Don Buchla (April 17, 1937 – September 14, 2016) was an American pioneer in the field of sound synthesizers, releasing his first units shortly after Robert Moog's first synthesizers. However, his instrument was arguably designed before Moog's. Buchla was born in South Gate, California and grew up in California and New Jersey. He studied physics, physiology, and music at UC Berkeley, graduating in 1959 as a physics major. Buchla formed his electronic music equipment company, Buchla and Associates, in 1962 in Berkeley, California.