Trend price : 2500€
THE silver machine, cult bass liner that defined most of the electronic acid music. Loved or hated, the 303 is one of the most imitated, controversial and sought-after musical machine ever created
Overview
BASS LINER (weight :1kg) main panel features rotary 2 selectors, 24 push buttons and 8 knobs potentiometers.
Rear panel terminal connectors:
-
main signal out
- CV / Gate out
- Din SYNC 24PPQ
- audio input MIX IN
-
headphones out
- waveform selector (square / saw)
Voice
1 voices with 2 different waveforms: saw and square. Generated sound can be tweaked using the upper knobs functions:
- 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.
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.
Audio demo:
Video Clip:
Review
OK: total cult! / sound
NOT : - price / not so intuitive
"History of electro music, nothing more to say".
Text , review, special demos copyright polynominal.com / Eric Pochesci