Bad Gear - Roland TB-03 - The Official Fake???

[Music] you welcome to bad gear the show about the world's most hated audio tools today we are going to talk about the 2017 roland boutique tb03 between 1981 and 1984 roland produced around 10 000 units of the og acid goat the godfather of analog bubbles the psychedelic synth incarnation of an alien first contact the iconic the legendary the one and only tb303 even if all these glorious machines were still in mint condition there are not enough of them for all of us and there have been many attempts to recreate this very particular magic in either analog or digital form for over 30 years roland didn't participate in this noble mission to give squelshi baseline goodness to the masses well almost but after the release of the gothic style green and black tb3 and just in time before the ulification of the synth market hits the world with full force tada after over a month without any roland gear the tb-03 is ticking all my boxes classic silver design are very 303-ish ui with some careful modifications and the obvious addition of fx let's address the elephant in the room yes it's a boutique yes it's tiny full-size midi ports good mini jacks bad digital synth engine why not battery compartment nice usb power whatever internal speaker i don't care the tb-03 inherited the cv gate and trigger ios of the original but is willing to communicate via midi and usb too roland's weapon of choice for the faithful recreation of the very distinct mono sound is once again the analog circuit behavior technology you can find in the iras and other boutiques as well it allows for full bodied bass sounds both chunky [Music] and soft [Music] gentle mid-rangey tones and high resonance chirps [Music] i'm not a big fan of the square but maybe it's supposed to sound that way there are three different overdrive flavors [Music] two delays [Music] and a reverb [Music] the sequencer of the 303 is known for being prone to happy accidents and roland integrated both the original workflow and a more convenient step sequencer and real-time approach patterns can be edited while the sequencer is running cool for me it is hard to tell if roland was able to nail the exact accent behavior and slide curves of the og-303 [Music] well that's more or less it you don't have to know anything about sound synthesis to get nice acid patterns going i won't complain about the maximum pattern length of 16 steps in this case and please leave a comment if you ever used the song mode of a 303 type synth you can still buy tb03s new and given the used prices of its discontinued siblings it might be a good idea to get one now thanks to mad fuse of groove bhagash sound system for lending me this synth the tb03 is the official roland reincarnation of the iconic mono-syn is it still relevant given the countless and very affordable alternatives you have already heard the tb03 in today's intro tune that sounds kind of familiar let's start this out with a little one synth one drum machine jam [Music] there's a lot of 303 flavor in this little box the synth is super responsive and immediately triggers my old school techno ptsd but the tiny knobs are sometimes hard to tweak and i have hands like 45 the internal fx are not exactly my cup of tea i wanna know if the tbo3 is capable of some mellower sounds too teamed up with its older sibling and an og space echo [Music] so [Music] even with the edit tape delay and spring reverb i am missing a little depth in this application the tv3 isn't very 3d either but at least it offers a lot of interesting non 303 sounds too the question is do these nuances matter in a more complex arrangement let's try to find out in this overproduced reboot of a 90s console boomer racer soundtrack as its techno meditation [Music] verdict i'm not picky when it comes to 303 type sounds rebirth was my first electronic musical instrument i had fun using the mc09 and the tb3 has become one of my go to mono synth still i can't shake the feeling that something is off with the tbo3 don't get me wrong it's fun to work with and you can churn out nice acid lines by the dozen in no time but just like its 909 sibling it seems to be a little too vanilla sounding for my taste if you are just searching for a fun baseline toy there are cheaper alternatives but in case acid sounds play an important role in your music and or you got locked into a serious synth collection you will want to get all possible flavors of 303 anyway thanks for watching and see you next time hey guys i hope you enjoyed the episode feel free to like subscribe become a patron and leave a comment what other kind of gear you would like to see and hear on the show

Channel: AudioPilz

Views: 51,209

Keywords: Bad Gear, Audiopilz, roland tb-03 bass line synthesizer, Roland TB-303, roland tb-303 acid, acid synthesizer, Roland TR-909, Roland TR-808, Roland TR-707, Roland Boutique, Dr. Strangelove, Doge, simpsons accident, Monophonic Synthesizer, Analog Synthesizer, Digital Synthesizer, Roland ACB Technology, virtual analog synth, virtual analog synthesizer, memes, meme videos, music production, electronic music, the original fake, tb-03, the official fake, roland tb-03

Id: my8gw1OM31E

Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 10 2021