Poor emulations of 303

Honestly, it is impossible. There is nothing close enough. It is a negative thing to say, and it is an unpopular way of seeing things, but unfortunately it is true. Really if you are making public music with this, you are spreading a poor imitation of a machine sound, regardless of the rest of the song. That is a difficult position, but if you feel you have to do it no matter what the weaknesses are, then go ahead and don't be afraid because even if you choose bad things in themselves perhaps you have the will to make a fun or good song that you love anyway. But I owned a 303 for 6 years, so I am experienced in that and VST to say nothing ever comes even close, sorry if this is negative, it is my experience.

There is actually a reason such a cheap little box is worth so much money, and there's a reason why programmers will always make a software nice interface 303 with poor imitation sounds, you can realise those reasons for yourself!

If you want a Power Rangers complete toy set, but it is too expensive, will you buy it or not? I will not. I will not accept the Ultra Rangers knockoff that they sell in the local market for cheaper, it is just a knockoff made purely to exploit me for cash money.

Let's see, if you buy a 303, it will keep a very similar value for a long time. If you buy a software 303, it will compete with a software version of the future with less bugs. Have you tried selling a 5 year old VST? Good luck selling that, my friend, only the best conman like Sawyer from Lost could even dream of selling a 5 year old VST software cd.

I think something £500 can be a good value investment, while something that is £50 can be a complete Chinese rip off.

Would you accept a VST imitation? Why? Do you think it's a ripoff?

I think you're a little bit too concerned about this is what I think.

Not everyone can afford a real 303 to play around with. The main reason I use emulators as opposed to nothing at all is because they do sound good once you stop comparing them to the real thing, at least the ones in Buzz do anyway. Don't get me wrong, it would be great to have a real 303, but really, it's just a monosynth - get over it. While it does make some really damn awesome sounds, it is still very limiting, which is probably the other reason why people don't go selling all of their other equipment just to get hold of one.

yeah, let's all be cool like aphex and talk about how incapable vst's are. i'm sure it's no where near close, the 303 is a physical old analog instrument with tuning that changes with temperature and all that.

you own a 303, great, i really envy you. but I'm not in the financial spot to care enough about the "real thing" to let down VSTs. you can get a pro 5 for the price of a 303 and if i had the money i'd rather get that.

the thing is, in my personal opinion, the vst's sound close enough. everyone that knows what a 303 is is going to know "ah that's the 303 acid sound" and people who don't are going to say "oh yeah that's that cool sound again" or simply "holy fuck that sound is mindbending".

It's all a lot of bullshit really innit, I'm willing to bet that 199 out of 200 people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a 303, ABL and Phoscyon in a blind listening test...

Yeah, aside from the fact that a lot of people won't be able to consciously tell teh difference, I think it largely depends on how you want to use the 303 emulation, if you just want some squelches in the background or a soft subtle bass accent here and there it will be a lot less noticable then when the whole track leans on the 303 line(s).

Of course you'll never get the funk of the 303 sequencer which is a huge part of it's sound.

But emulations are a fine solution in many situations.

this word monosynth is pissing me off

Mr. Question Mark, why not make a big list of all yoru complaints with WATMM, its music and its users, and put it into one thread? It'll save you a lot of time and you may even find something positive.

  کhamanix said:

this word monosynth is pissing me off

Why?

  Derelic7 said:

the 303 is a physical old analog instrument with tuning that changes with temperature and all that.

thats pretty cool though.

  死んでく said:

Honestly, it is impossible. There is nothing close enough. It is a negative thing to say, and it is an unpopular way of seeing things, but unfortunately it is true. Really if you are making public music with this, you are spreading a poor imitation of a machine sound, regardless of the rest of the song. That is a difficult position, but if you feel you have to do it no matter what the weaknesses are, then go ahead and don't be afraid because even if you choose bad things in themselves perhaps you have the will to make a fun or good song that you love anyway. But I owned a 303 for 6 years, so I am experienced in that and VST to say nothing ever comes even close, sorry if this is negative, it is my experience.

 

There is actually a reason such a cheap little box is worth so much money, and there's a reason why programmers will always make a software nice interface 303 with poor imitation sounds, you can realise those reasons for yourself!

 

If you want a Power Rangers complete toy set, but it is too expensive, will you buy it or not? I will not. I will not accept the Ultra Rangers knockoff that they sell in the local market for cheaper, it is just a knockoff made purely to exploit me for cash money.

 

Let's see, if you buy a 303, it will keep a very similar value for a long time. If you buy a software 303, it will compete with a software version of the future with less bugs. Have you tried selling a 5 year old VST? Good luck selling that, my friend, only the best conman like Sawyer from Lost could even dream of selling a 5 year old VST software cd.

 

I think something £500 can be a good value investment, while something that is £50 can be a complete Chinese rip off.

 

Would you accept a VST imitation? Why? Do you think it's a ripoff?

C-

no concluding paragraph

like someone else said - if the tb-303 is not the integral part of the music then you're okay with an emulation. but for something like plastikman or ceephax i think the real thing is necessary.

yeah or chris moss fucking acid

  Quote

thats pretty cool though.

yeah.. i've been bitten by the analogue bug so i'll probably waste cash at the little acid box once i can afford it

last night i dreamt about tb-303's falling from the sky everywhere.. the world was ending for some reason, and people were rushing to get on spaceships to leave earth, but all i could think of was how i'd get a hold of a 303 i kept running from house to house to try and steal one

I hate 303 snobbery. ABL's absolutely fine and like Mr Modular says, most people can't tell the difference anyay. It's all in the programming and effects used IMO. And if you're talking about acid, you don't need to put a 303 sound in it anyway. Just got to be composed in the right way, you can use any syths or VST etc to make an acid track.

yes true. I would like some side by side comparisons of patterns including line out signal flow(from a good soundcard) back into the input in the same way a 303 is recorded. Also I think that softsynths have a long way to go but will get there. Most of what makes a 303 a 303 will be cracked by innovatinve people eventually into digital calculations.

  ten fingers ten toes said:

I think you're a little bit too concerned about this is what I think.

I fuckin' agree! Who gives a flying fuck!

i don't think anyone should have even replied to this thread, personally.

the way i phrased my other post was designed to circumvent a shitfest such as this. no one gets convinced of anything, some time and hard disk space wasted, etc

take it out back, meet at the flagpole at noon, etc

edit: he's probably mad i called naruto gay, judging by his custom title

edit II: here's a link.

  Derelic7 said:

  Quote

yeah.. i've been bitten by the analogue bug so i'll probably waste cash at the little acid box once i can afford it

 

Well, if you buy a 303, you can always sell it for damn near the same value. The machine has kept its value in such a reliable way. It's like paying a big deposit and small loan fee that can last as long your lifetime if you want. If you were buying a Korg digital keyboard, you might get nice sounds now, but you would be losing money in the end, because digital music equipment and software will always lose its value over time. If you buy a 303, you will get your money back when you sell it. When you buy a VST, you will most likely lose that money forever.

 

You guys are correct that great music can be made on VST's, and I'm sure you are very talented and much better than me. I'm crap at music.

 

But limited to the creators of imitation VST's, where a programmer has taken the interface of a classic famous machine and digitized it with a jpg to make it all pretty, and advertising it like it sounds like a Roland TB-303, I think it is wrong for him to do that. He is appealing to us musicians who covet some famous thing with an imitation. He sells us something that will lose its value over time. To me that is a bit of a con.

 

If you make great music on that imitation VST, that is wonderful, sorry for even making it look like otherwise. There's a guy in our city center who bangs drumsticks on bins and other random council owned objects. You can make music anywhere and on anything, and that's brilliant. I'm not saying you can't make great music on that software. Only that the software is by design an imitation of something which is impossible to emulate, and it will not keep its money value. Ok, if they can emulate it in the future, that's wonderful, but they haven't got there yet.

 

When I was a kid I used to play with Rebirth, and it was so much fun. I spent hours on that software.

 

I'm not talking about your songs, acid, or anything like that. Just those damn 303 imitation VST's, and by extension all other imitation VST's. Just look at www.vintagesynth.com, they draw you into looking at all these beautiful synthesizers, then advertise a whole bunch of imitation VST's. It's so creepy.

 

Kokoon: like someone else said - if the tb-303 is not the integral part of the music then you're okay with an emulation. but for something like plastikman or ceephax i think the real thing is necessary.

 

I agree with this totally.

 

Sorry for not expressing myself enough so that it offended you, really your music is great. My problem is only with imitation VST's themselves, not any of you, or your music, or whatever, if you don't want to be persuaded of anything or you dont like anything near arguing, sorry for offending you there, just wanted to express some views I held for a while, see other people's way of thinking, then adjust my way of thinking to be more reasonable and based more on other people's experiences.

regardless of whether the software 303s sound exactly like the original or not they still sound good in their own right and have plenty of uses. you can do things with the software one you can't do with the real one like tweak 3 knobs at once (without getting a friend round!) or automating the settings extremely fast over the duration of a note to get weird effects. yes if you try to copy the style and sound and uses of a genuine 303 it might sound like crap but there are loads of ways of using software that still sound good. i use 303 emulators a lot of the time just as a source of a nice bass sound to layer with other stuff. at least one of the tunes on my benbecula EP has crappy old rebirths 303 noises in there, just processed a lot and changed until i liked the sound. (the main rough synth bit in bruntsfield for example). everything has its uses.

Of course, it's not a case of being able to discern a sound source - it's whether the cumulative effects of various decisions in the recording process are important to the finished work. Now anyone with any ear for music will identify whether you've achieved this or not.

Some chefs go to great lengths to source the best local/seasonal produce for their menu - would another chef be able to come in and tell you with absolute certainty whether the leeks were sourced from a local organic farm or whether they were bought in a packet from Tescos? Possibly... But then, can we not all tell when we're eating great food(?) - it's the experts who are able to identify individual aspects of these things - everyone is equally sensitive, but can only identify with the finished product as a complete whole.

The tb-303 makes similar(ish) noises to a plug-in or VA emulation - but the tone, colour and presense of a 303 is completely unique to that machine... Many synths can do Moog(ish) leads, many people on the street simply wouldn't be educated enough to discern which was "better," or, at least, original/vintage - yet if we re-recorded a lot of old Stevie Wonder or Herbie Hancock with VA Moog patches, their whole presense and effect in the recordings would be completely changed.

Can you imagine Chameleon with an Arturia Moog or ARP patch instead of a vintage analogue? No matter how close you got the patch, it would always be a different kind of sound - it would change the whole face of the recording - regardless - for the better, or for the worse...

  死んでく said:

If you want a Power Rangers complete toy set, but it is too expensive, will you buy it or not? I will not. I will not accept the Ultra Rangers knockoff that they sell in the local market for cheaper, it is just a knockoff made purely to exploit me for cash money.

lol

Well if I bought the Power Rangers just because they're Power Rangers and not because their Action Karate Chop™ is far superior to the Ultra Rangers' Action Karate Chop (which simply can't knock over the EvilZords as effectively), then I would be a fucking poser.

Unless I was merely a toy collector and didn't give a shit about how awesome the Action Karate Chop™ is. Then I would be collecting toys, and I would be a useless nerd.

I appreciate your inappropriate analogy for all that it has unintentionally taught us.

put simply, i think you're wrong.

mo

  死んでく said:

When I was a kid I used to play with Rebirth

that would be two or three years ago?

seriously - $20 says no one will be convinced of anything by this thread

i'm just going to start posting images now

  DrHat said:

  死んでく said:

 

When I was a kid I used to play with Rebirth

 

that would be two or three years ago?

 

rebirth is at least 7 years old.

thus making it fully possible he used it two or three years ago.

reason was out for some time before i ever touched it. cubase has been around longer than i've been writing music, and i use it all the time.