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Building a TB-303 from Scratch

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Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#71

Post by bityard »

"...in software" should have been appended to the title.

Back in the day, I was quite heavy into the x0xb0x. (https://www.ladyada.net/make/x0xb0x/) It's an open hardware 303 clone by Ladyada and was designed to use as many of the original 303 components as possible. According to those who own both, the sounds are essentially identical. (But the x0x is much easier to use.)

Somewhere in 2006, I was too late the to party to snag one of the original kits, but a little cottage industry formed on the x0xb0x forums to support the community of people who wanted to build and mod their own. Adafruit provided the PCBs, the common components came from DigiKey and Mouser, the rarer components from eBay or other forum members.

I ended up buying enough components to build six, but only ended up building three. The first one I kept, the other two I sold. I recouped my cost with those so I also ended up selling the rest of the components later as my interest in building them waned. I should have held onto those and built the rest with my kids when they got older, since even the replacement components are hard to come by these days and they are still a fun project to build.

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#72

Post by pierrec »

keyle wrote: post #2

The TB-303 of reference to me is still Jeskola TB-303 :) Back in my day of the demoscene and Buzz... demo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2kl-CW9snU

The plugin in that demo isn't by Jeskola, it's by HD (Haldreamer) who I believe is a Russian audio developer who made some nice Buzz plugins in the early 2000's. Source: I have it installed and I just checked the "about" box.

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#73

Post by hnlmorg »

dylan604 wrote: post #59

"If you've ever heard the word "acid" in a song, it's probably a reference to the sound of the TB-303" Ummmm, what? If you've heard the word "acid" in a song, it was definitely not a reference to the 303 and definitely the other use of "acid" like its use on the dancefloor. If you've heard someone describe a song as "acid", maybe it could be a reference to the 303.

That’s the same point the author was making. And it’s not just limited to descriptions. Record labels, track names, genre names, sometimes even DJ / artist names have taken their “acid” name from the distinctive sound of the TB-303.

Obviously it will depend on the era and scene too. Eg if people talk about acid in the 70s Prog Rock scene then it’s not going to be about a hardware synthesiser built a decade later. But if you’re talking about dance music, then “acid” refers to 303 more often than it does the drug.

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#74

Post by bikesharing »

squigg wrote: post #51

TB-303 owner here. If my TB-303 sounded this bad I'd set fire to it ;-) Really this is just an implementation of a basic oscillator, filter and envelope. No harm in that all and it's more than I could manage - it's fun and nice, but it's nothing like a 303. "Building an acid synth" would be fairer. The accent and glide are core components of the sound, as is the really quite unique sequencer control - from the strang…

[dead]

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#75

Post by olelele »

bityard wrote: post #71

"...in software" should have been appended to the title. Back in the day, I was quite heavy into the x0xb0x. ( https://www.ladyada.net/make/x0xb0x/ ) It's an open hardware 303 clone by Ladyada and was designed to use as many of the original 303 components as possible. According to those who own both, the sounds are essentially identical. (But the x0x is much easier to use.) Somewhere in 2006, I was too late the to pa…

I built a xox as my first real project. Got the kit in person from an older man in a nice but simple studio in deep east berlin, 2012 or so. Great machine, learned tons.

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#76

Post by ge96 »

exitb wrote: post #68
ge96 wrote: post #63

It's interesting I briefly thought about getting into "live coding" or Strudel (or Sonic Pi), this kind of thing where you write code to produce music But as a non-music person and developer I'd rather use an interface like Ableton where you see separate tracks/times line up kind of thing... but aside from that I ended up just getting a music subscription service that you can use in your YT videos which is what I was…

Ultimately I prefer Ableton too, as it’s just much more polished, but there is merit to music-as-code. Traditional DAWs, which are based on traditional instrument interfaces, have incredible amount of state, which is so easy to get lost in. It’s so much easier to learn something new from a code snippet, than from a YouTube tutorial which shows a series of state changes via clicks and keyboard shortcuts.

Yeah I'm not a musician either so even if you give me a great tool I'd still probably produce garbage, but yeah good to have options

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#77

Post by thr0waway001 »

I remember playing with Rebirth in the late '90s and then actually finding a real, TB-303, albeit with a bunch of drawn on crap. But it was very functional. Keeping it in a box for my daughter. She will either think it's cool or sell it after I'm gone. If she sells it, hopefully she gets some decent coin.

I'm kinda tempted to give it to my neighbor's son though. He knows about all this stuff and loves it. He'd appreciate it more. He’d also love my Roland D-50. He also comes by the garage to help out with stuff. Like the son I never had.

My daughter, though, does not appreciate this tech stuff whatsoever. Calls my gear room the ‘junk room’ .

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#78

Post by asdhtjkujh »

thr0waway001 wrote: post #77

I remember playing with Rebirth in the late '90s and then actually finding a real, TB-303, albeit with a bunch of drawn on crap. But it was very functional. Keeping it in a box for my daughter. She will either think it's cool or sell it after I'm gone. If she sells it, hopefully she gets some decent coin. I'm kinda tempted to give it to my neighbor's son though. He knows about all this stuff and loves it. He'd apprec…

Maybe he could borrow the D-50 to start! I wish someone had introduced me to hardware synths when I was younger; it took me years to find my way with no guidance.

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#79

Post by racl101 »

asdhtjkujh wrote: post #78
thr0waway001 wrote: post #77

I remember playing with Rebirth in the late '90s and then actually finding a real, TB-303, albeit with a bunch of drawn on crap. But it was very functional. Keeping it in a box for my daughter. She will either think it's cool or sell it after I'm gone. If she sells it, hopefully she gets some decent coin. I'm kinda tempted to give it to my neighbor's son though. He knows about all this stuff and loves it. He'd apprec…

Maybe he could borrow the D-50 to start! I wish someone had introduced me to hardware synths when I was younger; it took me years to find my way with no guidance.

Yeah, same here. This stuff is cool. Wish I'd had a mentor.

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#80

Post by vjekm »

sambapa wrote: post #15
cocodill wrote: post #13

well by building 303, I would really expect building, something this guy do[1], not just simply using a filter in some shitty web app. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@MoritzKlein0/

Shitty? Why so harsh? That web app IMO is great, like supercollider running in a browser. At least it isn't some ai slop

It's a neat idea but it all sounds like trash.
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