The 303 and all its clones are standing for nothing but acid.
I would be interested in how good they are for “normal” basslines. Without the squelchy resonance.
E.g. I know Alessandro Cortini recorded Risveglio with a 303, which is an amazing record.
Any opinions?
Isn’t it a simple low end bass machine if you turn reso down?
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Never had one in my hands
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any 303 OG or clone have two great waveforms as basis for basssounds. I love it and use mine all the time for non acid stuff.
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I use mine in a lot of ambient stuff for both bass and lead/melodic parts. It’s surprisingly versatile.
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and
it is the same artist… his releases as Human Action Network Is partly acid-like … he makes extensive use of the 303 but in a very very artistic way, not the usual way of making acid but shows of what is possible with a 303 if you have knowledge in music and musictheory
hope it helps
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cool thanks. Love this guy’s youtube channel.
stupid question: Can you play long sustained notes on a 303? E.g. from an external midi keyboard.
Not sure if the original has midi, but the clones have…
Good question!! Isn’t the gate on the sequencer a sustain as well?
I use a 303 a lot for totally non acid basslines. I draw it through some fx pedals and vintage preamps. Cut out all the high and smoothen it out. That way you can make really smooth, fat, low basslines that are unrecognizable to a 303.
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The original 303, i.e the TB-303 (
) was great for Italo Disco bass lines and even some ambient stuff using appropriate fx…
Using slide you could sustain notes but they would eventually fade, there was a trick I used a few times where you chained a pattern with the second not having any gates and the last note from previous pattern could be sustained if it was slid… can’t really remember how now but I know it involved a traditional pattern method but then you removed the gate data or something and just added slide instead to every step.
Sorry my brain has seeped out of my ears along with my memory…
Parting with mine recently was very hard 
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I’m not sure about the OG 303, I think it has a fixed max VCA decay, so you can’t play long notes. The avalon bassline lets you turn off the vca using it’s utility envelope.
For non-acid 303 stuff check out TM404/Andreas Tilliander
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This still is the sweetest 303 track around. 
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Still squelchy though 
ironically enough we used to use a xoxbox as a pseudo electric bass in one music project I was involved in… and as long as you set the dials just right, it can work suprisingly well 
This, after all, was what the original TB303 was designed to do… Roland was just “foolish” in setting the param ranges absurdly large, drunk musicians went OTT with the controls… and acid was born 
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I’m more attracted to the subtler sounds the TB-303 is capable of.
The title track to Plastikman’s “Consumed” is a great example.
That bass is so round.
Also track 2 “Consume” (the bass, more so than the lead.)
For me, the slide + accent behavior can be just as distinct as the high resonance filter behavior. But it’s nowhere near as aggressive. You just have to listen for it.
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Dataline’s most recent youtube uploads sold me on the TB-03 because I really liked the non-acidic sounds he would coerce out of it. I no longer have a TB-03, but I would like to get a 303 clone/remake in the future.
Check this out https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tt303+vs+303
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Dateline does some really nice melodic stuff w/the TB-03, in those live sets from the last couple years… sort of delicate, upper register, pillowy lines. It’s some of the prettier, more affecting 303 lines I’ve heard, though I’m no expert.
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