Acid Tracks in 5 mins

YouTube via phono1337

" A quick cover of Phuture's Acid Tracks. The original was around 120bpm and used a TR-707 . This quick cover is at 138bpm uses a highly modifed TR-606. I think my pattern is close but possibly missing an accent ;-) "

Roland TB-303 Owned by DJ Mickey "Mixin" Oliver

via this auction

"This machine was owned by legendary DJ Mickey "Mixin" Oliver. He was the first to use this machine in electronic music by making acid tracks. He is also known as one of the creators of House Music. Chicago recently named a street after him for his contributions to Dance music. The London Observer named him one of the ten most influential DJs of all time."

It's not clear if the seller means this specific 303 was owned by DJ Mickey "Mixin" Oliver or he just owned one in general.

Update: according to Wikipedia, the first to use the 303 in house: "The first acid house records were produced in Chicago, Illinois. Phuture, a group founded by Nathan "DJ Pierre" Jones, Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson, is credited with having been the first to use the TB-303 in the house music context (the instrument appeared as early as 1983 in disco via Alexander Robotnick)."

Bleep's Guide to Electronic Music

This one in via Scott, via Bleep: "Bleep's guide to Electronic Music is a 55 track compilation charting the historical emergence of electronic music by looking at landmark tracks from the 1930s up to present day.

Our aim with this selection of music is to show the length and breadth of the medium, providing a snapshot of the genres forms and styles, and the development of the artform. Whilst there are omissions and compromises that we have had to make, we hope that we achieve our aims and we do some justice to the variety of music that we love.

This compilation developed out of a project to create a Facebook timeline charting the development of electronic music from the late 19th Century until now."

For reference check out 120 Years of Electronic Music

The collection begins with Olivier Messiaen's Oraison from 1937 performed on Ondes Martenot & Theremin (you can find the original full track previously posted here and a beautiful cover on Buchla 200e and Haken Continuum from the late Richard Lainhart here):

"Originally composed by Olivier Messiaen, this beautiful and contemplative piece of music is a monumental moment in electronic music. Argued to be the first piece of purely electronic music written expressly for live performance on the Ondes Martenot, an instrument closely related to the Theremin."

The collection ends with James Blake's CMYK"

"At just 21 years old, London producer, James Blake releases on newly relaunched R&S Records.

At its core 'CMYK' is forged from a myriad of 90's R&B samples (Aaliyah, Kelis) their voices mangled, barely recognisable and thrown into a red-eyed fire of DSP and hours spent in the waveforms."

The full track listing:

CLICK FOR MORE »

TB 303 vs X0XB0X vs TB-3

Published on Dec 7, 2014 Kevin Polzer

"A comparison of my collection of acid instruments. Using a famous bassline from 'Phuture' You be the judge."

Toorcon 2010 - Full Hardware Live Techno Set

via Shagghie of highsage:
"This is it. This is the sound about to take the LA underground by seige. A drum machine and a synth. Complete control. Merciless, unabashed techno. Breakbeats. Distortion. Vibe. Burners and Hackers alike, meet up at Toorcon.org on the 23rd in San Diego. They will lay witness to the devastation. From there we move to the LA underground, one warehouse at a time. The machines rise up this time, reclaiming their throne from the oasis of shattered laptop screens and mice turned upside down that litter the dancefloor. The misfits raise their fists in the air, re-united in peace once again. Bowing down to the machines again. Closing their eyes, turning off the lights, and dancing again. This one is for the hackers, the misfits, the dreamers and the phuture peeple. This one is for the bass bins. Electronic Bass. Electrobass. Space bass in your face bass. This one is for the Toorcon Knights. As for all the others, let this be your punishment. Electrobass.com, taking LA one warehouse at a time."

Roland TR-707 & TB-303 Walkthrough

Published on Dec 13, 2018 Alex Ball

"One final tutorial to round out this batch before I take a break. This time we're having a look at two classics; the Roland TR-707 and the Roland TB-303. This video gives you the basic principles to get started.

Along with the TR-727, TR-909, TR-808, SH-101 and MC-202, these machines played an integral part in dance music that emerged in the late 80s, most notably Acid and Techno...

Phuture "Acid Trax" from 1987
Armando "Land of Confusion" from 1988

Download samples from my TR-707 for free: http://bit.ly/TR707

There's also a great (and free) html emulation of the TR-303 if you can't access an original unit or clone: http://errozero.co.uk/acid-machine/

Thanks for watching!"

Phuture - Acid Trax (highsage remake live performance 2012)

"Recorded straight off a Mackie 1202 with a Machinedrum and a 303. First time in a few years. Will be the encore track in my live hardware set this summer. This time kicked it up to 128 from 120 bpm, and spent a few hours having to (once AGAIN!) re-craft the original pattern on the 3's. I think this time around it came out even closer to the original. Bump it loud! RESPECT goes out to Pierre on this one, MUCH LOVE BRUTHA!"

Point Blank on Emulating The Classic Roland TB303

The following tutorial covers emulating the Roland TB-303 with Logic's ES1, however the techniques can be applied to other synths. Posted in full here with permission from Point Blank. The embeds below are only linked in the Point Blank post. I opted to embed them. Be sure to check out their site for more pro audio tutorials.

"Hands up who likes analogue synthesisers?! Of course you do; there’s dozen of models out there and the best thing is, they’re all different. That might seem strange at first glance because when you examine them, most models appear to be basically the same.

My Roland SH101 has one oscillator, one filter, one envelope generator and plays only one note at a time. Put that next to my Yamaha CS10, which is nearly exactly the same in terms of sound making facilities, and everyone except a guitarist would tell you they’re different, as different as a grand piano and a Yamaha DX7 (and the SH101 sounds far better in my opinion). And as every synth sounds different, each is unique. Which brings us to a tiny silver box manufactured in 1982. It’s the antique synth that inspired every dance music genre since Acid House:

The Roland TB303 Bassline.

Hardfloor - Acperience 1

YouTube Uploaded by drstrobo on Nov 27, 2006

On paper it looks extremely limited. It has one oscillator, one envelope generator, one filter and a tiny keyboard that’s next to impossible to program. And yet, this synth sounds like no other. It’s weedy, shrill and despite it’s ‘bassline’ tag the thing it does worst is basslines. How ironic! TB303 are very rare and very expensive these days, and quite frankly you’d be better off spending £1200 on a decent set of monitors. To save you some money I’m going to show you how you can make Logic’s ES1 software instrument do a close imitation. And if you don’t have Logic, don’t worry, because these steps will work on just about any softsynth.

The basics

1. Load in the ES1 and set the oscillator to ‘sawtooth’. Set the oscillator mix so you have only the main oscillator, not the the subsoscillator. The TB303 has no suboscillator and only a dial between sawtooth and ‘square’; you can switch the oscillator to square if you prefer.
2. Set the oscillator range to 16’.
3. Make sure the ES1 ‘Voices’ setting is in ‘Legato mode’ and with ‘Glide’ set to around a 1/3 of the way up.

This setting is extremely important; we must not have notes overlapping and creating chords. We need the ability to slide between specific notes too!

4. Set the ADSR to very fast attack (but not instant, just slightly off will suffice). Set sustain to zero. Set the release and decay to two thirds of the way up.
5. Set the amp to ‘Gate R’ and the ‘level via vel’ triangles to one at the top and the other 2/3 up.
6. Set the filter to 12dB (the TB303 actually has an 18dB filter but the ES1’s filter sounds far more realistic at this setting) and the ADSR via vel triangles at zero and 2o’clock. Drive should be at zero, and ‘Key’ at half way.
7. Set ‘Analog’ to 100%
8. Set both modulation faders to zero. There’s no modulation other than ADSR on a TB303!

So, with your synthesiser set up in this way, you should have an approximation of a TB303 coming out of your speakers. That’s only half of the battle: to really get that acid feel you need to play the ES1 like a TB303 too. Which actually means that you mustn’t play it but manually program in a pattern in the style of a Roland sequencer from the early 1980s.

The Pattern

1. Create a one bar region in the arrange area using the pencil mouse tool (esc > No.2)
2. Open that in the piano roll editor and draw in the notes you want to play using the pencil tool. Note that the default length on velocity setting is ideal for us because the note is one 16th note long and the velocity is 80. Remember, no chords!

Here’s where things get really clever. At the moment, you’ll probably have a string of notes, each clearly firing one after the other. The TB303 can do that, but the best patterns use glides, legato and accents to create that classic Acid House feel.

1. Drag the right hand corner of the note that you want to ‘slur’ into the next one to the right so that it overlaps with the next note. This will do two things: it will stop the envelope generator triggering again and it will make the ES1 sweep to the new note’s pitch. Nice!
2. The finishing touch is to add accents. You do this with the velocity mouse tool (esc > No.9). At the moment, all your notes will be at velocity 80. Click-drag up on the note you want to have an accent until the velocity is at, say, 100. That note will not only be louder but it will also be slightly brighter too, just like in the old days.

The finishing touches

Of course, it’s how you adjust the settings on the synth that makes that TB303 ‘performance’. The best ones to play with are the Decay/Release settings on the ADSR, Filter Cutoff, the Filter Resonance and the degree of Filter Modulation (move the fader by clicking between the two triangles). If you want to emulate the changing of the ‘accent’ setting, try moving the top filter triangle up and down. Also, you can adjust the attack setting on the ADSR; moving it up to just under a quarter of the way will give you an accurate ‘filter lag’ sound. The key here is subtlety. The real TB303 connoisseur can also add a touch more resonance on every accented note; this is most easily drawn in with automation.

Clean TB303 sounds went out of fashion in the 80s.

Phuture - Acid Tracks (1987)

YouTube Uploaded by CraazyAcid on Sep 26, 2009


Try these effects to dirty up your fake TB303:

1. Bitcrusher. But don’t use it to down-sample the audio. Instead, just adjust the drive setting. This will give you that classic ‘abused preamp on a cheap mixing desk’ grit.
2. Ensemble. This can help a pattern come alive, and adds a nice movement to the sound.
3. Tape delay. Throwing a dash of this into your mix can give the ES1 pattern an extra bounce and sound great with those shrill filter sweeps.

Enjoy!

To learn how to produce the classic Roland TB303 sound using Ableton Live, check out this tutorial from fellow Point Blank tutor, Danny J Lewis.

Steve Hillier teaches Music Business at our London College and Logic Music Production Online. Keep up to date with all of our news, tutorials and giveaways by subscribing to our Youtube channel, or following us on Facebook and Twitter. Please leave a comment below."

Raga Bhairav - 1982 - SYNTHESIZING: TEN RAGAS TO A DISCO BEAT - Charanjit Singh

YouTube via bombayconnection. via Derek on Facebook
Update: 10 track video playlist added below.

"www.BOMBAY-CONNECTION.com

CHARANJIT SINGH - Synthesizing: TEN RAGAS TO A DISCO BEAT - india 1982

OUT MARCH 2010 on vinyl & mp3, order here:

http://www.bombay-connection.com/en_G...

Bombay, 1982: Bollywood session musician Charanjit Singh set out to translate ancient Indian classical Ragas to the modern synthesizer and invented house music along the way!

OUT ON CD: april 19th 2010"

"*Until recently it wasn’t much more than some rumours on the web: a 1982 released LP called TEN RAGAS TO A DISCO BEAT containing Kraftwerk-like acid house music, years before the genre was invented.

So it turns out, the record was no rumour. Only a few hundred copies of the LP were ever pressed, and only a handful seem to have survived. Moreover, the LP outdoes all expectations. Performed on the synths that would later define Acid House, the Roland TB-303 and TR-808, the album sounds light years ahead of its time with its repetitive beats and hypnotic electronic melodies. Its maker, Bollywood session musician Charanjit Singh, set out to translate ancient Indian classical Ragas to the modern synthesizer and in doing so seems to have invented House music along the way. The 10 tracks make a consistent listen from A to Z. Its restrained minimalism and lack of cheesiness makes it incredibly contemporary, sounding animated, fluid and unabashedly alive."

First TB-303 recording?

Update 4/26/2013:


Uploaded on Apr 3, 2010 mudkipNDS·39 videos

"UPDATE: Changed the album title to the original release, away from the title that Bombay Connection gave to it.

Track listing found here: http://www.discogs.com/Charanjit-Sing...

B2 - 33rpm - Raga Yaman
Charanjit Singh
Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat [1982]

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=28...

From the Bombay Connection website:

Charanjit Singh's 'Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat' is quite easily one of the maddest records we've ever had in stock. It was originally made in 1982 by a Bollywood soundtrack composer, intending to capitalise on the disco phenomenon with a combination of centuries-old classical Indian Ragas set to a disco backing. To achieve this Charanjit used a prototypical acid set-up of Roland TB303 bass melody sequencer and TR808 drum computer together with a Jupiter-8 keyboard. He basically created a sound which mirrored, and more importantly, pre-dated the first acid house record - Phuture's 'Acid Track' by five years, and even preceded Chip E's 'Jack Trax' in 1985. It's no throw-away novelty record either, instead capturing the hypnotic potential of acid music in the most ornate and scarily prescient fashion, making explicit the similarities of infinitely arpeggiated bass sequences and pure electronic pulses that would soundtrack dancefloors for the next 30 odd years. The more cynical among you will probably be thinking this is Ceephax or Aphex Twin delivering one of the most elaborate in-jokes of their career, but with the gatefold sleeve depicting the original sleeve and some in-depth liner notes from the label and Charanjit, our cynicism is waning in favour of absolute shock and awe. 'Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat' is vintage futurism of the highest calibre, and made all the more amazing by the fact it came from India, a place hardly renowned for its electronic output! This is a remarkable record and comes with our highest recommendation - AN ABSOLUTE FIND.

Recorded in 1982 at HMV Studios In Bombay [sic], India

© Bombay Connection, 1982"

via Waveformanalogueresearch Elektro on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge