Great recreation of the original TB-303
The Roland TB-03 is a great recreation of the original analog TB-303. Of course, everybody knows the sound of 303 even if they don’t know the name of the device. It is the basic sound of any “acid” music. Recently, Roland came out with the TB-03 in 2016 and it was a hit, mostly because of the cult status of the orignal TB-303. Keep in mind that is it part of the Roland boutique series with limited production. It was on production for about a year and a half.
I’m not going to write about the “digital versus analog” debate or “virtual analog vs real analog”. It is clear that the TB-03 is a virtual analog dedicated device. Meaning that using computer algorithms the device mimics the sounding reaction of the original device. In this case, the original designers even participated in the creation of the virtual algorithm. Yes, maybe a TB-303 owner will ear the difference but most people will not, especially in a full mix of a song.
What is cool of the Tb-03 is the fact that it offers the possibility of owning a real good piece of electronic music device for an affordable price (compare to the orignal). Use it for what it can do, not for the fact that it imitates something else.
Getting to know how to use the Roland TB-03
A huge amount of great tutorial videos are out there to show how to use the TB-03. Roland itself did a really cool series of TB-03 videos. The youtube video list is at the bottom of this post.
In this video, I show 3 features that most people don’t know (or forgot) even existed. To get all of these features don’t forget to have the latest update 1.04 installed.
If you are a student at Musitechnic you can test it out in the studios!
Advanced features:
- Selecting Effect Type
- Randomize pattern : Random1 and Random2
- Trigger in : Skip step for sequence
Roland Tutorials on Youtube