I am now a proud owner of the FM3 Buddha Machine II...

Today I received an early birthday gift to myself. The Buddha Machine II created by Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian (also known as FM3). I am always interested in small gadgets(that are not keyboards) to create music with. Something minimalistic, that doesn't take up space, and does not take my entire brain to figure out how to make it work. Behold the Buddha Machine II (I picked the burgandy one). It's as simple as turning it on and hitting a button to change what's playing.

Yes this is a 2nd generation of the original Buddah Machine. It is an ambient loop player with volume and pitch bend controller. Besides having it's own built in speaker it also has an output jack to plug into...anything. It will play for as long as you want it to or until the batteries die. It has 9 different loops to choose from, all very beautiful sounding. As I mentioned before, I don't like thinking to hard when I make music, well this requires NO THINKING as the unit plays itself. It falls under the criteria of "generative music". Iphone owners might be know about the "Bloom" app(also made by Brian Eno) which could be used for a similar purpose.

When the first Buddah Machine became available, Brian Eno was the first customer and purchased 8 units. Other artists/bands who use the unit include Sunn 0))), Einsturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld, Throbbing Grislte, and Jan Jelinek. (What a surprise, all people I listen to.)

My intentions are unclear at this point on what I want do with it. I have had a few different ideas, but for now I am just enjoying the ambience.

to learn more about the Buddah Machine II please visit:

http://www.fm3buddhamachine.com/