It’s been decades in coming: what if you took the best parts of the classic Buchla complex oscillator with its, well, ziggy waveshapes, and built a friendly compact synth around it? It’s all that modular fun, but in a package that lets you tweak right away without connecting a single patch cord.
Remember that back on the East Coast, the Minimoog was essentially a patch-in-a-box. Its whole origin story is that a lot of the time, you wind up patching exactly the same connections on a modular each time you do a demo. Ziggy is far from the first attempt to build something like this. The first that springs to mind is Pittsburgh Modular’s West Pest. But that was an entry-level semi-modular, and it has a very different feature set — with a focus on the waveshaper into the LPG. Or more famously, there was the Make Noise 0-COAST, but that’s almost the exact opposite — focused on patching, mixing different synthesis techniques together, and Make Noise’s own unique interface. What we haven’t gotten is a compact, portable Buchla that retains not just some elements of the signal architecture, but the signature Buchla interface and its hands-on approach.
Until now. Ziggy goes further than anything I can think of in packing a bunch of that modular power into a box. You can do things you’d never imagine in the classic Buchla model like, oh, saving presets with a button. And whereas other instruments might take one feature — an LPG here, a waveshaper there — the Ziggy looks like the first desktop modular that understands everything that makes the Buchla work. I guess they better be able to do that, given the company’s name.
Look at what’s here:
- Analog Complex and Modulation oscillators
- …plus an extra triangle LFO (xLFO)
- Frequency and Amplitude Modulation into the main oscillator
- A proper LPG (Low Pass Gate — hell, yeah) — VCA, filter, or both, Sallen-Key, and blended envelope shapes so you can continuously vary the envelope (which some might argue is a more musical design than ADSR)
- Cycler: it’s a clock, it’s an envelope generator, it’s an LFO, it’s a random generator, it’s got an uncertainty button and a continuously-variable waveshape on a fader
- CV modulation, gate, 1v/oct pitch ins
- MIDI over USB-C and fine-pin DIN and type A mini
- Custom tuning and quantization for western or non-western scales
- External audio, routed into the LPG
- Digital multi-effects: reverb, delay, chorus, pitch shift, flanger, wet/dry and size
- Web MIDI browser-based editor/patch storage
- Separate headphones out
There’s no onboard keyboard, but you can use Buchla’s own LEM218 (separately or in a bundle), or just BYO MIDI controller of choice. If you preorder both, you get the LEM and the Ziggy for $1999 — a significant savings off buying them separately. Ziggy on its own is $999.
I mean, it’s definitely more economical to use your own keyboard, but gosh, that LEM will look cute next to the Ziggy.
Excellent. I don’t even need sound demos; I already want it. I assume it sounds like a Buchla.
Preorders are already up at Perfect Circuit (USD):
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Ziggy Analog Desktop Synthesizer
Ziggy + LEM218v3 Analog Desktop Synthesizer + Touch Controller Bundle
and Thomann, where they’re 1.039 € including VAT:
In fact, I’m going to put my bet in now. (Not with money; I’ve got none of that. WIth pride. Uh, however much of that I have left.) I think this will be the monosynth of the show, and very possibly the desktop hit. Of course, it’s Superbooth, so… you know, totally not only about desktop synths! See you later this week.
* PS, I assume the association here is “as in Stardust” not as in the comic character. It does also nicely describe the shape of a West Coast waveform, though!