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TB-303 Front Panel
Roland TB-303 Bass Line by Roland
Synthesis type: Analog Subtractive
Polyphony: monophonic
Timbrality: none
Oscillators: Sawtooth and Square Wave
Filter: 18db low pass resonant filter, non self oscillating. is a Japanese manufacturer of Electronic musical instruments electronic equipment and Software. Basics of sound When any mechanical collision occurs such as a fork being dropped sound is produced An analog synthesizer is a Synthesizer that uses analog circuits and Analog computer techniques to generate sound electronically Subtractive synthesis is a method of subtracting Harmonic content from a sound via Sound synthesis, characterised by the application of an Audio filter Polyphony is the property of an Electronic musical instrument which describes how many notes it can sound at one time An electronic musical instrument may be multitimbral, which means it can produce two or more Timbres ' (also called sounds or patches) at the same time Oscillation is the repetitive variation typically in Time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of Equilibrium) or between two or more different states An audio filter is a type of filter used for processing Sound signals.
LFO: none
Velocity sensitive: No
Aftertouch: No
Memory: 64 Patterns, ? Songs, 7 Tracks
Onboard effects: No Internal Effects. The term low-frequency oscillation (LFO is an audio signal usually below 20 Hz which creates a pulsating rhythm rather than an audible tone
Produced: 1982-1984
Original price: $395

The Roland TB-303 Bass Line is a synthesizer with built-in sequencer manufactured by the Roland corporation from 1982 to 1984 that had a defining role in the development of contemporary electronic music. Year 1982 ( MCMLXXXII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar) Year 1984 ( MCMLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1984 Gregorian calendar) A music sequencer (also MIDI sequencer or just sequencer) is software or hardware designed to create and manage computer-generated music is a Japanese manufacturer of Electronic musical instruments electronic equipment and Software. Year 1982 ( MCMLXXXII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar) Year 1984 ( MCMLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1984 Gregorian calendar) Electronic music is music that employs Electronic musical instruments and Electronic Music technology in its production

The TB-303 (named for "Transistor Bass") was originally marketed to guitarists for bass accompaniment while practicing alone. In Electronics, a transistor is a Semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals Bass (ˈbɛɪs as in base) when used as an adjective is used to describe tones of low Frequency or range. In Music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with a soloist or ensemble, often known as the Lead, in a Supporting manner Production lasted approximately 18 months, resulting in only 10,000 units. It was not until the mid- to late-1980s that DJs and electronic musicians in Chicago found a use for the machine in the context of the newly developing house music genre. The 1980s was the decade spanning from January 1 1980 to December 31 1989. A disc jockey (also known as DJ or deejay) is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. House music is a style of Electronic dance music initially popularized in mid-1980s Discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino

Phuture's "Acid Tracks" is widely acknowledged to have been the first Acid House recording to incorporate prototypical TB-303 sounds. Phuture (nowadays called Phuture 303) is a Chicago -based Acid house group founded in 1985 by DJ Pierre, Spanky and Herb J " Acid Tracks " is a 12-inch single released in 1987 by Phuture. Acid house is a sub-genre of House music that emphasizes a repetitive hypnotic and trance -like style with samples or spoken lines usually used rather than sung lyrics Earlier recordings featuring the TB-303 can be traced back as far as the early Electro scene, including artists such as Ice T, Newcleus, and Mantronix, as well as pop musicians such as Heaven 17 and Section 25. Electro ( electro-boogie, electro-funk) is a Genre of Electronic music directly influenced by the use of TR-808 and Funk Pop music as a genre features a noticeable rhythmic element catchy melodies and hooks, a mainstream style and conventional structure Heaven 17 are a British Synthpop band originating from the city of Sheffield in the early 1980s Section 25 are an English Post-punk band best known for their classic Techno single "Looking from a Hilltop

In the early 90's, as new Acid styles emerged, the 303 was often overdriven, producing a harsher sound. A distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic of an object image sound waveform or other form of information or representation Examples of this technique include Hardfloor's 1992 EP "Acperience", and Interlect 3000's 1993 EP "Volcano". Hardfloor is a German techno duo consisting of Oliver Bondzio and Ramon Zenker

The well-known "acid" sound is typically produced by playing a repeating note pattern on the TB-303, while altering the filter's cutoff frequency, resonance, and envelope modulation. Acid house is a sub-genre of House music that emphasizes a repetitive hypnotic and trance -like style with samples or spoken lines usually used rather than sung lyrics In Physics and Electrical engineering, a cutoff frequency, corner frequency, or break frequency is a boundary in a system's Frequency In Physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to Oscillate at maximum Amplitude at certain frequencies, known as the system's On a subtractive Synthesizer, envelope modulation is the amount that a Modulation envelope effects a certain parameter ( Filter cutoff, Oscillator pitch The TB-303's accent control modifies a note's volume, filter resonance, and envelope modulation, allowing further variations in timbre. In Music, timbre (ˈtæm-bər' like timber, or, from Fr timbre tɛ̃bʁ is the quality of a Musical note or sound that distinguishes different A distortion effect, either by using a guitar effects pedal or overdriving the input of an audio mixer, is commonly used to give the TB-303 a denser, noisier timbre--as the resulting sound is much richer in harmonics. An effects pedal (or a " Stomp Box " is an electronic Effects unit housed in a small metal or plastic chassis used by musicians usually Electric In professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board or soundboard, is an electronic device for combining In Acoustics and Telecommunication, the harmonic of a Wave is a component Frequency of the signal that is an Integer

The head designer of the TB-303, Tadao Kikumoto, was also responsible for leading design of the TR-909 drum machine. Tadao Kikumoto is the designer of the Roland TB-303 and Roland TR-909. The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer is a partially analog, partially sample-based Drum machine built by the Japanese Roland Corporation For the early "drum machine" computers that used a rotating cylinder as their main memory see Drum memory A drum machine is an


Contents

Features

The TB-303 has a single audio oscillator, which may be configured to produce either a sawtooth wave or a square wave. Oscillation is the repetitive variation typically in Time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of Equilibrium) or between two or more different states The sawtooth wave (or saw wave) is a kind of Non-sinusoidal waveform. A square wave is a kind of Non-sinusoidal waveform, most typically encountered in Electronics and Signal processing. The square wave is in fact created by flipping every other cycle of the sawtooth wave upside down, giving it a specific, more hollow, sound a bit different from regular square waves. It also includes a simple envelope generator, with a decay control only. ADSR envelope is a component of many Synthesizers samplers and other Electronic musical instruments. A lowpass filter is also included, with -18 dB per octave attenuation, and controls for cutoff frequency, resonance, and envelope modulation parameters. A low-pass filter is a filter that passes low- Frequency signals but Attenuates (reduces the Amplitude of signals with frequencies The decibel ( dB) is a logarithmic unit of measurement that expresses the magnitude of a physical quantity (usually power or intensity relative to In Music, an octave ( is the the use of which is "common in most musical systems Whilst not unique, the choice of a 3 pole design for the filter is somewhat uncommon, the standard configuration in analog synthesizers is almost always a 2 or 4 pole design. This, coupled with the way the filter modulations are bipolar, make the 303 sound difficult to exactly clone on hardware not specifically designed for that purpose.

The TB-303 has some unique features that contribute to its characteristic sound. During the programming of a sequence, the user can determine whether a note should be accented, and whether it should employ portamento, a smooth transition to the following note. Portamento is a Musical term primarily denoting a vocal slide between two pitches and its emulation by instruments such as the violin and in 16th century The portamento circuitry employs a fixed slide time, meaning that whatever the interval between notes, the time taken to reach the correct pitch is always the same. The accent circuitry, as well as increasing the amplitude of a note, also emphasizes the filter's cutoff and resonance, resulting in a distinctive, hollow "wow" sound at higher resonance settings. Roland referred to this as "gimmick" circuitry.

The instrument also features a 'simple' step-time method for entering note data into the 16-step programmable sequencer. This was notoriously difficult to use, and would often result in entering a different sequence than the one that had been intended. Some users also take advantage of a low voltage failure mode, wherein patterns that are programmed in memory get completely scrambled if the batteries are removed for a time. Failure causes are defects in design process quality or part application which are the underlying cause of the failure or which initiate a process which leads to failure

There have been many modifications designed for the TB-303 such as the "Devilfish", "Acidlab" and "Borg" modifications. These generally provide additional parameters to the player, or offer alterations to the overall timbre.

Clones

Around the middle of the 1990s, demand for the TB-303 surged within the electronic dance music scene. As there were never many TB-303s to begin with, many small synthesizer companies cropped up and started to develop their own TB-303 hardware clones. This new wave of TB-303 clones began with a company called Novation Electronic Music Systems, who released their portable Bass Station keyboard in 1994. Novation Digital Music Systems Ltd is a UK musical equipment manufacturer Many other TB-303 "clones" followed, including Future Retro's 777, Syntecno's TeeBee, Doepfer's MS-404, and MAM's Freebass FB-383. Doepfer Musikelektronik GmbH is a manufacturer of audio hardware based in Gräfelfing, Germany, founded by Dieter Döpfer The Doepfer MS-404 is a MIDI Analog synthesizer made by the German audio manufacturer Doepfer. As the popularity of these new TB-303 clones grew, Roland, the original TB-303 manufacturer, finally took notice and released their own TB-303 "clone" in 1996, the MC-303 Groovebox. is a Japanese manufacturer of Electronic musical instruments electronic equipment and Software. The Roland MC-303 is the first of a series of musical instruments known as a Groovebox. Despite Roland's efforts, their new "303 clone" was an entirely new product that had almost nothing to do with the original TB-303, with the exception of a few bass samples and the familiar interface design. The most obvious difference was the inclusion of an inexpensive digital synthesizer, rather than the analog circuitry of the TB-303.

By 1997, software synthesizers were beginning to take hold among electronic musicians. Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar One notable package was made by Propellerhead Software's emulator package entitled ReBirth. ReBirth RB-338 (commonly referred to as simply ReBirth is a Software synthesizer for Microsoft Windows There are four modifications included in the ReBirth installation The software became very popular, providing a cheap and easy way for musicians to reproduce the classic 303, 808, and later 909 sounds, without the need for any synthesis hardware. The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer was one of the first programmable Drum machines ("TR" serving as an Initialism for Transistor Rhythm The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer is a partially analog, partially sample-based Drum machine built by the Japanese Roland Corporation Roland contacted propellerheads to give them an unofficial "thumbs up" which Propellerhead considered as the "Roland Seal of Approval" [1]. As of September 2005, support for ReBirth has been discontinued by Propellerhead software, and the software is now available online as a free download. PortalCurrent events News collections and sources WikipediaNews collections and sources.

The Roland MC-202 MicroComposer is a monophonic analog synthesizer/sequencer released by Roland in 1983. The Roland MC-202 (MicroComposer is a monophonic Analog synthesizer / sequencer released by Roland in 1983 Monophonic, with respect to synthesizers refers to the ability to only sound one Note, or voice at a time An analog synthesizer is a Synthesizer that uses analog circuits and Analog computer techniques to generate sound electronically A music sequencer (also MIDI sequencer or just sequencer) is software or hardware designed to create and manage computer-generated music is a Japanese manufacturer of Electronic musical instruments electronic equipment and Software. May be the best clone to come very close to sound like a true Roland TB-303. It is similar to the Roland TB-303 and SH-101 synthesizers, featuring one voltage-controlled oscillator with simultaneous saw and square/pulse-width waveforms and a resonant -24db filter. Roland SH-101 is a Synthesizer from the early 1980's manufactured by Roland. A voltage-controlled oscillator or VCO is an Electronic oscillator designed to be controlled in Oscillation Frequency by a Voltage

Another notable clone is the "Bass Line" plugin from AudioRealism. It supports both the VST and AU standards. Steinberg 's Virtual Studio Technology (VST is an interface for integrating software Audio Synthesizer and effect Plugins with Audio Units ( AU) are a system-level Plug-in architecture provided by Core Audio

The most recent clone is an open source do-it-yourself hardware solution called the x0xb0x, using most of the original components in the synthesizer section for a very authentic sound. Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge The sequencer section differs from the original 303, adding support for MIDI and USB interfaces as well as an alternate event entry interface. MIDI ( Musical Instrument Digital Interface, ˈmɪdi is an industry-standard protocol that enables Electronic musical instruments Computers


Native Instrument's flagship softsynth Massive also contains a filter modelled after that of the 303, allowing users to create their own realistic-sounding acid patches. Native Instruments is a Music software production company whose products are mainly aimed at Electronic musicians The company was founded in 1996


References

  1. ^ Propellerheads (2005). "The Debut". The Rebirth Museum. Retrieved on 2007-04-15. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 1450 - Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English

External links

Emulations in Software

Hardware synthesizers inspired by the TB-303

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