One of the pioneers of early synthesizers, Donald “Don” Buchla earned a place alongside Bob Moog and the other innovators of the modern synthesis. Born in 1937, Buchla studied physics, physiology, and music at UC Berkeley, graduating in 1959 with a degree in physics.
He formed his first electronic music instrument company, Buchla and Associates, in Berkeley in 1962. He began designing his first modules for the Tape Music Center in 1963, releasing his first units shortly after Bob Moog released his early synthesizers. Buchla eventually assembled his modules into the Buchla Modular Electronic Music System (later re-named the System 100) and started selling them commercially in 1966. Along with the Moog Modular, this is considered to be the beginning of commercial modular synthesizers. He subsequently released the Buchla System 200 in 1970, and the first digitally controlled analog synthesizer, the Buchla Series 500, in 1971. He released the Buchla 400, with a video display, in 1982. 1987 saw Buchla introduce the fully MIDI-enabled Buchla 700.
After Buchla’s analog-synthesis heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, he shifted his attention to developing alternative MIDI controllers in the 1990s, and re-released the System 200e around 2004. He passed away in 2016 due to complications from cancer.