the roland tb-303 is a monophonic bassline synthesizer. this little plastic box impersonates the acid house movement, which reached it's peak in the late eighties.

the tb-303 is a one oscillator synth (sawtooth or squarewave) with one 18db resonant lowpass filter, one decay envelope and the final vca. this makes a pretty weak synthesizer, which lacks tonal flexibility. later exactly these limitations proved to be a great strength of this synthesizer.

also responsible for the acid sound is the integrated sequencer with it's totally strange user interface. for each sequence you enter the pitches first. then you have to enter the note lengths separately. after that the accents and slides can be programmed. this often brings forth totally surprising results. adding to this 'experimental approach' by tweaking some knobs (especially accent, decay and envelope depth) leads to strong alterations in the character of a pattern, resulting in a completely different sounding sequence - that may be the main virtue of this machine. that may also be the reason why the generation of 'random' patterns with a 303 can be used effectively to create new sequences - 'tweak to fit'. the sequencer provides cv and gate outputs for control of other analogue devices. a roland din sync jack is on-board for synchronization.

the sum of all these idiosyncrasies lead to a splendid sounding and in all ways unique instrument. it's the truth, nothing else sounds like a 303.