Where did I say they sounded anywhere near as good? Obviously they don't sound like the classics. I even said that the amount of people who would pay for the analog (real thing) version wouldn't be enough to justify the cost compared to how much they'd make from cheap reproductions that have more features. It's plain business sense, shitty as it is.WaveRider wrote:glitchrock-buddha wrote:so they make an MC-303 to combine them. That turns into the MC-505, the MC-307 and on and on, different versions adding features.
yeah but those never sounded at all like the classics. no comparaison at all except marketing, I mean you never used a real tr-808 did you???? nothing with samples equals the real thing, surely not those awfully cheap sounding digital boxes Roland made....
Why don't they remake cult instruments?
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glitchrock-buddha
- Posts: 4357
- Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2005 1:29 am
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Professional Shark Jumper.
... one little personal comment about recreating the 3o3 aiming back at the very first post in this thread:
if roland would decide to build a clone it would be as good or as bad as all the other analog "mass" produced clones that were out there (teebee, syntechno, maybe the basstations etc etc)
aka it would not sound like the original.
the reason is simply that the "unique" sound characteristics of the 3o3 depend very much on all the old parts, esp. the transistors (e.g. 2sc1583, 2SK30A(Y) etc) they made in the 80s.
if you build the same pcb with replacement transistors manufactured today, that basically do the same but have better quality and narrower specs. it will just sound different!
it is pretty remarkable how much response curve voodoo is going on in that little box and what kind of "malfunctions" shape the sound of it.
if i remember right even the power supply was doing its tribute as the voltage sacked if it played an accent and a slide under some cirumstances. half a decade ago i took part in a project recreating this little toy as someone was able to get quite a bunch of all the old original parts from japan, decided to recode the sequencer on a microcontroller (the original sequencer was a 1chip NEC solution and impossible to get these days) and redesigned the analog part 1:1.
it was really fun and a great experience to solder that damn thing, part by part by hand and turning it on for the first time.
maybe i find some time and post some photos and sounds of my silverbox, the project was the acidcode project by famous matze and the box was called ml-303.
here is the page of ultrafex who contributed a lot of firmware work.
on his page you will find two mp3s that show how much impact just a little 5 legged transistor (http://www.datasheetcatalog.net/de/data ... 1583.shtml) has in the sound if you replace it with another one - that basically does the same:
http://ultra303.ultrafex.de/diary.phtml
hope this stuff wasn't too nerdy, this is normally robert's territory ;-) but it really teached my a lot about character in electronic instruments and what is the difference to all the digital stuff. and why roland just could not recreate an "authentic" 3o3: it is just not possible for a reasonable price to recreate all the 80s parts wit the bad spec, and it would be easier to put a digital emulation on a dsp nowadays in order to achieve an authentic sound.
/dom
if roland would decide to build a clone it would be as good or as bad as all the other analog "mass" produced clones that were out there (teebee, syntechno, maybe the basstations etc etc)
aka it would not sound like the original.
the reason is simply that the "unique" sound characteristics of the 3o3 depend very much on all the old parts, esp. the transistors (e.g. 2sc1583, 2SK30A(Y) etc) they made in the 80s.
if you build the same pcb with replacement transistors manufactured today, that basically do the same but have better quality and narrower specs. it will just sound different!
it is pretty remarkable how much response curve voodoo is going on in that little box and what kind of "malfunctions" shape the sound of it.
if i remember right even the power supply was doing its tribute as the voltage sacked if it played an accent and a slide under some cirumstances. half a decade ago i took part in a project recreating this little toy as someone was able to get quite a bunch of all the old original parts from japan, decided to recode the sequencer on a microcontroller (the original sequencer was a 1chip NEC solution and impossible to get these days) and redesigned the analog part 1:1.
it was really fun and a great experience to solder that damn thing, part by part by hand and turning it on for the first time.
maybe i find some time and post some photos and sounds of my silverbox, the project was the acidcode project by famous matze and the box was called ml-303.
here is the page of ultrafex who contributed a lot of firmware work.
on his page you will find two mp3s that show how much impact just a little 5 legged transistor (http://www.datasheetcatalog.net/de/data ... 1583.shtml) has in the sound if you replace it with another one - that basically does the same:
http://ultra303.ultrafex.de/diary.phtml
hope this stuff wasn't too nerdy, this is normally robert's territory ;-) but it really teached my a lot about character in electronic instruments and what is the difference to all the digital stuff. and why roland just could not recreate an "authentic" 3o3: it is just not possible for a reasonable price to recreate all the 80s parts wit the bad spec, and it would be easier to put a digital emulation on a dsp nowadays in order to achieve an authentic sound.
/dom
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