Vintage Synth Explorer

MAM • MB 33 / MB 33 mkII

MB 33

The MB 33 is a rack-mounted TB-303 clone released in the mid-nineties by German synth maker MAM (Music And More). It's basically a re-packaged Freebass 383. It is a true analog monophonic bass synthesizer with MIDI implementation so you can create 303-like bass lines from your sequencer. Its single VCO offers the same two basic waveforms as the TB-303: a sawtooth and square wave. But in the MB 33 they can be mixed together for a more interesting tone than the 303 could originally produce.

Additional knobs control the VCO tuning, filter frequency cutoff, resonance, envelope mod amount, envelope decay time and accent intensity - the same controls found on the TB-303! The 24dB lowpass filter can also produce the characteristic sound of the 18 dB filter used in the original 303. There's also an auto-slide function (4 octave range) for producing those 303-style slides and a separate input for filtering external signals through it. Unfortunately there is no program storage.

MB 33 mkII

The MB 33 mkII (pictured above) released in 1998 adds a few more features. The 24dB filter has been replaced by an 18dB filter just like the original TB-303 used. A new sub-oscillator was added and can be mixed with the other two waveforms for even meatier mono-bass sounds. A new distortion effect is also present and can be dialed-in to dirty things up - sounds great when resonated at high frequency cut-offs! MIDI can send/receive controls for the cutoff, resonance, ENV mod, accent, decay, distortion, and autoslide on/off.

Whereas the original MB 33 and Freebass 383 before it sounded very much the same as the TB-303, the newer MB 33 mkII adds even more possibilities for creating your own unique 303-like sounds - and at a fraction the cost of an original 303!

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Posting Rules: Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

 

yuri

Posted 180 days ago

Had this one (mk2) for a while. It really is a one trick pony. If it had a decent adsr it would be a lot more useful. Maybe I expected too much from it..

Icoko

Posted 193 days ago

I have MB 33... the first version of this synth. Sounds nice and cuts trough the mix. It really likes to go trough guitar distortion pedal (Boss DS1 in my case) I drive this thing with D2 groovebox's arpeggiator and it can produce some serious acid. Build quality is not so good and you must switch midi channels on the back of this unit. It have somekind of autoslide function but it is not TB303.
Morphing saw and square waveform is cool and usefull.
My MB33 (mk1) only have MIDI IN.
from 1-5 i'd give it 3.

asd

Posted 231 days ago

would anyone recommend a cheap hardware sequencer for this beaste? For software, the best 303 imitating one is seq 303 (with 303-style glide turned on), no doubt, but it's software and we don't want that, do we? :)

tomy45

Posted 265 days ago

Hi there!

Unfortunately i have a problems with this MB33 piece. I cant start autotune, no midi working, just simple sound after power on... Any solutions? Tomy

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