Vintage Synth Explorer

Try pressing the "Retune" button with an external noise source going through the external input. 9/10 times it won't do anything, but sometimes it gives really weird and quite insane tuning options!

There are some absolutely awesome "circuit bending" mods for this - I have one sat in my rack at home. Sure, it sounds great as it is and does a passable 303 impression, but circuit mods add VCF I/O switch (really handy as you don't have to reach round the back all the time to unplug the 1/4" jack socket), VCO overdrive, resonance boost, FM circuit, CV in, Fiter Lock (stops the ADSR shape of the filter being applied to an external input), front panel power switch and BLUE front panel LED's (WOOHOO!!!)

Without a doubt the absolute best £115 you will ever spend and makes the original TB303 sound absolute pants by comparison. I totally recommend this to anyony who has a Freebass. Honestly, go do it and no, I don't get commision, just a very happy musician.

Link is at:

http://www.circuitbenders.co.uk/synthmod/FREEBASS.html

Enj oy :oD

I bought one of these from ebay for £90, and I will never let this badboy go. Granted it's not quite as cool as owning the real deal, however the sound is pretty damn close. I used to swear by Audiorealism's ABL2 soft synth version, but after finding the 383, there is no comparison. Love it!

I just got one of these off ebay for under 100, and I have to say after owning a many a synth this is a great little bass machine. I have never owned a real 303, but this thing kicks but. I run it through my Marshall Stack and it sounds wicked.

They sound decent enough. In contrast to a real 303, the cutoff doesn't have near the range of a real one, and the resonance is limited, so it doesn't get quite the same squelch that a 303 does. Not a great replacement fora 303, but they do well enough on their own. One thing that you have to be leery about though is that the build quality on these things is horrible. I'm on my second one right now and it's also going down the tubes. The VCO died on my first one. On the one I've got now, it loses MIDI note information constantly, the VCO occasionally stops responding, and it won't tune up to C and so it has to be played a semitone higher in order to stay in the right scale as other synths (the autotune button has no effect.) However, I've since relegated it being a component of my modular, and the filter has served me well in this regard, so it can still be useful.