tried the roland cloud, its distortion sounds sweet :D

 

Last edited: Jun 20, 2019

BTW guys, there is a new 303 interpretation made in VCV. It is the (Rich Jones) Rjmodule called Acid, it is free and it will be developed further, though it already offers something to the 303 palette. You be the judge.

 

Last edited: Jul 11, 2019

Thx Roject for the 32b/and 64b of that mystran/signaldust analyzer. I have added it to this package in case other links are down.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9cxe3jp91mlo9lj/

 

Behringer TD-3 added to list.

 

Hi,

Great idea for a thread,
Here in France for the last few years the wave of Acid music made a great comeback and threw evey other genres of techno away.
In every party/rave/freeparty for the last 4-5 years you can almost hear only acid tekno, acid house, acidcore, acid techno.
So there was a HUGE buzz around the 303 clones. Which ultimately led me to try a lot of them.

Just to say you forgot to mention in your poll one of the best hardware ones, or maybe you don't know about it :
The Future Retro Revolution. It is a beast

So there was a lot of topics on the subjects on the net and a lot of talking in parties,
ATM the best hardware clone, with the closest TB sound seems to be the Behringer one. A guy on YT demo'ed it against a real TB and it seems to do the job really really closely. Minus the vintage sound you can only get when hardware gets old ;)
I personnaly had all xoxbox one after one, currently I still have a MB33 Retro, which I don't use for acidlines in the end, but it can produce great analog basses to resample through ableton.

On the hardware side;
0 place goes to the Behringer (because you want a real 303 sound, at least as close as possible)
First place for me goes to the Avalon (same reason)
Then it is the future retro. Very acid sound. Not the original 303 though. Personnal first place too
The xox box's especially the ladyada and mod machines are really great. So I would go : Ladyada / Mod Machines / Analog Audio
Special mention to the TT303. It sounds fuckin great. Not quite the 303 sound but 'this is acid'. You can also get it with the DevilFish mod, a friend of mine just got it and it's a beast.
Then the TB03, which is just OK
And the TB3, wtf Roland.

You also have the acid8, which is cool. Not quite the 303 sound either though. The 303 sound is all about the filter... And it's hollowness.

On the software side :

D16 Phoscyon is the very best. Built in overdrive / distortion makes it exactly what you want to make acid music. It's totally possible to make any kind of acid sounds, and the enveloppe attack makes the possiblities better than with the real 303. Again, this is software so don't expect that analog sound sadly. The filter is really close but doesn't have that legendary hollowness to it. You can emulate it wih a dynamic EQ though.
TB303 Cloud is cool,
ABL3 is okay to have that classic acid-ish sound. You could totally achieve the very same result with any monosynth though. And the sequencer really is 0...
The other ones apart from Propellerheads (sadly discontinued) are not really worth mentioning. Just digital monosynths.

@ZUK thanks a lot for the heads up, I'm excited to try this one !

 

It sounds almost just like ABL3 You're not missing much

 

As a 303 purist since 25 years, if you want the closest possible emulation :

software :
1/ Roland Cloud 303 (enhanced ACB code from the boutique TB-03)
2/ ABL (2 or 3, some pros and cons on both versions)
3/ d16 Phoscyon (not similar in many points, but extended controls brings more possible variations to the original 303 sound)

all other emu are crap if you're into REAL close emulation

hardware :
1/ Re-303 ... difficult to find if you are not into building it, but real clone, may be expensive
2/ Behringer TD3 (but you need to tweak the inside trim pot to get the real 303 filter range)
3/ Xoxbox, hard to find, pretty expensive too, more controls than a 303

Avalon is nice but way too expensive I think, and hard to find as well, better get a real TB-303 instead ... ;-)

Behringer TD3 is the way to go i f you want a CHEAP and close hardware emu. Re-303 is somehow better but harder to find (you need to build it yourself ...)

Roland TB-03 (boutique) is nice, but digital and the software equivalant (Cloud TB-303) is ... herm .. *cheaper* (I mean free ...lol) so why paying money for hardware ?
Roland TB3 is nice too, because it offers a lot of different waveforms, but doesnt really sound like a real 303 ...

Dont forget that 80% of the 303 unique sound come from the sequencer and the way it interact with the limited realtime controls.

I mean : a true 303 emulation NEED to be performed from the internal sequencer and *NOT* from the DAWs notation or midi ...

My advice : just dont care about built-in effect (distortions, delays ...) most of them are crap compared to external processing (VST or hardware).

 

Last edited: Jan 21, 2020

Hm, many guys who try to emulate the 303 miss a very important character feature...,
the accent.

 

Accent is part of the sequencer.

Many guys who try to emulate the 303 miss a very important character feature : internal sequencer !!

None of the VSTi / hardware clone without internal sequencer will sound like a 303.

 

Last edited: Jan 21, 2020

or part of the mod system. e.g: velocity range 0 - 100 normal envelope and 101 - 127 accent
Try it, it is possible to make it sound very well 303 without an build in sequcer, it works well with the roland cloud 303 or any other clone who has that feature build in. Or even with a synth like avenger which lets you create velocity layers

 

Voted for Dinsync-303, TD-3 as they seem to have all the OG 303 has, have x0xb0x myself, but sequencer is different. Most bang for your buck is probably avalon bassline by abstrakt instruments. In VST land ABL3, importing a wave/sequence is genius, D16 phosycon is very good as wel. I think the VB-303 emulates the 303 if you want to sequencer function.

 

For a long time I had a TB 303, also a The Future Retro Revolution, The best of the FR Revolution, was the sequencer! The sound too, even if it wasn't a perfect TB303.

New hardware emulation:
Erika Synth Bassline DB-01

 

I am trying the Roland cloud version, but i am skeptical as to how well these plugins are modeled and coded (R2R says its not professional)

Its a shootout between ABL3, CLOUD & PHOSCYON, and its going to take few hours of comparing to find out which 2 ill delete
and i need to figure out the cloud version properly ive only spent 10mins with it

 

have you seen the Roland promotional video where they show the modeling process, comparing the hardware with a prototype controller playing their VST version?

Hit play on original - note plays
Hit the vst modeled version - note plays

they don't sound alike at all, like they cant hear the fkn difference !?

 

For me, a great TB-303 clone is one that can sound authentic like the original but has to offer more in terms of synthesis and sequencing features.
There are two candidates that would be my first choice today if I was into 303 stuff (I'm not anymore):

Hardware: Erica Synths Bassline DB-01 (available soon).

Software: Pure Acid by Dmitrij Pavloff, which actually is an iPad app, much more fun than any VSTi on desktop:

 

Avalon Bassline for sure.

 

Nope.

Because if the sequencer is correctly implemented (like a real 303) accent and slides are not only working on pitch and velocity but also on different parameters of env mod and decay.

Original 303 slides and accents are very difficult to mimic with midi, and that's the strong part of both Roland Cloud 303 and ABL.
Phoscyon for exemple is a bit less strict with sequencer cloning ...

Pure ACid on IOS is nice, but it' IOS, so ...

 

thats why we use velocity layers to be able to switch between 2 different Envelopes.

when I export the roland cloud sequencer (there is an export to midi option) to the DAW it sounds exactly the same, but hey... thank you... maybe I am not as much 303 as you and don't use such kind of complex sequences.

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2020

This is pretty fun as wel. http://www.errozero.co.uk/acid-machine/ pretty funky, some cool riffs in no time

Kinda disagree on the upcoming Erica Synths Bassline DB-01, sounds not like a 303 in my opinion.

 

I don't know if you can add this program:

MSSIAH Bassline for Commodore C64


Bassline from www.audiotool.com

 

Last edited: Jan 23, 2020