Building a TB-303 from Scratch(loopmaster.xyz) |
Building a TB-303 from Scratch(loopmaster.xyz) |
Really this is just an implementation of a basic oscillator, filter and envelope. No harm in that all and it's more than I could manage - it's fun and nice, but it's nothing like a 303. "Building an acid synth" would be fairer.
The accent and glide are core components of the sound, as is the really quite unique sequencer control - from the strange bendy growls to the classic acid bark the accent brings out. Would have been nice to see a deeper dive into why that is and why it's different from implementing a normal portamento-style glide as many other synths do, like the SH-101 - which cannot sound that close to a 303 due to that glide. Well it's also got a different oscillator and filter, with no accent either, but I don't want that to ruin the story ;-)
The first one sounded like it was being played on a blown out speaker after it got run over and the second attempt sounded like it was going through a $20 pawn shop guitar pedal that got left in the rain which lead to the 'oh, you wanted the neural net to learn the 303's filter section? My bad, I just made some random stuff up as an approximation...'
The worse part is there's still compute credits left over from the initial ten bucks so we just have to try again...
Fellow TB-303 owner here. I concur.
It seems like there might be a disproportionate number of 303 owners here on HN.
sonic potions has an analysis of the cpu timings here https://sonic-potions.com/Documentation/Analysis_of_the_D650...
Theres also some nice articles about the diode ladder filter in the 303, similar to the one in the vcs3 https://www.timstinchcombe.co.uk/index.php?pge=diode2
(I built one and as far as I know the Pixie CPU was the 303 code + MIDI)
I'm kinda tempted to give it to my neighbor's son though. He knows about all this stuff and loves it. He'd appreciate it more. He’d also love my Roland D-50. He also comes by the garage to help out with stuff. Like the son I never had.
My daughter, though, does not appreciate this tech stuff whatsoever. Calls my gear room the ‘junk room’ .
It sounds like you've got some great options either way. I wish I had a neighbor growing up that had cool music gear (although I did get to grow up with a dad that got me into computers before I could read, so that definitely built my love for technology). Sounds like you're the kind of dad more kids these days need in their lives.
Back in my day of the demoscene and Buzz...
>The development of the core program, buzz.exe, was halted on October 5, 2000, when the developer lost the source code to the program. It was announced in June 2008 that development would begin again, eventually regaining much of the functionality.
I'm just joshing - it's very cool!
No words can describe the feeling of original Yamaha cs-80.
It is very unfortunate as there is no true alternative to a 80kg, age issues ridden, ultra expensive antique device.
https://black-corporation.com/shop/
And, well, its a lot more feasible to gig with, by comparison.
Also it doesn't come with ring modulator nor ribbon. I think black corp synthesizers are inspired by the original vintage devices and are great on their own but there are justified reasons to also avoid them mostly because of common issues that arise when you buy a niche product from a tiny company thousands of kilometers away.
Back in the day, I was quite heavy into the x0xb0x. (https://www.ladyada.net/make/x0xb0x/) It's an open hardware 303 clone by Ladyada and was designed to use as many of the original 303 components as possible. According to those who own both, the sounds are essentially identical. (But the x0x is much easier to use.)
Somewhere in 2006, I was too late the to party to snag one of the original kits, but a little cottage industry formed on the x0xb0x forums to support the community of people who wanted to build and mod their own. Adafruit provided the PCBs, the common components came from DigiKey and Mouser, the rarer components from eBay or other forum members.
I ended up buying enough components to build six, but only ended up building three. The first one I kept, the other two I sold. I recouped my cost with those so I also ended up selling the rest of the components later as my interest in building them waned. I should have held onto those and built the rest with my kids when they got older, since even the replacement components are hard to come by these days and they are still a fun project to build.
However!
As soon as you cabled all together their imperfections added up and they started to groove like nothing that has been heard before.
Perhaps this take has something to do with calling a five-pin DIN plug '5-pole'? Something's wrong and backwards here.
Again, I guess this is where we are now? I remember reality, but here we are.
The sequencers in each of the machines have a bit of nuance, which is where that famous groove comes from!
You might be confusing this with the sometimes hilarious midi timing of the 909 and 707.
Sounds like you are describing MIDI
That aside, I've been wanting to play with this kind of music making via code, this is a useful write-up.
But as a non-music person and developer I'd rather use an interface like Ableton where you see separate tracks/times line up kind of thing... but aside from that I ended up just getting a music subscription service that you can use in your YT videos which is what I was after.
Everything is a time sink it seems, gotta choose where you put your time into if 40 hrs of your life is taken up by day job already.
I spent about a month developing a custom UI and comprehensive control environment for my modular only to immediately abandon it and return to Ableton.
Max for Live, on the other hand...
okay it's just a tracker but it can use VST.
Because the Windows version works perfectly under Wine.
I've owned a bunch of different synthesizers and used a bunch of DAWs over the years and it was clear to me where I needed to make my edits to affect the signal chain.
We do real-time client-side audio processing in Emurse, and there were definitely a bunch of challenges to overcome there, so it would be interesting to hear more about what went into building the tool.
Challenging would be an understatement. Had to create an editor from scratch in canvas to support the inline visuals, then a DSL that generates the code for each permutation of audio and scalar parameters, then the language itself which is Turing complete and controls the whole thing in a VM, choosing the optimal permutation for each case, and all the edits/recompilation be done in few ms to not distrupt the experience, all across a thread (the WebAudio AudioWorklet). The audio engine is in WebAssembly as it was the only way to get the performance needed. You can check out the code[0], the project is open-source!
edit: This is, without a doubt, the best soft-synth emulation I know of these days and it's a hell of a lot of fun: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/pure-acid/id1481283602
As a reference for what 303s are actually like, early Plastikman acid/minimal tracks often have really intense 303 elements. The filter's characteristic and can have enormous resonance and sonority, but the ability to combine that with accents and produce wild dynamic effects is something you don't find in other synths.
Without having the source to the WASM diodeLadder(), the following is just a guess: they implemented it exactly like every other "Diode Ladder" on GitHub, rather than a true SPICE simulation. Some evidence for that: the CPU usage would explode.
It’s easily the most used and copied sound. Like the Amen Break of synths.
Ummmm, what? If you've heard the word "acid" in a song, it was definitely not a reference to the 303 and definitely the other use of "acid" like its use on the dancefloor. If you've heard someone describe a song as "acid", maybe it could be a reference to the 303.
Obviously it will depend on the era and scene too. Eg if people talk about acid in the 70s Prog Rock scene then it’s not going to be about a hardware synthesiser built a decade later. But if you’re talking about dance music, then “acid” refers to 303 more often than it does the drug.
There's also a modern version called x0xheart which is more SMD components, and it has yet another sound: sort of more surgical and pristine than the older through-hole builds, but still distinctly NOT a softsynth. This is a x0xheart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgBa2d7gsPo
Hardware hackers who like acid music are heartily encouraged to explore this sort of thing! If nothing else, the modding scene around 303s is great fun :)
Sorry, this is just negative - but anyway, have you played with both?
I have. There are differences but they are minor and you can very definitely accomplish an approximation of the CS80 'sound' with the DD. It sold out for a reason.
Either way though, if you have an opportunity to have a real CS80 in the studio, as I do, you are very right in saying that it is an amazing beast.
"Acid Tracks" came out in 1987 and I genuinely feel like I've been reading endlessly about the 303 ever since.