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I'm into all electro-dance music , and have been watching some clips on youtube about the history if acid music ( interesting that the term "acid" came from the sampling elements of the music and NOT the 303 sound )
and there was this dude from "phuture" tweaking his 303 , making those nice low rubbery ripples reaching up into squelchy highs then back down low again .... I just could'nt stop grooving round my room !!!

Ive tried before to emulate an authentic 303 noise but usually i find it sounds too Mx-like , until last nite .
I normally have my tubes up high , but the 303 got no tubes so i took down the gain n keep tweaking n editing this pattern until i had that sound i'd been trying to emulate . I must've rode the arp/cutoff/eg int controls for about 45 mins solid , what a buzz .

Just wondering if anyone knows how close exactly the Mx gets , basically does anyone use a 303 ( tb ) or used one ?

Aceeid indeed ...

Incase u dont know , "phuture" were the duo that accidently gave birth to the "303 bassline" . Check them out .

One of the guys bought a second hand 303 and couildnt program it cos he had no manual . He passed it to his friend who did'nt so much program it as much as simply tweak the knobs n randomly press button .

It took the 3rd playout of their "acid" track for people to get it , but when they did they coul'nt get enough .

Brilliant ...

it makes my skin crawl when you look on wikipedia and it tells you that paul f*ck*ng oakenfold and his band of merry men brough acid house back from ibiza in 1987

ron hardy gave brith to acid house wiht phutures tapes

oh how i wish i was 20 years older, and was at the age i am now (21) in 1987.

RIP the acid house rave days

all we have now is kids on ketamine listening to techno and overly rinsed out oldschool jungle hardcore.

rant over (well, iv not even satrted, but i'll stop before i do....)

i get some 303ish lines out of my MX, but i´m not a 303 purist, so i don´t care is they´re 100% genuine 303...i just take the whole acid feeling of the 303: heavy resonance, slides and the like

overdriven 303 are far more eay to get, just turn the filter drive and resonance up and you get those 90s distorted 303

use the single oscillator "waveform" with control 1 in zero and control 2 in the midle, put the amp in GATE, not DECAY, turn cutoff down, resonance up, filter EG about 3 o´clock, some portamento and make the notes gate times go over the next ones in some steps so the filter eg doesn´t retriggers

put some accent in certain steps, turn down the level knob in the accent track so you can hear the fx...then automate filter eg, resonance and cutoff to be a bit higher in the accents steps you place before

that´s enough 303 for me, but as i said before: i´m not a big 303 fan or purist

cheers, daniel

I dont normally make music with 303-like tones , i normally make rich textures and bassy sounds , but after 4-5 years with my mx suddenly i'm throwing in doses of "303" style and it sounds good .
Its just that we hear about how good the 303 was and alll that , but i wanted to know how good it is in comperison with todays synths .

Good tips , i'll try that now .

I made a nice 303 with a single tb-303 sample loaded in my ESX.

yea I suggest writing your acid lines in audiorealism or rebirth or by a future retro revo. I have one. Will post vids soon with my esx.

inducejack wrote:yea I suggest writing your acid lines in audiorealism or rebirth or by a future retro revo. I have one. Will post vids soon with my esx.

Don't forget Phoscyon

Whoa ... the Mx surpasses my expectations AGAIN !! Pretty good for a machine ive used for 4 years .
I was making basic 303 tones then started to apply some tweaks with the EG time + Cutoff . I cant remember which waveform combo i used but i ended up with some sort of 303 on steriods kinda sound . The way the frequencies alternate over time and different lenghts of note sounds brilliant . Imediatly i stood up and just stared at the machine , in complete awe at what i'd done .

Fuckin' ripping/squelching/sub-bassy smut lines . What a machine .

anselmi wrote: use the single oscillator "waveform" with control 1 in zero and control 2 in the midle, put the amp in GATE, not DECAY, turn cutoff down, resonance up, filter EG about 3 o´clock, some portamento and make the notes gate times go over the next ones in some steps so the filter eg doesn´t retriggers

That worked! How cool. Thats the 1st time I have got something I started out to make! Thanks so much! I love this type of post, so inspitational for newbs like me. Thanks again, and anymore tutorials like this much much appreciated!

Cant wait to know this box inside out!

2 other interesting things to do with 303ish sounds

1. use the dual oscillator mode with saw+square waveforms

put OSC EDIT 1 in the middle so you have 50% of each waveform in the mix and OSC EDIT 2 in the middle too

in modulation section turn sync on, square waveform, modulation destination = OSC EDIT 1, modulation depth = max

the tb-303 is a single oscillator synth that have both square and saw waveforms so that way you got a sequence that jump between both waveforms in sync with the beat...experiment with different modulation speeds and try both maximum possitive and negative depths




2. by doing the same but with waveforms SAW + SAW (or SQR + SQR) and OSC 2 at +47 you got a sequence that jumps an octave in sync with the beat


try both tips, they could add some animation and happy accidents to any sequence

Added some Resonance (moving between 12 and 3 oclock) and a little Drive and playing wiht the filter cutoff sounds wicked again!

I can't believe this, actually getting somewhere and starting to understand the unit a bit more, been messing all day. So much fun. Thanks guys!

I suggest to anyone new to the units trys this! If you like 303'z thats is

But put aside your whole day. And stock up on beer.

Hey, out of interest and to help me understand. Why does the Mod Speed setting not do much (nothing nice anyway..)?

anselmi wrote:2. by doing the same but with waveforms SAW + SAW (or SQR + SQR) and OSC 2 at +47 you got a sequence that jumps an octave in sync with the beat

VERY nice sound using SQR+SQR! (SquSqu) and sweeping lower to high on the Cutoff. That hollow type sound. Phat!

For any newbs, the Gate setting needs to be adjusted if you want to get the most of of using Glide.