The Roland TB-303 Bass Line (also known as the 303) is a bass synthesizer introduced by Roland in 1981. Designed to simulate bass guitars, it was a commercial failure after selling 10,000 units[1] and was discontinued in 1984. However, cheap second-hand units were adopted by electronic musicians, and its "squelching" or "chirping" sound became a foundation of electronic dance music genres such as acid house, Chicago house and techno. It has inspired numerous clones.
The TB-303 has a single oscillator, which produces either a "buzzy" sawtooth wave or a "hollow-sounding" square wave.[2] This is fed into a 24 dB/octave[3] low-pass filter, which is manipulated by an envelope generator.[4] Users program notes and slides using the internal sequencer.[2]
History[]
The TB-303 was manufactured by the Japanese company Roland. It was designed by Tadao Kikumoto, who also designed the Roland TR-909 drum machine.[5] It was marketed as a "computerised bass machine" to replace the bass guitar.[4] However, it instead produced a "squelchy tone" that sounded very little like a stringed instrument.[2]
It was intended to complement the TR-606 drum machine. Both the 303 and 606 had built-in sequencers; they were intended to generate accompaniment to, for instance, allow a guitarist to practice alone. Like the 606, the 303's build quality was considered dodgy and it sold poorly at the time.
The first song to use the TB-303 was Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Relâché" (1981). The first album to use the TB-303 on multiple songs was Exitentialism (1981) by The Beatniks, a Japanese electronic music band consisting of Yukihiro Takahashi and Keiichi Suzuki.
The first non-Japanese album to use the TB-303 on multiple songs was Charanjit Singh's Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat (1982). It made early use of the TB-303, alongside the Roland TR-808 drum machine. The album remained obscure until the early 21st century, when it was reissued and recognized as a precursor to acid house.[6]
In the late 1980s, Chicago house artists discovered that the TB-303 could be made to generate some very unique bass sounds if the voltage controlled filter circuitry were to be overdriven a bit. The 303 employs a unique and oddball configuration of a diode ladder filter, which can produce a very characteristic sound. The 303's sound became the cornerstone of its own electronica genre: acid house. Artists and DJs learned how to sweep the filter's cutoff frequency and resonance to produce the "moving", highly resonant sound associated with acid house.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as new acid styles emerged, the TB-303 was often overdriven, producing a harsher sound, such as on Hardfloor's 1992 EP "Acperience" and Interlect 3000's 1993 EP "Volcano".[7] In 1995, the TB-303 was distorted and processed on Josh Wink's hit "Higher State of Consciousness"[3][8] and on Daft Punk's "Da Funk".[9]
Like the TR series of drum machines, the TB-303 has given rise to numerous analog clones, such as the MAM mb33, the X0xb0x, the Cyclone TT-303, and more recently the Behringer TD-3 (and various other digital clones). An analysis of the filter performed by Tim Stinchcombe in 2009 shows a surprisingly complex response curve, including an unusual peak in the resonance circuit at 10 Hz. The filter is frequently described as being a three-pole, 18 dB/octave circuit, but Tim's analysis shows that it is in fact a four-pole filter.
List of early songs featuring TB-303[]
This list only includes songs that used the TB-303 during its production run from 1981 to 1984, listed in chronological order.
References[]
- ↑ Hamill, Jasper. "The world's most famous electronic instrument is back. Will anyone buy the reissued TB-303?". Forbes. Archived from the original on 29 March 2014. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Hamill, Jasper. "The world's most famous electronic instrument is back. Will anyone buy the reissued TB-303?". Forbes. Archived from the original on 29 March 2014. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "The Fall and Rise of the TB-303". Roland US. 28 March 2013.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Reid, Gordon (December 2004). "The History Of Roland: Part 2". Sound on Sound. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
- ↑ Hsieh, Christine. "Electronic Musician: Tadao Kikumoto". Emusician.com. Retrieved 2010-10-02.
- ↑ Stuart Aitken (10 May 2011). "Charanjit Singh on how he invented acid house ... by mistake". The Guardian.
- ↑ Church, Terry (9 Feb 2010). "Black History Month: Jesse Saunders and house music". Beatortal.com. Archived from the original on 12 February 2010. Retrieved 16 October 2011.
- ↑ "30 Years of Acid". Attack Magazine. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- ↑ Brewster, Will (3 Mar 2021). "The 13 most iconic TB-303 basslines of all time". Mixdown. Retrieved 2021-09-25.