TB-303 patch

Mr. Banshee's icon

i'm looking to recreate a TB-303 in max, more so the pitch envelope, since i am a sucker for the squelchy sounds. Anyone want to point me in a direction? Here is a video link of that lovely sound around 1min 50seconds into it:

Just to point out, i am not looking to recreate a techno sound, i just love that squelchy sound, wanna take it outside the box.

Thanks!
-chuck

Roman Thilenius's icon

the pitch envelope in a 303?

Mr. Banshee's icon

oops, perhaps its called "cut off frequency" or is it the "envelope mod" that makes that squelchy sound.

Mr. Banshee's icon

so here is my feeble attempt, minus the squelch

Max Patch
Copy patch and select New From Clipboard in Max.

Roman Thilenius's icon

Mr. Banshee wrote on Mon, 08 June 2009 05:34oops, perhaps its called "cut off frequency" or is it the "envelope mod" that makes that squelchy sound.

humh ... do you mean the glissando/portamento?
glide knob + retrig switch?

in max that can be very simple; you´d just trigger only
the frequency with a new note, i.e. without triggering
a new envelope, and insert a line~ / slide~ / or whatever
to interpolate.

the rest is to be done on the data layer, where you deal
with the "note in" part of your "oscillator".

in my (midificated) 303 hardware(s) this is done by
overlapping 2 or more notes (in cubase):
if you hold C while G is already starting, the 303
glides to G (exactly in the same manner than it would
when you set a note to "glide on" in the 303s built-in
sequencer.

-110

Mr. Banshee's icon

Roman,
Thanks for the advice, i'm not sure how to implement it in the patch i supplied. If you have a second, could you show me?
Thanks!
-chuck

Roman Thilenius's icon

so, here is the "squelchy" i promised.

(i guess thats a british word?)

how to trigger notes in 3 ways:

- with glissando
- without glissando
- with glissando but in "retrig" mode 303 style

instead of they keyboardsliders you can just use a [gate 3]
or 3 different inlets for the patcher to send different
types of notes from a sequencer.

-110

...

Mr. Banshee's icon

Roman,
Thanks for the attempt but it is actually not what i am looking for. Perhaps my lack of description is the cause of confusion, here is the exact sound i would like to recreate live:

The "squelchy" sound comes in about 30 seconds into this sample. Just to reiterate, i don't want to use samples, i want to be able to control a synth the produces this squelchy sound.

One small favor to ask (for you and anyone who may want to step up to the challenge), could you not send it as a runtime? i wanna be able to open it up and tweak it.

Thanks again!
-chuck

Mr. Banshee's icon
Mr. Banshee's icon

Roman,
OOPS!!! i owe you an apology, apparently i was being an idiot and opened the patch in runtime....i'm playing around with it now, has some cool sounds to be implemented, so it is definitely useful for me in the future for some synth sounds, just not giving me the TB-303 thing i am looking for. Sorry for any headaches!
-chuck

Roman Thilenius's icon

the effect of this sound example consists of three things
on the oginal 303: the glissando setting, the filter envelope
setting, and definetly around 70% of "accent".

to build a certain sound of a certain original hardware
is nothing what you can do with a dozen of objects.

that is a bit like with the original 303: it really makes
a big difference who is turning the knobs. there is no
squelchy preset.

the "accent" alone would involve some hours of research
about the original components and about how to build such
things in maxmsp - [overdrive~] will not do.

the VCF on a 303 is not just a linear fade, the tri oscillator
is not just a triangle wave .. you get the idea.

well, let me put it like this ... if you want to recreate an
original, you need to recreate all of its parts, and
each of them as exactly as possible.

i would say you will have to spend at least 8 weeks in
maxmsp until you get something which is ... similar.

-110

p.s. did you know that you can get a factory refurbished tb 303
with replacement knobs and built-in midi interface for under
USD 1000 today?
when it is really about the sound, get a real one, or better two.
many cool things you have heard with it somewhere, was two of them.

Mr. Banshee's icon

Roman,
Thanks once again for shedding light upon the subject. i was wondering if i was hearing two oscillators going at it. The TB-303 itself is a wonderful instrument, if my infatuation persists, perhaps i will look into obtaining one. For now i remain thinking "in the box", treating my computer as a repellent for gear consumption (unlike my early days). No need to worry though, i always knew that the magick relies on the musician not the machine.
-chuck

Tj Shredder's icon

In addition there is a lot of reverb involved as well.
I would not recreate the original, but create some analog like synth patch with heavy filter sweeps and tweaks, plus reverb, and simply play around with it. Because that specific squelchy sound is known so well already, and if you just play for yourself with those ingrediences, you might come up with something more original. Advantage, it wont take you 8 weeks (maybe 6), disadvantage you will play with it much longer (maybe 26 weeks)...

Stefan

oli larkin's icon

lots of info on it here:

i guess that part with the "squelch" you are talking about might be a distortion pedal. The best 303 plugins (audiorealism's ABL and d-16 phosycon) have a distortion control which gets you these kinds of sounds.

>the VCF on a 303 is not just a linear fade, the tri oscillator
>is not just a triangle wave .. you get the idea.

there's no triangle oscillator on the 303... saw and square

oli

Roman Thilenius's icon

oli larkin wrote on Tue, 16 June 2009 12:29
there's no triangle oscillator on the 303... saw and square
oli

oops ... well, the square sounds terrible anyway, it is only
good for high pitched miau miou melody sounds. ;P

-110

Mr. Banshee's icon

Stefan,
a synth with filter sweeps is exactly what i wanna do. Any good filter sweep patches out there worth sharing? i have tried hooking up an EQ patch to the patch i supplied earlier, but it just sounds like ass (or at least not the kind of ass i am looking for). i know max is all about the blood, sweat, and tears...i'm a lifer homies.
-chuck

Mr. Banshee's icon

scouring my mass amount of patches retrieved from the max list over the years, i came across this:

Max Patch
Copy patch and select New From Clipboard in Max.

but i don't know who is the author. It does however give off the sound i was basically looking for but it useless to me as it, but wanted to share it with the rest of the forum. i will probably take it apart to give more control to the user and less to the computer.
-chuck

Mr. Banshee's icon

So, someone has beat me to it, and have down a bang up job emulating the tb-303, enjoy:

benoit-1842's icon

Thanx I was looking for that awesome patch.....