At 5:47 AM +0000 5/16/06, selfoscillate wrote:

>but i'm still hoping that the guy who posted the
>original mail is willing to answer this question.
>how would a buchla 259 compare to all those other
>vco's out there, in regard of it's basic sound.
>i really want to know what makes it superior over
>other vco's.

I'm not the original poster, but the Buchla 261e (which is the closest thing to the 259 that is currently made) is a dual oscillator, with one modulation oscillator with integrated VC waveshaping, and one principal oscillator with multi parameter VC timbre control. (the timbre control section often gets compared to the Serge wave multiplier. I haven't heard a wave multiplier in a long time, but I would guess that the comparison is in the ballpark.) The modulation oscillator can modulate the principal oscillator's amplitude, timbre and pitch, with a VC mod amount. The mod osc can also be hard or soft synced to the principal osc.

I haven't has a chance to listen to a 259 and a 261e at the same time, but people who have say that the timbre section on the 261e is more aggressive sounding.

I wouldn't want to say that the 261e (or 259) is the best oscillator, but It really has a _VERY_ wide, interesting, palette of sounds, all under voltage control.

261e page: http://www.buchla.com/200e/261e.html

-C

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