Ableton Forum

can some one give me some advice on how to make operator work like a 303?
thanx, zack

What aspect of the 303? Just the sound?

The 303 is a mono synth with 1 saw or square osc, a 12db filter, use portamento for bending, etc...

i don't know a lot about 303's but isn't the 303 not a Frequency Modulation synth and the Operator is a Frequency Modulation synth? What are the differences in the sound, especially the timbre/tone, they individually produce?

Simpler is a better choice for trying to emulate Roland303, IMO.

The biggest issue is going to be the accent and slide function, which is more a function of the sequencer than the synth. But yeah, trying to make a realistic 303 patch with Operator will be tough for sure. Better off just getting one of the cheaper 303 vst's IMO.

BassTooth wrote:i don't know a lot about 303's but isn't the 303 not a Frequency Modulation synth and the Operator is a Frequency Modulation synth? What are the differences in the sound, especially the timbre/tone, they individually produce?

Simpler is a better choice for trying to emulate Roland303, IMO.

really, this all surprises me. i've been trying to emulate a 303 with operator for a day or two now and have been having touble, but still i would have thought it would have been possible through manipulating the lfo. so, any suggestions on how simpler could help me do this, or any recomeneded 303 vsts? i had looked into gettting an xoxbox a little while ago, but putting the thing together looked like it would be way to much of a pain.

theres a nice little free one on the cover cd if computer music evey month...

You'll be better off using a dedicated 303 emulator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_TB-303
or at least a basic Synth that has a sawtooth wave and a square wave.

Does Operator even have these waveforms? I dont use it, but most FM synths only have sine waves.

By using one sine wave to modulate another sine wave (by FM synthesis), you add overtones AND undertones to the carrier sine wave.

A square wave and a sawtooth wave are really just a sine wave with specific overtones.

No undertones (those would be to the left of the tallest, or fundamental, frequency)

Which means making a square wave or sawtooth wave would be very difficult to do with FM synthesis.

For starters, mess with LP filters and Q, mess with legato, mess with step sequencing, stick to square or sawtooth waves.

If you are looking at a hardware version check out Acidlabs Bassline. Looks like they will have a new out soon... here is an article on that.

Also Future Retro's stuff is great.

For a software emulation check out the AudioRealism stuff.

A 303 has a unique 18dB/Octave filter, which gives it such an original sound.

YES, operator has 30 waveforms per osc, including saw and square and tri and NOISE.

For the 303 emu, e-mail me. No pm

Will check if I can just pack it for you.

L.

Airwave wrote:YES, operator has 30 waveforms per osc, including saw and square and tri and NOISE.

For the 303 emu, e-mail me. No pm

Will check if I can just pack it for you.

L.

What do you mean by that? "Will check if I can just pack it for you."

if I have the time, I mean. I'm producing, running my business, and playing live every single weekend this summer. all of this on my own...

I can't promise it's exactly what the guy needs though.

I'm a big fan of phoscyons when it comes to emulation, and I can get good results with subtractor and the matrix seq in reason at times.

L.

mm you can't make operator work like a 303; they are completely different machines (pattern programming, accent, slide, etc.). and i doubt you can make it sound like one, because of the 303 filter and oscillators characteristics.

with all that, you can try filtering (lots of resonance, but not too much or you will damage your brain) a single square or saw waveform, setting the number of voices to 1 and adding portamento (to make it a mono synth).

there are vst clones too, like the audiorealism bassline (google).

I made a passable 303 style sequence in 5 minutes with operator and saturator. You can have the file if it interests you but it is just a starting point.

Operator doesn't quite have the right LP filter for this but in my mind the 12db one was the most suitable, keeping more low frequency content.

There are two important things to remember doing "acid" style basslines:

- The decay slope of the filter is a large part of the sound so you need to adjust this to get the particular sound you want.
- You need to do a lot of hand edited glides and resonant sweeps to make a bassline that's not totally tedious. Each note usually has a sweet spot that you need to find to get the proper edgy resonance. To wit, one of my own works in progress (this is a novation basstation plugin): http://sinnatagg.synth.no/mp3/inprogres ... ndered.mp3

Happy tweaking

-a

www.rebirthmuseum.com

There you have the perfect 303 emulation. You can use it via rewire. Its a lot of fun! The rebirth was a commercial product, but its now freely downloadable. I´m surprised nobody has posted this yet. Rebirth is THE 303 emulator. To make it work check out the "rewire" section in the manual, and set monitor to "in". Have fun!