Point Blank Tutorial: How to Make an Acid Bassline with the TB-303

In this video, Point Blank’s Course Content Developer Risa T takes a closer look at the software version of the iconic TB-303 bassline synth from Roland Cloud.

Released in 1981, the TB-303 played a key role in the development of electronic music and cultural movements. It’s best known for its squelching, hypnotic sound, which was later coined as the sound of “acid”. Now, decades later, the synth is available in a software version from Roland Cloud – and we’re here to show you the ins and outs of it.

Learn more about Roland Cloud’s key features, synths and how you can freshen up your track with their genre-specific patches, patterns and sound packs here. Plus, Point Blank recently partnered with Roland to offer their students over 50% off Roland Cloud yearly subscriptions and integrated the Roland Cloud suite into all of their state-of-the-art studios. Find out more about this discount here.

During the tutorial, Risa creates an acid bassline with the 303 before adding drums using other Roland Cloud heavy-hitters – the TR-606 and TR-808. She gives an in-depth overview of the synth’s key features, including the controls, sequencer, modulation options and more and shows how you can easily export your bassline to MIDI. Risa fires up Roland Cloud’s TR-606 and punches in a 4×4 beat to accompany her bassline. Whilst creating her beat, she demonstrates some key features of the drum machine, showing how easy it is to shape and transform your sounds and convert your new drum loop to audio. To add the finishing touches to her track, she opens the TR-808 soft synth and creates a final drum sequence to export to the project before adding in some exciting parameter modulations.