Best free TB-303 emulation sotwares : VST plugins & standalone

Wavosaur

7 years ago

Be Acid

The Roland TB-303 ! the legendary Transistor Bass synthesizer by Roland.
Created to emulate bass sound and used by nearly nobody until someone saw the light : “hey, listen what happens when i turn these knobs!!” turn up the res to the max ! yeah ! aciiiiiiiiiid
Back to the Chicago House, Acid House, Belgian New Beat, then Acid Techno, Acid Trance and every electronic music genre.

Now let list some free TB303 software emulations :

1. Rebirth RB-338 by Propellerhead (Standalone)

Rebirth RB-303, free ! aciid

Information and download : http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/

Rebirth was one of the first TB303 software emulation, in 1997!
And it’s free since 2005.
Rebirth is more than a TB303 emulator ; you have two TB303, and TR909 + TR808 drum machine emulations + onboard effects . The software is old, and it still sounds incredible.

As it’s a standalone application, you have to use rewire for sync with your sequencer. Useful informations about sync etc.. can be found here : http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/support/support2.htm

Installing Rebirth 338 on Windows 7 may require more steps, you have to download the old winhelp32 to get Rebirth work on Windows 7. Here’s a blog post with all the link you need :
The rebirth ISO torrent, the Win7 installer and the link to the win32help :
http://sporsmaal2blog.blogspot.fr/2010/02/how-to-install-and-run-propellerhead.html

2. RubberDuck by D-Lusion (Standalone)

RubberDuck TB 303 emulation for funky people

Download for free ! => http://www.d-lusion.com/ProductsRubberduck.html

This one is even older than Rebirth 338. The sequencer has been simplified, compared to a real 303, and it’s a great gain of time when programming patterns!
There are also onboard effects : a simple but effective delay, and a distorsion unit for getting this squelchy acid sound.
The RubberDuck software is MIDI sync’able, Of course you can record as wav the output of the synth.

3. Creakbox BadBoyz edition (VST)

Creakbox Bad Boys edition

download : Creakbox Bad Boys Edition

The Creakbox VST by Bioroid development was stopped and gone open source in 2004!
The “bad boys” edition adds an effect section with delay & multi distorsion unit : analog drive, rectifier, bit reducer etc.. + different filter modes : hipass, bandpass, bandstop, 18 or24 dB / octave.
The sound is good, but unfortunately the sequencer has some bugs in many VST hosts

acid trance !

https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/creakbox.mp3?_=1