Roland TB-303

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Roland TB-303

The TB-303 is an analog synthesizer made by the Japanese company Roland , which was launched in 1981. With its characteristic sound, the device has significantly shaped the music styles Acid House and Acid Techno and has meanwhile become a rarity with cult status on the used market .

description

technology

The TB-303 is a monophonic analog synthesizer. The sound synthesis is limited to an oscillator with two waveforms ( sawtooth and square ) as a sound source, a modulating AD envelope and a low-pass filter ( VCF ) with adjustable resonance . The settings of the filter and the envelope can be changed in real time using rotary potentiometers and the timbre can be varied. The filter is a variation of the Moog cascade with a slope of nominally 18 dB and arithmetically 24 dB per octave . It works with diodes to replace the transistors and has an additional envelope. In addition to the extremely characteristic distortion , this filter is the main reason for the sound character of this synthesizer.

As individually selected components with low tolerances were not used for cost reasons , the individual TB-303 models do not sound exactly the same.

The integrated step sequencer can be programmed individually for each step to hold the tone and to approach the pitch not instantly, but as a portamento audibly slower to the programmed one (slide). Due to the cheap workmanship of the keys, they tend to bounce , so that it is often difficult to predict how many tones will be entered with one press of a key when using old devices.

With a suitable cable ( DIN-Sync ) the device can be synchronized with the drum computers of Roland's TR series. The device does not have a MIDI connection.

history

Originally developed as a bass accompaniment device

The device appeared in 1981 at the same time as the Roland TR-606 , a drum computer in a related design that can also be programmed using a step sequencer, which in turn is a successor to the legendary Roland TR-808 . The device came onto the market in Germany in 1982. The list price was 395 US dollars , in Germany 730 DM. It was developed by Tadao Kikumoto , who later also designed the Roland TR-909 .

The “TB” in the name stands for “ Transistor Bassline” and reveals the original purpose of the device, which was intended to replace an electric bass player accompanying the musician . The synthesizer was originally designed for solo guitarists , in order to enable them to use the combination of the TB-303 and TR-606 as an inexpensive drum and bass accompaniment. However, due to its unnatural sound, the device was unsuccessful with the actual target group, and production was discontinued as early as 1984.

New discovery in the course of the acid house

In 1985, the Chicago-based musician DJ Pierre of the Phuture group , Nathan Jones, discovered that the TB-303 could generate a new, futuristic-sounding chirping, screeching and bubbling through "extreme" settings contrary to its original purpose. In 1987 he brought out a 12-minute, minimalist piece called Acid Tracks , which was largely based on the acidic sound of the TB-303. The “acid sound” was based, among other things, on the self- oscillation of the filter , i.e. a high level of resonance .

Acid Tracks , which had already been played a few times in the Chicago warehouse before the official release on the house label Trax Records , immediately became a hit in the still young house scene and caused a whole wave of similar tracks, mostly in combination with Drum computers like the TR-808 , the TR-606 , the TR-909 or the TR-707 were produced. Thus founded Acid Tracks a new, independent and influential style of music Acid House , which later also the faster and harder acid techno developed.

The sound of the TB-303 is still used today for productions of techno , house , goatrance and other styles of electronic dance music .

Cult status

As the device responsible for the "acid sound", the TB-303 has become increasingly popular over the years. Due to the limited availability of the device, which was only produced for a short time, and the growing demand, the price on the used market rose enormously. The supply of spare parts has also become increasingly scarce over time; According to Roland Germany, apart from a few small mechanical parts, no spare parts are available anywhere in the world. Flawless second-hand devices are now up to ten times their original sales price; unused devices in their original packaging are extremely rare collector's items.

successor

With the TB-3 Touch Bassline , Roland launched an official successor to the TB-303 in 2014. With the help of a technology called "Analog Circuit Behavior", the device models the circuit - and thus the sound behavior of the TB-303 digitally in an FPGA and offers some effects and setting options that go beyond the original device, but is different from the original device Touch screen operated.

In 2016, the Roland TB-03 appeared as part of the boutique series , which, in contrast to the TB-3, also looks like an almost exact replica of the original device.

Replicas and software emulators

Replicas

With the ML-303 from Acidcode and the x0xb0x from Adafruit, attempts were made to produce technically identical clones of the TB-303, whereby the ML-303 in versions 5 and 6 was ideally built completely with original components from residual stocks. Even the position of the individual components on the circuit board corresponds to the original. This comes very close to the sound of the real TB-303. The x0xb0x in turn has the advantage that the sound generation is completely analog. Here, too, the components are the same as at the time in the TB-303: 2SC2291 and 2SC1583 transistors, 2SC536F and 2SA733P or 2SA733AP transistors. These components are bought by hobbyists from remnants all over the world in order to be able to build as many of the coveted x0xb0xes as possible. The x0xb0x is free hardware and is published under the MIT license .

In addition, there are still numerous replicas that try to meet the high demand for the 303 at affordable prices. Examples are the Bassline from Acidlab, the Analogic TT-303 Bass Bot Synthesizer from Cyclone or the TD-3 from Behringer, which was released in 2019 in several versions.

Due to some special features of the electronic components used in the original devices (especially their sometimes considerable manufacturing tolerances), the sound of a “real” TB-303 is difficult to imitate with new technology. Since current comparative types of these components are “only” available with significantly better properties, it is becoming increasingly impossible to reproduce a TB-303 true to sound. In addition, different components of the original TB-303 influence each other, which cannot be easily reproduced either. The MB-33 from MAM, for example, works with a faithful replica of the sound generation unit, but the missing original components produce a rather sterile, “too” clean sound.

Software emulators

In the course of time numerous software emulators have been developed to imitate the sound generation of the 303 on the computer (e.g. Propellerheads ReBirth RB-338 or Audiorealisms Bassline ). Roland himself now has an emulator as a plugin. Due to the limited computing time, however, analog circuits with the complexity of the TB-303 cannot be reproduced in every detail, even with the most modern CPUs. The main problem with emulation is the digital simulation of a distortion known from analog technology . This phenomenon in particular is very difficult to emulate digitally, which is why many connoisseurs of the original sound believe that they can recognize a clone or emulator by this alone. This can be remedied by real analog distortion , which is mixed in behind the analog output of the digital sound generator. Even with a deliberately overdriven input amplifier in an analog mixer channel, you usually achieve a much better result than with most emulators.

Web links

Commons : Roland TB-303  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Blue Box: Roland TB-303 - The whole story! In: AMAZONA.de. December 16, 2018, accessed on July 17, 2020 (German).
  2. ↑ Timothy E. Stinchcombe: Diode Ladder Filters (including the pretension to 18dB). July 10, 2010, accessed July 4, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Timothy E. Stinchcombe: Analysis of the Moog Transistor Ladder and Derivative Filters. In: timstinchcombe.co.uk. October 25, 2008, accessed August 2020 .
  4. ↑ by Bernhard Lösener: Bass Synthesizer Roland TB-303. March 2, 2017, accessed on July 4, 2020 (German).
  5. ↑ Phuture - Acid Tracks. DISCOGS, accessed on July 17, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Roland - TB-3 Touch Bassline. Roland Corporation, accessed July 17, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Welcome To Roland's New AIRA: TR-8, TB-3, VT-3 & System-1 Revealed. In: DJ TechTools. February 14, 2014, accessed July 4, 2020 (American English).
  8. ^ Roland - TB-03 | Bass line. Roland Corporation, accessed July 4, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Mijk van Dijk: The best TB-303 Bass Line Clones :: bonedo.de. Bonedo, April 12, 2020, accessed July 4, 2020 .
  10. ↑ G. Scherer: Test: Cyclone Analogic TT-303 Bass Bot V2 Synthesizer. In: AMAZONA.de. March 26, 2017, accessed on July 4, 2020 (German).
  11. ↑ Michael Geisel: Is Behringer planning a TD-3 with Devil Fish modifications? :: bonedo.de. Bonedo, February 5, 2020, accessed July 17, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Test: MAM MB33 retro, analog synthesizer. In: AMAZONA.de. July 30, 2017, accessed on July 4, 2020 (German).
  13. ^ Roland Corporation: Roland - TB-303 | Bass Line software. Retrieved July 17, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Jürgen Schuhmacher: Modeling of analog circuits - Mikrocontroller.net. In: Mikrocontroller.net. Andreas Schwarz, June 19, 2018, accessed July 4, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Guitar Effects: The 10 Best Boss Pedals of All Time. Retrieved July 4, 2020 .