Buchla Thunder MIDI Touch Controller

I have had this amazing instrument for eight years or so. It is the most robustly made of any of Buchla's instruments and is cosmetically excellent for its age and functionally perfect. Ahead of its time, there were fewer than 100 made. It is rare to find one for sale at all, let alone in this condition. I am selling it because I am just not using MIDI or Max MSP anymore and so this has just been sitting more or less unused for a couple of years. This particular one was confirmed by Don Buchla himself to be working perfectly.

Developed by electronic instrument designer Don Buchla in 1989, Thunder is a musical instrument controller with an array touch sensitive keys. Keys 1 to 9 respond to pressure and keys 10 to 25, with the feather graphic respond to both pressure AND location. Thunder's software — known as “STORM” — allows assignment of any key's touch, pressure and/or location to any MIDI controller number or note number on any MIDI channel. Keys can also be assigned to start and stop “Riffs" that might be programmed as part of the preset. (“Riffs" precede and are similar to “clips” in Ableton Live.)

Thunder uses capacitive technology to sense the deformation of the grounded graphic overlay.

There are 8 user presets. Other inputs include a footswitch, a footpedal, and a memory card slot for backup. Thunder has a sophisticated built-in user interface, employing an 80-character displaying menus that get selected from small hexagon touch keys below the display and data entry using the “Thunder” strip below that.

Thunder is a pure controller, with no internal of its own. The CPU is a TMS320.

I spoke to Don a couple of times on the phone before he died to confirm that everything on this unit was working as designed and about a couple of design quirks, which I will share with the buyer.

Shipping is estimated. I am not yet sure what service to use for an item of this value and it depends on your location. We can discuss it before purchase.