Roland TB303 Bass Line "transistor Bass"
Computer Controlled (1981)

 

THE silver machine, cult bass liner that defined most of the electronic acid music.

Loved or hated, the 303 is one of the most immitated, controversial and sought-after musical machine ever created

 

BASS LINER main panel features 2 rotary selectors, 24 push buttons and 8 knobs potentiometers.

Rear panel terminal connectors:
- main signal out
- CV tension out 0-5V
- Gate signal out
- Sync din 24PPQ
- audio input MIX IN
- headphones out
- waveform selector (square / saw)

Power supply is a 9V external PSU DC negative center -)+ or 4 X 1,5V batteries.

 

 

VOICE the internal CPU UP650C manages 1 voices with 2 different waveforms: saw and square.
Generated sound can be tweaked using the upper knobs functions.

 

SOUND FUNCTIONS the sound can be modified using 6 knobs:
- Tuning: changes the VCO oscillator pitch (range: +/-700 cents)
- Cutoff freq: amount of filtered VCF
- Resonance: amount of VCF resonance
- Env MOd: sets the amount of signal from the EG that reaches the VCF cutoff
- Decay: sets the decay time of the Envelope
- Accent: sets the amount of the EG that reaches the VCF resonance.

 

 

FILTER famous resonant and screaming diode Ladder VCF at 4 poles, unmatched.

 

ENVELOPE generator is based on famous and now rare BA662 VCA chip and controls decay and accent.

 

SEQUENCER tb303 cannot be directly played (unless some Mod) and must be programmed with the not-so-intuitive internal sequencer. Notes are entered with the mini-keyboard, then each note can be set with lenght, portamento, slide and octave transpose (+/-1)
Quite tedious and results are often different from original idea, but that's part of the original charm... tb303 noobs are puzzled for that, especially after spending thousands of bucks for the machine.

 

SYNC tempo from 40 to 300 BPM or sync to external DIN-SYNC with other compliant machine like big sister drum machine TR808.

MEMORY:
- 7 songs
- 64 patterns (256 measures).
Internal batteries must be fitted to retain memory, be aware of acid leaking.

REPAIR AND MODIFICATION the TB is quite reliable, just some tact switch need to be replaced soon or later, also some issues on RAM IC and more rare the CPU may die, however there are some third-parte replacement with some enhancements (e.g.. quicklsilver).
THe most common modification is the Midi retro fitting by single DIN or various CV/GATE, also some extreme mods like devilfish or Borg.

 

RELATED FAMILY tb303 is maybe the most cloned machine ever made, dozen for more or less good emulation of the silver box.

	Roland TB3 (2014) should be the official successor of the Tb303 with new outfit. A digital cheap machine, not so great IMHO.
	Roland Tb-03 (2016) boutique series is a remake of the tb3 which is a remake of the tb303- lol- Not tested yet
	Clones: here's a brief list: - Abstrakt Instruments Avalon Bassline synthesizer VIDEO - Adafruit x0xb0x VIDEO - Acidcode ML303 VIDEO - Analogue Solutions TB-X TB-303 VIDEO - Cyclone Analogic Bass Bot TT 303 - Future Retro Revolution - Future Retro 777 VIDEO - Acidlab Bassline VIDEO - Syntecno TeeBee VIDEO - Doepfer MS-404 VIDEO - Analogue Solutions Trans-Bass-Xpress VIDEO - Deep bass Nine VIDEO - Oakley TM3030 VIDEO - MAM MB33 VIDEO

 

 

VST PLUGIN / SAMPLED VERSION also a LOT of virtual softwares:

	name	price
	- Venom VB-303 - Bitsonic TB-303	Free VST PLUGINs
	- D16 Group Phoscyon - AudioRealism BassLine3	commercial VST PLUGINs

 

 

AUDIO DEMO

coming up

VIDEO CLIP SELECTION hits hits hits

 

mimi the synthcat with 2 TBs :)

Roland tb303 MANUAL

Roland tb303 SERVICE MANUAL

chord shift scale

original brochure

original brochure

original brochure

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