TB303 emulation on ST/STE?

[amiman99]

Hi,

 

Do any of you have ever came across TB303 emulation software for Atari ST using the Atari's Yamaha sound chip? My ST is itching to do something in that area.

There is some cool software on C64, like MSSIAH, or 303 Tracker for Amiga.

[callaghan]

no no tb303 , gwem has something similar but not like the commodore or amiga version

 

i program and would be interested in such a project .. any others willing to collaborate .. make midi controlable?

 

charles

[crash]

How about this freeware program from Electric Cow called EC-909?

 

http://ds.dial.pipex.com/electronic_cow/ec909.htm

 

Includes:

16 Roland TR909 drum sounds

TB-303 style bassline generator

Resonance/low-pass filter/attach/decay controls for bass

Edited June 21, 2010 by crash

[amiman99]

How about this freeware program from Electric Cow called EC-909?

 

http://ds.dial.pipex.com/electronic_cow/ec909.htm

 

Includes:

16 Roland TR909 drum sounds

TB-303 style bassline generator

Resonance/low-pass filter/attach/decay controls for bass

 

Cool, let me play with that...

Thanx

[callaghan]

ya good luck with the 909 program , thats the worst bug ridden program for the atari

 

have fun.. ha!

 

CHARLES

[amiman99]

ya good luck with the 909 program , thats the worst bug ridden program for the atari

 

have fun.. ha!

 

CHARLES

 

So far the sw will not fit all files in 720kb disk, in total is around 800kb. I need to play with RAM disk program.... another stumbling block

[crash]

It may be too big for an ST without a hard disk, and needs at least 2mb to run. If you are using a ramdisk, then you probably need 4mb.

 

I haven't tried EC909 myself since I have a room full of keyboards, so I can't speak for the quality of the program - it just came to mind as one of the few TB303 type programs that will run on an ST.

 

I think the tricky part of a program like this, is resonant filter emulation, since filters are what define most of the vintage analog instruments unique sound. To my knowledge, there are few chip synth or tracker programs that have filter capability, as the ST's sound chip has no filters, so the CPU (or DSP) has to do the work. The programs that come to mind are EPSS, ACE Tracker, and ACE MIDI.

 

Can anyone else suggest ST sound programs that can make analog synth sounds? It would have been nice if the ST was designed with a set of Curtis filter chips in there

 

Regards

[crash]

I fiddled with the EC909 program a bit, and here is what I learned.

 

First of all, it doesn't really work as a real time instrument. You can hear each note as you enter it, but if you put the notes together on each step of a pattern, nothing happens when you click the play button. This drove me crazy until I realized that you have to click the BUILD button first. Once the sample is built, then you can play the pattern (or song).

 

Each time you make a change to a pattern or song, you have to build it again before you can hear the outcome. When you load a song, it is advisable to build each pattern before you get started with song playback as it usually won't sound quite right.

 

I expect what this program is doing is putting sampled sounds together in the timeline, and mixing them when necessary into a single sample for each pattern. It can then string these samples together into a whole song. It definitely does not sound like a chip synth.

 

I don't know if it is rendering filter and resonance emulation or using pre-made samples, but suspect the latter. The bassline sounds are limited to one octave, I could not determine any way to transpose, and there are only a small number of settings for each resonance, cutoff, attack, and decay knob. The bass and drum sounds are a bit noisy and aliasy, but that's pretty standard for ST digital sound programs I've used.

 

I made 10x16-note patterns and put them together into a song with several repeats for many of the patterns. You can cut and paste bassline or drums from one pattern to another, so it's pretty useable. You can then build a song, and play that back too if you switch to song mode. Song playback does not always start at the first pattern, but if you let it play, it will start over again. I haven't determined if this is user error or a bug as the online manual is fairly brief. I'm attaching a test.909 file in case you want to see what I'm talking about, since there was no included demo song. It is zipped at test.zip since this forum won't accept .909 files The test song is crap, but should demonstrate what I described.

 

After loading, select each pattern 1-10 one at a time and click the pattern build button for each, then switch to song mode and press the song build button. Finally, press play.

 

The play and stop button do not always respond to mouse clicks immediately, presumably when the computer is too busy, so use the keyboard commands instead (such as return and space). The currently playing pattern has to finish playing so don't be too alarmed if the sound doesn't stop immediately. If the stop button lights up, that means it is stopping. Keyboard commands help with a lot of the functions of this program.

 

When exporting samples, you can save each pattern only - from what I can tell, and not the entire song. To build a song to listen to outside of EC909, you would have to arrange patterns in another program such as Cubase Audio. Exported samples may have signing issues when imported into Mac or PC programs, resulting in some sounds being much louder than others. My Falcon is out of order, so I was not able to load sounds there to see if they work properly when they stay on the Atari platform. It is possible that the sounds can be converted more accurately if I was paying attention or using the right program.

 

Overall, you can probably have some fun with this program and create some patterns, songs, or samples to use elsewhere, that sound pretty decent. Just as an experiment I imported some samples into Logic Pro, normalized them (to fix the signing problem), applied a denoiser, and some reverb, started tweaking the EQ, and then it started to sound pretty good. If I were to make patterns again for use with a different program to arrange into a song, I would probably export the bassline and drum patterns separately (which you can do) so they can be mixed independently. When I loaded these into Logic, I found the drums were too loud, but then it was too late to turn them down.

 

As a self contained beat box, bass line generator, I'm not sure that there are too many other programs to compare this too. There seem to be a handful of beat box programs, but few if any that do basslines, so a new improved TB303 emulator would make a useful project if anyone can pull it off.

 

Cheers

TEST.zip

[callaghan]

i gave it a good try a few years ago and then breifly a day or two ago,

,since the mouse didn't respond i thought it was bug filled,, sorry...

i 've written to the electronic cow people and asked questions a while ago , they were still there at the address listed , its a good peice of software which needs further developed and more refined,,,, have fun , and crash you are greatily experienced with this program , thanks for instructions...

 

i have little use for this program cause all i use is midi sequencers

 

u like midi or mod better?

 

charles

[crash]

Greetings,

 

The program is quirky, but it never crashed while I was testing it so I think it is generally useable for what it is. Some more capabilities and refinement would be welcome, but it seems the days of big software development for Atari are behind us for the moment, along with hopes of such upgrades. It is nice that some of these software developers released their products as freeware, and sad for all of those that just disappeared.

 

I am a MIDI user myself - I started out with Music Studio, then Notator SL, and then Logic. I have 24 instruments currently in the studio with a few more in the closet or in need of repair. I would like to integrate a software synth/sampler into the setup if I can ever get my Falcon working again. I have ACE MIDI which is an excellent sounding soft synth for anyone with a spare Falcon that can be transformed into a great instrument. It does not have a sequencer, a separate computer is needed for that.

 

Cheers

[callaghan]

hey crash you don't have a midi song you've composed

which u feel like trading or swapping with do you?

 

 

charles