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Campaign to bring back Roland TB-303

Page to like to show your support for the cause

acidtechno.co.uk & acid909.co.uk have launched on Facebook a campaign to get Roland to bring back into production the iconic Roland TB-303

What is the TB-303 and what was its importance?

It was a synthesizer that was produced between 1982 and 1984 by Roland. It was promoted to alongside the TR-606 drum machine. They produced 10000 units in 18 months. Its had a defining role in the development contemporary dance music. Even today many musicians try to have its unique sound in their music.

It was originally designed for guitarists to have bass accompaniment while playing by themselves, but never took off due to the difficulty of programming the device, and didnt sound like a bass guitar. It took off when DJs and producers in Chicago used it to develop the hugely popular house music genre in a new direction. Acid house was born. The unique sound of the TB-303 created the iconic Acidline\acid squelch sound.

Its popularity started in 1985 when DJ Peirre picked one up and started experimenting with it and sent it to the legendary Ron Hardy.

The unique sound is mainly due its low pass filter. Roland made their ‘ladder’ style filter that it utilized unique by using a 3-pole 18db filter instead of 24db that the Moog used.

This little silver box of magic has a very heavy following and is very highly respected within the electronic music industry. It still a lot of music which is produced by this musical instrument and still a dedicated movement trying to simulate the sound through clones and software, but very few if any give the true authentic sound of the original.

Very few musical instruments if any have created entire genres of music like the 303 has & had such an influence on modern music.

If your wondering what gives Acid Techno and Acid House its unique sound then its this monophonic synthesizer: The Roland TB-303

The TB-303 was released by Roland in 1982.  It is an analogue oscillator that has 2 waveforms.   The TB-303 is used by programming a sequence of notes and timing.  It was originally produced for keyboardists, drummers etc but was later picked up by DJs and producers because of its distinctive sound.

The TB-303 was originally used with the 606.  Later it was used in line with 808 and 909.

The 2 waveforms the 303 produced was sawthorn wave (simple, single-transister waveshapeing circuit) or square wave .

It uses a simple envelope generator which has a decay control on it.  The lowpass filter on it has a -24db octave attenuation and controls cut off frequency & resonance.

The acid sound was created by producers by making the TB303 overdriven to create a harsher liquid sound.