303 Zoia

My attempt was to recreate the Roland TB 303 Bass Line Synthesizer and its famous random mode.
Basically it is a simple monophonic synth with 2 oscillators (saw and squarwave). As an addition to the TB 303 both oscillators can be blended and one of them can be detuned (up to 7 half note steps)
The one thing that is important and unique about the TB 303 is how it acts when the resonance is really high. You can hear the filter oscillate but the bass will not get too muddy. I tried to recreate this by attching a tone control module to the same value that changes the resonance. Whem you turn up the resonance, the soft low cut will increase and the volume will not explode.
The patch goes like this:
First page contains macro controllers (value modules) for decay of the attack/decay module, envelope amount on the filter, resonance and accent amount. There are also controllers for glide, blending the two oscillators and a “destroy” option, which is a copy of Christopher H. M. Jacques “drift” implemention (can be found in his Juniper patch)
The second row is followed by value modules which controll the detuning and the random section: key and mode can be dialed in.
third row: distortion, acid, you know.
fourth row: delay
last row: indicatior pixels for delay and play/stop.
The second page contains the synt itself: oscillators, VCF, VCA, some multipliers and AD module.
Third page: Ins and Outs. since i have trouble syncing the Zoia to other gear by clock i decided to use a steady stream of CCs much like a square wave LFO sending 16th notes. This is “tempo CC sync”(CC#1 chan: 10) you could replace this module with a LFO module and could use it as a standalone synth. “Reset CC” (CC#2 chan: 10) sends a reset every bar to make sure the sequencer sits correctly “CUT OFF” (CC#10 chan 10) controlls the overall cut off frequency of the filter. The stompswitch fades in/out the delay mix.

EDIT:
after uploading i had issues with cpu clipping. The delay had to be mono :( i also optimized the glide function.

2 comments on “303 Zoia
  • Jeffrey J Byron on said:

    How does the glide work? Is it a separate sequencer where you trigger specific notes to glide? a 303 patch was one of the first I made when I got my zoia, but pitch glide seemed too complicated.

    I’m out of town so I can’t download it yet. Also I’m a 2 week zoia noob so I might not understand it yet. Thanks for sharing this!

  • Jeffrey J Byron on said:

    I think I may have figured out to use another track from the seq for slew. This what you’ve done?

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    • Platform:
    • Category: Effect Synthesizer
    • Revision: 1.1
    • License: Do What The F*ck You Want To Public License
    • Modified: 4 years ago
    • Views: 428
      Likes: 5
      Downloads: 1082
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