I think Peter Blasser is unapologetic in what he would like his instruments to be both in materials - hand made, locally sourced wood, etc - and artistic approach and that is going to cost. I don’t think it’s “elitist” if the private owner decides this is they way they want it; he certainly doesn’t have shareholders to appease.
In addition, I think its aim and goal is entirely different from that of a DT. The DT can’t get anywhere close to what a Tetrax can do.
I don’t think use case and design principles are mutually exclusive, I believe the aesthetic informs the user what the instruments potential is 
Like brutal no nonsense techno or meandering exploratory passages
What’s a wheelie bin?
You think? 
Isn’tses (who designed the Chernobylizer shown above and also the fabulous Fort Processor, which I use and completely don’t understand) are very much about the aesthetic over the practical.
Well I think you make a good case for why CL actually IS elitist - but a good sort of Elitism (anti mass mfg, local sourced/sustainable wood, purposeful design decisions that limit according to an artistic philosophy instead of being all things to all people, most feature-packed). They are not instruments for the common people and, going back to design interface, clearly give no effs about you, the end user, understanding anything from front panel design. That’s a bit pompous and I mean yay great for it not everyone is Behringer or even Moog or Elektron.
Okay yeah, that’s what I thought, and it makes sense. I guess we just boringly call them Trash Cans here.
you made my day haha
I get what you’re saying. I wouldn’t use the word “elitist” as I don’t think CL is actively trying to gate-keep; this is just the way they feel an instrument should be made. “Discerning” maybe?
When I got my Cocolase, an ancestor of the pictured device, Pete Blasser believed that the user sound discover the functions through play and exploration. It could have been his excuse for why the documentation was so sparse. I wish i’d taken him up on his offer to share some weed when we were hanging out the last time I saw him - I normally don’t do recreational drugs - but maybe I could have gotten more insight into his world that way.
Later I was on a thread discussing various looping devices when David Torn - one of my looping heroes - popped in to say “The Cocolase UI… LOL!!”. He was the one who made me think of getting an Octatrack to use as a looper.
Guess they sucessfully followed a “hands-on” approach. (Never read the manual). Press all buttons in random rapid order, that way finding out how it works just by combining movement and effect. May work well if it is not a car or power plant or so.
Archer?
I mean honestly when people were first introduced to Moogs or Buchlas or Synthis their immediate responses were probably similar to how most people nowadays approach a CL.
Which is not to say anyone is on the wrong side of history or whatever if they don’t like a CL. My point is that maybe the paradigm shift hasn’t happened yet where a CL is considered commonplace.
Maybe but discerning sure sounds like a work the elites would use, when talking about wine perhaps, or searching for Danish Modern antiques. (A more) Discerning Taste = what the rich supposedly posses after all?
i actually like blasser’s work and understand the innovation on display (plus appreciate the fact that he gives away so many pcb designs for his instruments…for free, if you’re willing to build em yourself) but kinda hate the top panel designs ingraved on the PB
If i had the need for an infinitely flexible analog drum synth I could stomach buying one despite the appearance but for now I don’t…and the price keeps it perpetually out of reach for something i only have casual interest in.
You are spot on when comparing CL stuff to Elektron in that the touch sensitive wood of the tetrax is a totally different way of approaching performance than digitakt but no less advanced or functional.
They are just different.
Exactly and I see him in the same rare category as those synth luminaries. The word is overused but Blasser is honestly a genius in this field.
Looking at his expanding influence on other designers only cements his legacy (eg. Whimsical Raps series of modules, or more recently the phenomenal work from MengQiMusic like the Wing Pinger)
Still I can see why some may shy away from trying his tools based on appearance and lack of desire to “play by his rules”
I think it is pretty self explanatory, shape and color coded. Like that.
True. But I think there’s a bit of a false equivalency there as that particular “discernment” is very much associated to a price tag and maybe rarity as well.
Plus anyway no one here is condescending to anyone else for enjoying boring black boxes over art
When i picked up my Cocolase from Ciat Lonbarde (Pete Blasser), I went to his house in West Baltimore. You will LOL at the thought of West Baltimore being a pretentious neighborhood at that time. Every damn house had windows that were either shattered or completely boarded up. Pete’s was boarded up. Baltimoreans complained about the show “The Wire” and how it made Baltimore look like a big ghetto or whatever. W. Baltimore was uglier than anything shown on The Wire.
I told Pete I wanted to run my kemancheh through it. So he insisted on making a piezo pickup in his lab, which was located in the “shell area” - between the outer shell of the house showing the beat-up facade, and the inner wall.
He then proudly gave me a tour of his house, which he bought for $50,000. He was particularly proud of his newly renovated “poop station” - a toilet that he had recently installed. Then his good friend Twigg, a local noise artist, and Twigg’s partner arrived. Twigg was introduced as “my good friend who let me poop in his house until i got my toilet”. But I knew who he really was. We had vegetarian stew for dinner.
You really think he was buying wood for his devices from some boutique reseller? Hell no! He was walking around crappy parts of Baltimore looking for discarded wood. That’s where most of the wood came from.
Pete doesn’t make a lot of money off of Ciat Lonbarde sales. I don’t think his income would increase if he dropped the price, because the demand simply isn’t there. He earns just enough from a combination of product sales, income from doing workshops, etc. to support himself and his children. He’s not a wealthy man by any means.
Strega vs. Lyra-8 design… My guess is Strega looks that way because Cortini finds it to be friendly for him. It could be that his brain is wired differently from those who may find Strega unpleasant to look at and/or use.
I have a background in interaction/UI design and designed a few Reaktor synths a couple of years ago (I had to figure out Sketch for a job so I thought I might as well do something practical with it and learn a bit of Reaktor as well.) where I wanted to be as clear as possible to the user. Clear naming, one page design, minimal clutter, clear signal flow, everything colour coded etc.
With all that being said: I love Make Noise’s ‘mysterious’ aesthetic. It looks like alchemy on a panel and there’s a synergy between the look and the sounds created. And there’s definitely a method to the madness.
