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The 303 defined acid, but now that we know what acid sounds like, you don’t need the 303 any more. Like, 90% of what made 303 lines sound unique is in the sequencer, which you can program into a DAW or something once you know how it’s done (it’s a fairly basic step sequencer with a couple quirks, but those quirks are easy to replicate). Use a simple subtractive synth, turn the filter knob around, set the resonance pretty high, and bam… you’ve got acid. That’s what I mean when I say that something rarely turns out to be critical to your sound. Once you understand how a sound is made, it makes it possible to achieve similar sounds in other ways. That last 10% is not something that people listening to your music care about, by and large. The TB-303 has a unique diode filter design… kind of weird, you might say “3+1 poles” (is it 24 dB/oct? or 18 dB/oct?) with a built-in high-pass filter. However, despite the fact that the TB-303 has such a unique filter design, and the 303 sound defines acid, and the 303 filter is a key part of that sound, you can replace the filter with some boring random 4-pole VCF and still end up with an acid track. So you don’t need a 303. This is good news! It means that it’s easier to create acid than it ever was. The 303 is no longer manufactured. You can grab a cheap clone like the TB-03, TD-3, or program the 303 sound into a more powerful synthesizer that you already own. |
I see you know your 303s :)
The acid I can get from a Virus or SH-101 is acid but not from a 303, and the sequencing I can get from a Rytm definitely has that slide/glide vibe, so I totally get what you're saying.
... I guess if you know what you're doing you can make anything sound like something else, especially in a mix, it's just that sticking with a certain synth for that sound can make it hell of a lot easier