is voltage control or even the modular synthesizer. So, perhaps it's besides the point that Buchla himself doesn't even remember the ad when he recounts the same story of his initial meeting with Subotnick. Subotnick may not have been aware of Harold Bode's voltage controlled studio devices or Hugh LeCaine's VC modular synthesizers, both of which had been developing since the 50s, but Buchla most defintely would have been aware of these developments (as Robert Moog was also).

[@cmangrum1]

Ektoplasmodic Interzone go to the link Redbull posted below in the comments. It’s spells out a few of the details about the timeline a lil bit.

[@ghostexits]

Not to take away anything from any of these individual’s work or their contributions to history. Nothing but respect for Subotnick and Buchla. It’s just interesting how memory’s can change over time, and how “history” will change and evolve to fit into any given point of view.

[@MultiPetercool]

@@ghostexits I actually got to meet Subotnick around 1980 or so. He gave a lecture at Lehigh University and performed on some kind of Buchla machine. After the lecture, he let some of us come onstage and let us examine the machine. I was totally baffled. I mentioned I owned an Electrocomp EML-101. Don’t remember his words but he said is was not impressed and then complained about Moog’s limitations. He then went into a discussion about how Buchla allowed him to “ZZhhhZzH” as he vocalized it while shaking his arms with fists clasped as he spoke. I thought he was crazy.

[@WoolwichHouseStudio]

Don's a cool bloke.

[@Mr2it3881]

Should have been Trent Reznor interviewing Don. There is a NIN Easter egg, anyone see it?

[@GraveyarDisciple]

WORST INTERVIEWER EVER!!

[@FOCtv]

Painful!

[@GraveyarDisciple]

This guy should be fired.

[@illustriouschin]

If you watch any of the other "RBMA" videos you'll find that all of the interviewers are horrid. After each question my response would be "WTF did you just say!?" Shameful!

[@GraveyarDisciple]

Like this guy made the best quality analog stuff out there...used by the best...and WTF is that fat guy doing with this legend...jesus ill be like on my knees listening to buchla and carefuly ask my questions. JESUS CHRIST!! Im goin to find who this fat guy is and send him a message.

[@GraveyarDisciple]

If he doesn"t know how to do a proper interview well he should be fck fired.

[@theladubfovi909]

So now we know where Sacha Baron Cohen got the idea for “Bruno” character. Close your eyes, and it’s HIM!! 🤣🤣

[@mortarmopp3919]

I don't know if it's Don or the host or both, but this is one of the most lifeless interviews I've ever heard.

[@robgrainger5314]

It's definitely the host here I think.

[@SuperJV4x]

the interviewer should be Biden's running mate - bring the campaign to new energy lows.

[@adambarkley8988]

Who the hell is this interviewer

[@runner0075]

the interviewer acts inappropriate, incompetent, rude and quite arrogant, he lacks even of basic elementary manners.

[@dovic86]

33:38 Antonio Meucci invented the telephone way before Gray or Bell.

[@MysticDonBlair]

I can barely hear it! You think such content would have a better sound guy 🤔

[@epolder]

Just watched this…. WTF?

[@mountainkingelectronics]

This interview is so difficult to watch, whoever choose that interviewer for this episode should be fired. First, there is a language barrier, that is probably the biggest issue with the interview, there is nonstop miscommunication between them. Second, the guy is either misinformed or did a crap job researching, either way it's inexcusable. It's a real shame that one of the few lengthy interviews with Buchla is simply unwatchable. Like I keep saying, there is this disconnect between the new fans of synthesizer technology and the history of the technology and the musical movements that it has spawned, and there is no excuse for it, just spend a little time reading, I mean I know reading is an antiquated activity but just grin and bare it, kids, you well look much less ignorant to the educated among us if you do.

[@7karlheinz]

Too bad Morton Subotnik wasn't the interviewer.

[@jahbuddha]

Awful interviewer, acting totally bored and disinterested, should've just been a Don Buchla lecture/presentation with a proper Q & A at the end. What a wasted opportunity.

[@ChromosomeSyndicate]

Surely, one cannot say that the interviewer is a sympathetic personality. How disinterested the jellyfish actually sits there.

[@matyas555]

Buchla rocks, the interviewer is not skilled in music technology. The setup, angles and lighting is not Red Bull quality.

[@bauhnguefyische667]

It is if you drink a case of that bull piss and still think it tastes good.

[@snoolee7950]

that thing on the wall is so ugly. the audio is at 1/5 volume. there is a boominess in the mic. wtf red bull wtf

[@GuitarsAndSynths]

WTF are Buchla so bloody expensive? Every demo with the exception of maybe Alessandro Cortini or Suzanne Ciani sounds like bloopy bloopy video game farts that I can make for free.

[@azzaipdivad]

So the more expensive an instrument is, the more tonal the music people make on it should be?

[@bauhnguefyische667]

Cause you get what you pay for, same with Moogs. You can make bloops on a cheap synth. What you can’t do is have the high degree of control that the Buchla’s and Moogs have and get out of the box. The Buchla’s can produce some very sweet leads and drones, not just the bloops. They’re very original. I know because I have one.

[@sergoz123]

We know, all your music probably sounds like shit with that mentality.

[@hionhifi2]

Great interview, but the interviewer is AWFUL. Dude I could do better and ask better questions, be more attentive and actually ask good questions. “What questions were asked on the grant?” What. Who gives a fudge. Talk about music, the legacy, what’s going on now.

[@draculafrankenstein7380]

The interviewer is dressed like a child

[@ilyanikolaev8245]

shameful choice of an interviewer

[@rhinoskin7550]

Doesn't seem like there are a lot of interviews with Don.. Sucks Redbull botched it lol

[@chrissiesmusic]

Yikes. Terrible interview. Had someone like Subotnick been there to ask questions, this would stand as a legendary document.

[@swampflux]

Rewatching this I'm over the pretentious notion that the interviewer was being overly arrogant. With the benefit of hindsight, and seeing other interviews with great minds, it's not an uncommon technique to pair them up with someone less deep in the weeds on their focus areas. In the bit about ring modulation, he was trying to appeal to folks in the audience who may not know what on earth Don was talking about. We're quick to assume that just because we're here, we're an audience that already knows every reference he mentions, but that's a severe confirmation bias. It's not my favorite interview by a mile, but it's also my favorite interview because Don is in it going through a whole chronology of his career. The one thing that DOES BOTHER ME is that it's only 360p. Really??? Was this shot with a 1999 webcam? If there's better source footage, please re-upload.

[@RecordingOfMind]

An interview is not a lecture ..

[@bigkingsha]

I got 45 minutes into this interview and had to stop it. zzzzzzzzzzz......crappy interview. I feel like he wasn't asking the questions that would open Don up more....get him more excited to talk about the craft and tech.