Some sort of soft synth?

Phosycon by D-16 group
http://www.d16.pl/

soft synth $95 or so

A roland Mc-202 sounds pretty similar and is a lot cheaper..

Failing that.. if you want something with midi:
FAT freebass/ Mam MB33 mk1
I have both...identical circuitry apart from the casing..
closest thing to a real TB in terms of sound that I have found...although nothing sounds like the real thing.

Tons of alternative 303 clones exist

1. Propelerheads rebirth - free 303/808/909/707 plug in

http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/

If you wanna go hardware route, check out:

2. Future Retro 777 (getting quite pricey lately, almost as much as 303 used to fetch only a year ago)

3. Future Retro Revolution (cheap(er)) - about $650

but... here's a secret weapon of those in the know but not with a lot of money...

Roland MC09 - about $150 and as close to 303 as you can get without actually being arrested for theft/trespassing. Has even more agressive bite when needed and even most discerning ears have difficulty distinguishing it in the mix. Don't pay over $200 for it...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Roland-MC-09-Ph...1QQcmdZViewItem

audio realism bassline vsti

___________________
Official Site - www.sterilis.co.uk

I just picked up a Korg MS2000R (picked it up for 200 USD) and made a pretty convincing 303-like sound. It had the same attitude to it at least. Unfortunatly I didn't save the preset, since I didn't know how at the time! But, It has a 16 step mod sequencer with 3 different sequences at once, one of which can be assigned to pitch.

There are plenty of good acid bassline generators around. Audiorealism bassline I tried a few years back, it sounded great back then and probably still does today. The Thor synth in Reason 4 does some great acid lines. My Supernova II is also very usable in this regard. Then again, so is my TB303.

It really depends. Do you want the EXACT sound or do you want a fantastic sounding acid line? If you want the EXACT sound, get a TB303. Otherwise, try out some other options and see what fits best for your music. My 303 isn't very versatile at all, though it does sound like a 303. For the same money you can get a synth which does heaps heaps more.

If you already have plenty of other sounds/ synths, then yeah, maybe pick one up if the sound of the other similar synths doesn't grab you.

a friend of mine has an original 303, but using it sometimes is tricky.
I prefer having VST instruments, it's more comfortbale.

But there is nothing which sounds like a real 303

Yes, that's another aspect, they don't have MIDI (unless they've had some modifications done to them? Mine has had some mods done, it has a few input jacks, one of them is a CV in, and I've heard of MIDI to CV converters - does anyone know exactly what this mod is for? Is it for note information or for controlling other parameters? If it's for note information, that would be handy....)

But otherwise, it has it's own little internal sequencer. And a little dial to set the tempo (good luck setting it exactly to a round bpm number! I either adjust the tempo to whatever the 303 is at, or just time-stretch the 303 audio track to the nearest bpm)

They're nice and lightweight though, you can get away from your studio, plug some headphones into it and play around with acidy goodness.

quote:

Originally posted by derail Yes, that's another aspect, they don't have MIDI (unless they've had some modifications done to them? Mine has had some mods done, it has a few input jacks, one of them is a CV in, and I've heard of MIDI to CV converters - does anyone know exactly what this mod is for? Is it for note information or for controlling other parameters? If it's for note information, that would be handy....) But otherwise, it has it's own little internal sequencer. And a little dial to set the tempo (good luck setting it exactly to a round bpm number! I either adjust the tempo to whatever the 303 is at, or just time-stretch the 303 audio track to the nearest bpm) They're nice and lightweight though, you can get away from your studio, plug some headphones into it and play around with acidy goodness.

in the days pre midithey had CV/Gate,which was a way of sequencing and triggering notes from sequencers or other synths, or daisy chaining them.
CV controls the pitch, gate controls the length.

A midi-cv convertor does excatly that... its a box that converts midi into cv so you can trigger it from modern sequencers. Useful on the 303....

The x0xb0x is the best clone out there at the moment:
http://www.ladyada.net/make/x0xb0x/

The Future Retro 777 is a great synth in general and capable of sounding very close to the 303. That said, it's out of production, and with such limited numbers out there, it will be comparable in price to a 303.