THE OLD SILVER BOX
Most people who are interested in Electronica of any kind know what a Roland TB303
is. It.s the funny little silver box that Roland released in the 80s to provide
bass accompaniment to buskers and cabaret performers. Famously it wasn.t very good
at that, and the unit languished in obscurity, until the Acid house scene of the late
80s started to use 303s to create burbling, bending basslines and leadlines.

It is said that the unique properties of the 303 sound are attributable to a few
different factors - its unusual 18db Lowpass ?lter ( which was apparently meant
to be 24db, but the componentry used was too cheap to achieve that slope), its
implementation of portamento and sliding notes, its accent system and lastly,
its quirky sequencer.

THE DEVILFISH MODIFICATION
About 15 years ago, a guy in Australia called Robin Whittle from Real World
Interfaces started to modify the 303. He discovered that a good number of
enhancements and additions could be made to Rolands circuitry. A full and
exhaustive list can be found on his website

From a users perspective, the most noticeable and exciting thing is the addition
of 7 new knobs to the front panel. Separate controls for the accent decay, the
slide time, ?lter overdrive, ?lter FM and ?lter tracking immediately open up the
303 into a more controllable machine and add new dimensions to its sound. 2 red
Trigger buttons and a variety of toggle switches enable extra control of the
accent and the patterns, triggering extra hits or sending the sequencer into
loops within loops. The modi?cations made by Whittle are not minor, they are
almost like adding another 50% of synth to the TB-303. If you do happen to own a
303, we would thoroughly recommend sending it to Australia to have the work done,
it.ll breathe new life into an already classic instrument.

The Samples
Recreating the sound of a 303 with samples is not easy, never mind a Devil?sh. We
sampled the basic sawtooth and Square wave, completely straight, then with a small
amount of overdrive, then with a touch of FM and overdrive. Then we sampled many
different variations of the accent, as this is where the Devil?sh has it.s biggest
effect. In the Soniccouture Devilfish you can choose from 9 different accents for
both square and sawtooth waves. There are zaps, crunches, short accents long
accents, and some really aggressive stuff. The Kontakt instrument allows you to
program accents above a certain velocity point, as with the original unit.

www.soniccouture.com/en/products/p42-devilfish/

Download File Size:1.19 GB

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