In 1982, Tadao Kikumoto developed the TB303 for Roland Corp. This hugely influencial genre defining little box is an icon, but not deliberately so......most will know this story, but putting it briefly...it was meant to be a bass accompaniment machine for the TR606 Drumatix Drum Machine......add a Home Organist, sad lonely guitarist or a travelling electro one man band (Richard Bone) and you've got what it was designed for...........but....
It's house...innit?
There was a problem for your average punter on the streets...it was a bit too complex for them, so they gave up...which is a shame, because given a bit of time, this machine could synthesize a bass line. I even managed to get it to sound like a bass guitar. It had some pretty cool electronic bits that wereunique in creating more electronic sounds and this is where this post gets predictable for a bit.......I bought my 1st 303 in 84 hoping it would sync(hro) up to all my other bits....obviously everyone in music shops said it would, so I believed them (fool that I was)....I was obviously under some illusion
Yes, I wanted to be in an Imagination covers band.....(maybe not).....but at that time I thought that sound was TB303 (despite having a major argument with a bassist a few years later who swore it was a fretless bass, I gave him the benefit of the doubt saying it had been run through a synth processor)....it's actually an SH1000 probably cv and gated to a 303.
Apart from getting really frustrated trying to work out programming on the 303, what was the first sound I managed to create on it??? (I had an SH101 already)....ofcourse...big fat hi res freq squelch......horrible noise, forget that, lets get back down to bass......as time has gone on and the "Acid" sound has become legendary...so many have layed claim to inventing the acid sound that it's embarrassing......I invented it and ditched it.....so I'll put myself down as being an "Acid-Pioneer".
I never did work out how to get that Imagination sound (it needs more than just a 303 and a 101).....but I bought my 2nd 303 a few years later...don't know why....I just fell in love with that little box and utilised it in a few bands I was in.
It's amazing that a unique sound and subsequent genre has lasted so long....the music genre time loops (what goes round comes round) have noticeable become shorter and shorter throughout the 21st century. 87 and Chicago Acid House awakens with the legendary Acid Tracks by Phuture...
Infact...check this mix out for what it was about...simplicity....funk in space...
"Funk is what you don't play It's the space between events Funk is what you don't say It's the silence you don't fill Funk is when you stop when you let your ego drop" (Atom tm)
Not long after, the UK was raving, gurning and dropping pills around an orbital motorway up to it's knees in cow shit most weekends.... take all those elements and try and dance with them...and thats how you dance to acid house....even now.......go and stand infront of a mirror and try it.........told you so.....
It's at Number One...actually, there's a lot more going on here than just Acid House, this track is a sampling genius.......and part of a whole selection of early UK House classics like Bomb The Bass, Adamski, Baby Ford, Guru Josh, and The Shamen.....now, there was more to The Shamen than 92's piss take Ebeneezer Goode (ok, it was a good tune)...but go back to the 89 albums In Gorbachev We Trust and Phroward, they were mixing indie with dance and the 303 was on overload......in a way that hadn't been heard before.....
You can't have too many 303's.....Ramon Zenker and Oliver Bondzio aka Hardfloor have 6...an interview I once read and cannot find again mentions that one of them first heard a 303 warbling and ended up either asking the DJ or a record shop what the record with the weird birds on was...and that was that....Hardfloor were and still are leaders in the field and their remixes just epitomise that acid build up........
So am I going to touch on where the phrase Acid House came from and the drug connotations...no...you can do that for yourself here on Wikipedia
Make your own mind up, if you want to believe Genesis P Orridge who was off his pre trans tits jacking the tab...then so be it.
N.B. This is not post op porridge
Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman and a host of other aliases took 303 minimilism to a sparse unheard of degree of Intelligent Dance Music...a phrase and genre that should never existed. Hawtin DJ sets and Remixes are based on pure dance energy, but a Plastikman album is immersive, using space as funk.....efx, 909/808 and 303. From 93 onwards Hawtin has changed very little. If anything, an awareness of visual aesthetics for live use, even more space and reverb.........
Without a doubt, the Acid sound has probably moved in and out of fashion a few times since 88, but compared to other well known synth sounds utilised in dance music, it seems to have been pretty constant. You can pinpoint certain years in dance music by the sounds.....the Belgian Hoover sound from Human Resources Dominator in 91......who was the last person to use an orchestral hit on a record?...Pet Shop Boys 87...It'a a Sin. (feel free to educate me)...this will probably form the basis of a Blog Post on Orchestral Hits (really??)
Up to present and Plastikman has set a template for Acid Dub. Andreas Tillijander aka TM404 (and a few more aliases) took all his Roland XOX series synths and drummachines, plugged them all in via Synchro and stuffed them through a Space Echo...coming out with something that should have Moritz Von Ozwald's Basic Channel reverbs stamped all over it.
Lorenz Brunner aka Recondite has 4 albums of 303 goodness which fall into the ambient, deep and acid techno description, infact there's a beautiful organic soundscape to Recondite. Further reading uncovers that Brunner maynot even use a 303...but that doesn't matter....the idea is there and it gets more and more difficult to get hold of original 303's because people like TM404 are collecting them.
Even originators like Hawtin don't have snobbery regarding the new instrumentation and technology (he's even invented throbbing underwear for clubbers)...come on, taking your old school Roland kit out on the road is asking for trouble and there's nothing wrong with the TB-3 or any of the other clones....I've got 2 303's and I need to use them and there's nothing wrong with my underwear........
