FM | PRODUCER’S GUIDE
Iconic, legendary and influential, but notoriously awkward to program. Let’s explore the ins and outs of coaxing acid lines from a 303 – whether real, cloned or emulated
At this point, there’s little more that needs to be said about the influence and importance of Roland’s pintsized TB-303. Anybody with even a passing interest in dance music production likely knows the story. Released in 1981, the 303 was an unsuccessful attempt at creating a realistic replacement for a live bass guitarist, designed to provide backing for bands and live musicians. It was a commercial failure, yet cheap second-hand units made it into the hands of adventurous early dance musicians such as Detroit trio Phuture, who used its simple, single oscillator sound engine and notorious raspy filter to create the legendary resonant bass sounds that defined acid house and techno.
However, while many of us are familiar with the 303’s sound, due to escalating second-hand prices, until recently few modern producers have had the opportunity to get hands-on with anything resembling a genuine TB-303. That’s changed somewhat in recent times; while there have been plenty of 303 clones on the market for years, Roland’s authentic-looking TB-03 Boutique and Behringer’s bargain priced TD-3 have recently brought the classic 303 workflow into the mass market. Additionally, for in-the-box producers, Roland’s Cloud software offers an on-themoney digital recreation.
As much as it’s a deservedly iconic instrument, the TB-303 is also incredibly esoteric; despite its relatively simple synth engine, the process of sequencing and editing patterns is surprisingly long-winded and very much not intuitive. For those picking up a faithful recreation, having not spent time with the original, it can come as quite a shock to the system.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at how to get started and program some classic acid and techno-style patterns.
For the sake of this tutorial, we’re focusing on Behringer’s TD-3 hardware and Roland’s TB-303 plugin, both of which are widely available and stick fairly close to the workflow of the original hardware. Unless stated otherwise, everything discussed is based on the functionality of an original 303, and should be transferable to any faithful emulation, clone or – if you can get your hands on one – an original unit.
Understanding the 303 sequencer
The most unique aspect of the 303 sequencer is the fact that pitches (notes) and sequencer steps are input separately – meaning that creating a pattern involves first inputting a sequence of notes, then a separate sequence of steps, ties and rests. There’s actually a third step involved too, if you really want to get the most out of the sequencer, which is to then assign slides, octave jumps and accents. Let’s go through these one at a tim
