Comments on: Innovation and unpredictability: everyone needs a 303 (but not for $1,500)

By: donovan acree

donovan acree — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:16:00 +0000

The 303 is a great piece of kit, but it’s the 808 kick drum that makes the girlies get dumb.

By: hugemonkey

hugemonkey — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 05:21:00 +0000

I think that they were “in” on the joke. I remember a commercial where a guy is typing on his keyboard and someone asks, “Are you coming?”
He replies, “No, I’m gonna stay home … and play with my Wang.”

By: Lars

Lars — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 14:50:00 +0000

The whole original TB-303 versus clones discussion has been done to death on countless websites. I got one in 1999, a decade after I was hooked on the sound by numerous acid tracks. The 303 has been declared dead so often I can’t even keep track. All I know is that people still go nuts when a good acid riff is introduced in a set.

I like the sound and obviously the story behind it is also a big part of the appeal. I wanted an original, for the same reasons people invest in classic cars when there are perfectly fine new models out there.But the clones are pretty good these days, especially the x0xb0x one. Software synths are pretty bad at (I dare say incapable of) emulating the dog whistle high of my analog silver box.

By: askii

askii — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:18:00 +0000

There is a really delicious energy that these boxes have when they are (often crudely) trying to hang in sync together. When I finally got my 1st gen Oberheim DX to lock up with my TR707 & SH101, thru an Alesis 3630 compressor, the sexiest funk was heard that day.

I really must video document it one day. The 1st DX’s couldn’t get the MIDI mod, and didn’t have the OS which allowed for MIDI clock divides, so I was ready to sell it for parts. I had tried EVERYTHING. TWICE.

So I sampled the Oberheim’s sync out into my MPC, and output that sample back into the sync in of the DX and much joy and merriment was had that day.

Let’s hear it for the mutant machines!

By: essential12939

essential12939 — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 00:36:00 +0000

I don’t like columbia pictures but I am unable to resist clicking on the delicious transistor bass.

By: thequickbrownfox

thequickbrownfox — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 07:00:00 +0000

I used the Roland MC-202 step sequencer back then. You could micro-manage every nuance of each note, the 303 was cruder in this regard.Still, as with the MC-202, the 303 had CV/Gate output so you could hook up an external synth if you couldn’t deal with the cheesy onboard sound.

By: John

John — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Roland’s old motto used to be: “We design the future”

By: quantize

quantize — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:07:00 +0000

303′s still fetch high prices? That’s utterly insane..the emulations are so accurate now it makes a mockery of the collector culture..

Sold my 303 (which I bought for 80 bucks in a pawn shop in ’95) for around the same (ie $1500) a few years ago…

The instrument is in fact not that much fun to use…the sequencer in particular is hard work at the best of times…I find the trainspotter culture around it a bit sad and there are particular artists (Orbital/Hardfloor) who have really exhausted the beauty of what it can do in a track..

By: Courtney Nielsen

Courtney Nielsen — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:50:00 +0000

I disagree that DRM is hindering experimenting with other peoples ideas. In the “olden days” i.e. before 2004, we sampled the old fashioned way: Using an audio cable plugged from the output of one device to the input of the sampler. In that case, laziness is what’s hindering people to experiment more.

By: RadioSilence

RadioSilence — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:08:00 +0000

I was told The Otis Elevator Company has an office in Reading, UK.
They answer the phones with “Hello, Otis Reading”.

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:06:00 +0000

“two men come with the 101, and after that the Juno comes,
to make the type of tones that’ll make you rock, nonstop, around the clock”

By: dculberson

dculberson — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:29:00 +0000

Nothin’ says lovin’ like an eight-oh-eight!

By: Bob Munck

Bob Munck — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:27:00 +0000

An Wang got his start building core memories — the little ferromagnetic donuts with wires running through them. When those started to be replaced by solid-state memories, he cast around for another product. He happened to see a demo of the Hypertext system at Brown, where his son Tom was a student, and seized on word processing. It was a huge change from weaving cores, but he did it brilliantly. Unfortunately the second generation of management — Tom — wasn’t as successful.

On the other hand Xerox tried to do a second-generation version of the Wang word processors, using innovations like the laser printer, Ethernet, Engelbart’s mouse, and their Alto graphic-display computer, and failed.

By: Robert Taylor-Manning

Robert Taylor-Manning — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:24:00 +0000

the 808 kick drum makes the girlies get dumb

By: mkultra

mkultra — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:01:00 +0000

As far as I can tell, Moto Solutions only sells to govt and enterprise. When the company split in January, that was the death knell of Motorola as a consumer electronics company. While I would consider Moto Solutions as a successor to certain parts of the original company, it isn’t that company. Motorola Inc. was founded in 1928 and no longer exists. Note the past tense on the Wiki entry: “Motorola, Inc. (pronounced /moʊtɵˈroʊlə/) was an American multinational[6] telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois”.

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:51:00 +0000

Possible urban myth: Company slogan was “Wang Cares”.

Similar to the one about Siemens building their UK HQ in Staines…

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:47:00 +0000

Remember Dr. An Wang? In the age of Atari, his company made excellent
word processors, an intermediary life form between typewriter and
personal computer. Few doubt his visionary caliber, but the changes he
inspired ultimately left his company trailing competitors.

Of course naming the company after himself didn’t help — you couldn’t even bring up the name of the company in the 1980s without somebody making a juvenile joke.

By: habbi1974

habbi1974 — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:43:00 +0000

hey, chill, sorry if I upset you. fortunately I have a good ear, use also synths with FL and most of all, (and I think you agree) I know that today is not that hard to reproduce exactly the electronics and their exact sound, bit by bit. all the rest is brand mystic. peace!

By: Camilo Polymeris

Camilo Polymeris — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:28:00 +0000

I own a Roland MC-09, which to my not-so-talented ears sounds pretty close to a 303, when set to “vintage” mode. It also got MIDI. Pretty fun little machine, goes for about 100 USD on ebay. The built-in drums are worthless, though.

By: bfarn

bfarn — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:24:00 +0000

I thought Moneyball was about sports or something…

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:24:00 +0000

If you like that delicious resonant filter, you might want to check out this charity album of Acid Trax: http://balkanvinyl.bandcamp.com/album/acid-relief
Pay what you like, money goes to East African Famine Relief.

Oh, and artists like Cylob still use actual 303′s live, although that’s more for the nostalgia factor. Half the fun is watching him trying to get it to sync up. Voltage triggers!

By: C W

C W — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:03:00 +0000

“let’s not forget the snob and audiophile factor. no doubt nowdays you can get the sounds for free for FLstudio and such, but hey, I payed 1500 bucks, it MUST sound better!”

The “samples” are amateurish and poorly done, and sound exactly like disjointed samples. If you were suggesting people use VSTis, which are far better quality, I might tend to agree.

But just because YOU can’t tell the difference between one-shot samples and the real thing, doesn’t mean that anybody’s being a snob.

I use fruityloops AND actual synths, for the record.

By: Rob Beschizza

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:55:00 +0000

I am going to get to the recreations in another post :D

By: flosofl

flosofl — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:47:00 +0000

How has Motorola died? I agree the mobile phone part has been in a death spiral for some time, but that was always a fraction of their business. The spin off of Mobility ( the phones and cable boxes) was the excising of a tumor. Moto Solutions still sells tons and tons of public safety radio systems and enterprise wireless gear.

disclosure: I work for Moto Solutions.

By: righthere

righthere — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:47:00 +0000

Surprised that this post wasn’t about the x0xb0x… http://www.ladyada.net/make/x0xb0x/ why pay $1500 when you can get a solid 303 emulator with MIDI for a third of that?

By: Rob Beschizza

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:39:00 +0000

Donald, you could always give it to me for science.

By: tinyinkling

tinyinkling — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:38:00 +0000

re: the x0xb0x is now available from/supported by http://www.willzyx.com/ – not that there has to be a canonical source — it is an open source project. But he stocks boards, panels, and full kits.

By: EvilPRGuy

EvilPRGuy — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:33:00 +0000

Wow, you just made my day by sharing that link. I had no clue you could buy a 303 clone making kit, I am definitely scooping one of those up.

When I first started recording music in the early 90′s, my buddy had a 303. It does have a great, crunch sounds, but the interface is a bit of a nightmare. Nowadays, I would hook up a 303, make my sounds, sample them, and dump them into my sequencer of choice (Logic) and create beats that way. The interface of modern sequencers makes things so much simpler. However, I often wonder if the limitations imposed by early electronic instruments like this, were a bg part of the charm, and part of the reason why those songs sound so good.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:33:00 +0000

Wouldn’t you know it… the one I have (the Roland TR-505) is only going for around $100-$200 on eBay these days. Oh, well… guess I’ll put it up there anyway. Never thought it would be worth one thin dime. I got it for free from my composer sister-in-law once she tired of it in 1990 or so, and I always felt it was more of a toy than anything else. But if some schmuck wants to blow their hard-earned scratch on it, who am I to stand in the way of their creativity? For all I know, it still has Rhino Bucket’s “Beat To Death Like A Dog” programmed into it.

By: thesamizdat

thesamizdat — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:30:00 +0000

You’re exactly right. There are lots of very accurate 303 emulators out there– it’s actually not that complex a sound and pretty easy to emulate. There are lot better ways to spend $1500.