Buchla's beginning in synthesizer design was the result of a San Francisco Tape Music Center commission by composers Ramon Sender and Morton Subotnick, along with a $500 grant from Rockefeller Foundation.
By the start of 1963 Fred had designed and built his own prototype synthesizer – a simple voltage controlled, keyboard-operated unit for generating, shaping and switching electronic sounds – a small but significant development in the history of the synthesizer, as it predates the Synket, Moog and Buchla instruments.
Gleeson began experimenting with electronic music in the mid-'60s at the San Francisco Tape Music Center using a Buchla synth and other devices.