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Building a TB-303 from Scratch

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Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#91
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…

Max/MSP (or Pure Data) ended up being a good middle ground for me. With that said, it's easy to get lost in the coding and forget to make music, if that is the ultimate goal. I also found that more complex patches trend towards approximating features of a DAW, at which point the downsides (single-core, no timeline) make the whole undertaking a bit questionable.

I spent about a month developing a custom UI and comprehensive control environment for my modular only to immediately abandon it and return to Ableton.

Max for Live, on the other hand...

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#92
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…

[deleted]

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#93

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…

The web programmer is a handy thing for the D-50

https://data.dynareg.se/breadandbutter/D05.html

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#94
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

What a blast from the past! Thanks for that. I remember Jeskola Buzz. It was a big part of my teenage years. The ethos of building things on top of an old, clunky, but otherwise amazing platform. People really created some amazing synthesizers for it.

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#96
post #72
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.

Ha thanks for this, my bad.

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#97
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a huge stack of records that prove it was used heavily throughout the 00s. And the 90s too

It's amusing to see comments implying that the TB-303 is some kind of neglected classic. In reality, it can only be considered to have been forgotten for perhaps the two years after Roland ended production in 1984. "Acid Tracks" came out in 1987 and I genuinely feel like I've been reading endlessly about the 303 ever since.

i wish TB would finally leave me alone

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#98
post #21

I don't know what this website is made off but not being able to use pgup/pgdown to move around is super annoying.

What's your OS/browser? On Chrome/Linux it works fine. If you're focused on an editor it can capture the page keys so you have to click outside first.

Firefox/Linux

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#99
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…

The roomy case and big PCB make it very nice for modding. I put almost every documented mod there is in mine. The whole left and right side of the Pactec case is covered in knobs and switches. Added an LFO too that can do FM/AM.

Re: Building a TB-303 from Scratch

#100
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…

i present, as an option, spreadsheet music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VEjcfeU9Ac

okay it's just a tracker but it can use VST.

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