TB-303 Give-Aways from Propellerheads and d-lusion
slashflood writes "Good news for those of you who are into music synthesizers: Propellerheads has opened its Rebirth Museum and gives away the 'revolutionary' software simulation of the classic Roland TB-303. Interestingly, that happened just a day after the small German company d-lusion released another 'legendary' TB-303 simulator called Rubberduck as a free give-away."
Even more importantly, they're giving away rebirth mods that were previously only availible to registered users. Go get the SIDstation mod and start making some chiptunes!
--- Do you believe in the day?
I have used rebirth for a while and it is really easy to use, this is in comparison to cubase and reason which are much more complicated but much more featured.
I would recomend trying rebirth if you like messin around in techno
The refill is mostly to appease registered Mac users who were expecting Rebirth to be ported to OSX.
Rebirth itself has been released for free. Just register at the museum site and then go to downloads. There's a torrent, ffs, use that.
--- Do you believe in the day?
propellerhead software originaly released the rebirth ISO as a download from thier site last week. the responce was much bigger then they anticipated and by saturday they pulled the software from the server, and replaced it with torrents..
i on.zip.torrent
0 .img.zip.torrent
PC iso torrent:
http://81.92.66.41/torrents/rebirth_iso_installat
mac iso torrent:
http://81.92.66.41/torrents/ReBirth%20RB-338%202.
gentelmen: start your squelchings
WOOHOO! Something useful in my music on /. at last! Never thought I'd see it!
Thanks slashflood! I really like PropellerHeads software (Reason) but I still like Fruity Loopz too :D
Dug
the perant poster is wrong on OH so many levels...
the meaning of the announcemnt is that propellerheads have discontinued rebirth developemnt sales and support, and now are giving it for free.
the refill for reason is another differant thing entirly.. and it's not really free at all.. it's free if you paid 400$ for reason and registered..
Gotta love the D-lusion website Rubberduck product blurb "It is like fucking a hot hollywood bitch for the price of a corner crack slut"
And no, I couldn't give a shit what my karma is.
I had an MC-202 - similar in sound output, but not "cool" like the 303. Wish I still had it... :(
Get your own free personal location tracker
Propellerhead made it free without having the sense to remove the copy protection. That's why you have to download a huge 500MB ISO instead of a 16MB application. The music gear website MusicThing has all the info on this.
I'm not able to connect to any peers after downloading the torrent. Anyone else getting the same thing? has it been /.'d already?
If (like me) you own ReBirth, Propellerheads are offering massive discounts on upgrading/crossgrading any version (even the 8 year-old v1.0 that I had) to the latest Reason v3.0 - they even threw in a free ReBirth R.I.P. t-shirt because I was in the first 450!
If you only want Reason, it's probably cheaper to search out an end-of-line ReBirth in your local music shop and then upgrade.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
They are called Propellerhead (without the trailing 's') and there is also a small note over at O'Reilly. d-lusion is considering to release the source code and maybe a Linux version. There is a discontinued open source project, called Reborn.
I bought ReBirth-338 a few years ago (1998 or 1999, I think) and was very impressed by it. It not only has a TB-303 emulator, it has two of them! Along with a TR-808 (w00t!) and a TR-909 (woo-hoo!!!) beat-boxes emulators, all in there.
It also has a simple, yet effective, sequencer for all the synthesizers, a few effects (distortion, delay, compression), and a nice Pattern Controlled Filter. In short, everything you need for swooping, hypnotic, techno tracks, or classic Freestyle Electro!
The first time I used it I was overwhelmed by the memories of DJ'ing back in the 80s.
Propellerheads, thanx for the memory trip, and the very cool software!!
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Please... no software simulation touches the real Roland TB-303. Anyone who believes otherwise is fooling themselves.
somewhere? I can't recall exactly when, maybe 3-4 years ago, but I seem to recall another open source 808 emulator being shut down by propellerheads and then pulled from sourceforge for being "too close" in UI design to rebirth.
Not that it isn't a good thing propellerheads is doing by giving it away for free, but shutting down open source projects (this was even mentioned on slash) is a bad thing for everyone in the long run. How about releasing your source propellerheads? Re-birth is about as old as Quake3, if Id can do it, so can you.
Anyways, end rant.
Yah boo sucks to Propellerheads; when someone tried to make a Linux version of rebirth, out came the lawyers.
http://www.deadvirgins.org.uk/reborn/index.html
Shame, shame ScuttleMonkey, we know your name...
"Interestingly, that happened just a day after the small German company d-lusion released another 'legendary' TB-303 simulator called Rubberduck as a free give-away."
So, great minds do think alike.
Dashboard Widgets
Give me my C64 and "The Drum"!
Last time i checked out rubberduck is came bundled with adware / spyware...
Does it still come with this?
Gekido's Lair
Wait until you see what a program hard wired to 800 x 600 looks like on your 23 inch dell lcd...
Still the program was quite revolutionary back in the day...
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Bah.. Who cares about Windows and obsolete software... Come back when FC4 version of PlanetCCRMA is announced.
I'm getting zero connected seeds on the Windows version, anyone else having problems with it? I registered and all, but I don't think that matters here.
OK, within minutes of posting this, a seed has connected. Thanks, whoever you are.
And a one trick pony at that. What is truly disgusting though, is to look at the new Roland stuff with preset after preset of 303 emulations.
;-)
Isn't there a word for emulating yourself?
That one seed is probably Propellerhead themselves. I am seeing over 80 seeds and nearly 700 peers but no connection to _any_ of them except for Propellerhead's seed. Something is messed up.
PS: I am connectable and all. Downloading other torrents works just fine.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
TB-303. Picked it up many moons ago from a rocker dude in California (I'm in Canada) for $100.00. I rarely use it anymore, but it's such a neat little box and for the price I paid for it... it would be difficult to part with.
Yes, Reborn. Wonder if this will affect the status of this project that Propellerheads shut down.
If you want to build your own hardware TB-303 clone (and plus some), check out Ladyada's open-source x0b0x kit. (cached). The documentation is excellent, even for a beginner builder. And, they've gone and painstakingly measured all the transistors from an original TB-303 to accurately recreate the sound. It's a steal at $300.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Maybe you didn't notice the links to the Mac versions all over the site? ;)
"is it too much to ask that closed source, Windows-only software be labelled as such in the story?"
Thats a good point.
(and the mac version is MacOS9)
"but is slashdot going to put every piece of Windows-only closed source freeware on the front page?"
rebirth in the electronic music scene is somewhat akeen to Doom in the gaming scene - this perticular software had an enormous effect both from a user interface and technological aspect on the shape of the computer virtual instrument sceene that developped.
"In theory, this kind of software could enable a hundred Vince Clarkes - in practice I don't see any. Any suggestions?"
develop ReClark. that might work.
When the technology was rare and expensive, it was used to create awesome catchy, melodic, intelligent pop (80's). Now that it's cheap and ubiquitous, it's used to make depressingly boring, repetitive, deeply lazy music.
Go to hell you elitist twat.
Should we ban paintbrushes because someone other than Picasso or Michelangelo might pick one up and paint something that offends your exquisitely developed taste. How about pens? Should we get rid of those too, just in case someone draws something you don't like? While we're getting rid of the instruments, you probably should go to guitar center and burn the cheap guitars and keyboards....why, any idiot with fingers might be tempted to pick one up and learn to hammer out something that isn't...80's pop???
Hey, about we lock up the computers too so brainless numbskulls can't engage in self-congratulatory forum masturbation.
Hand over the keyboard, douche.
Thanks.
There was reborn http://www.deadvirgins.org.uk/reborn/index.html which was already pretty good in 2001 and an awesome linux audio app but propellorheads killed it because the ui was too similar to rebirth.
Given that they were copying the TB-303 808 and 909 interfaces I dont see how they could own the concept of putting them on a computer screen but there you go, like they say in TFA:
"The spirit of sharing was a vital part of the ReBirth Community. People who shared ideas, who offered their expertise, and who contributed music, inspired others to do the same in an ongoing cycle of creativity."
NOT!
The reason Propellerheads are giving away rebirth for free is that it has been superseeded by better simulations on the TB303. I never found rebirth that good at simulating the 303. The distortion was crap. Bassline gives a much better sound than rebirth. I respect Propellerheads as much as everyone else, but, I've never been such a big fan of rebirth. As soon as I found Bassline, I never looked back...
There was a version of Rebirth for Linux called Reborn that looked identical and sounded a little better.
The developers had to stop distributing it after the Propellerheads sued them.
It was free for download, but the source was never released.
I wonder if the Propellerheads would let them distribute it now?
And I just warezed a copy of this..
Check out this post from musicthing.
"The app installer itself is only 16 MB, ReBirth uses a copy protection scheme which involves a 128 MB data file on the CD. It's actually a nonsense file that contains just random data, but ReBirth won't boot without it. The rest of the CD isn't really necessary, but includes a Mac partition (which has roughly the same files including another instance of the 128 MB data file), and lastly there are 3 audio tracks that showcase ReBirth if you put it in a CD player."
That's actually a really good idea.
:D
Its just a shame they have a Music section http://slashdot.org/search.pl?topic=141 - its just filled with DRM, RIAA and various iPod crap. I guess its 'music'....
I'd like to see more stuff like the Coward said above! Yeah, and not just Mac apps like damn GarageBand! (tho what i've used of it does seem good)
Great idea
DugUK
I seem to have trod on your sensitive spot. Please be assured that I'm not looking to ban any kind of creative tools. If you enjoy making house music with a 303 emulator, I'm happy that you're happy.
It doesn't seem very logical to call an 80s music fan an "elitist" with "exquisitely developed taste". It might be more accurate to say a nostalgist with an ossified musical taste.
Just wondering if these are the same guys who made this CD, or are Propellerheads the band and Propellerhead Software totally unrelated other than the name?
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
... at least according to Fatboy Slim.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
is slashdot going to put every piece of Windows-only closed source freeware on the front page?
Why not? Those of us who don't have such a stick up our butts about closed source software have to deal with the endless ravings of the open source community everytime Linus opens his cake hole or breaks wind.
How about just not calling anyone anything at all? We geeks really like to call people names, it seems....
oh wait. I just called us geeks. Shoot me now.
Karnal
It doesn't seem very logical to call an 80s music fan an "elitist" with "exquisitely developed taste".
Yes, it's not very logical. That's because I was making fun of you.
Kissy kissy.
Is this due to bittorrent poisoning techniques used by the RIAA/MPAA? Same thing they do on Kazaa and other P2P systems?
If you download Rebirth and want to hear what it can do, listen to "A Taste of Haste" in the demo songs folder (because I wrote it and therefore it is good).
And I'm sorry it had such an effect on interfaces. Why is it such a paradigm that we need to copy hardware interfaces into software? Why can't software have its own, unique, intuitive interface?
Like FL Studio?
Bloop Scwahump Wah Wah WEEEEEEEE
How about you lurk for a while before posting?
Who said anything about banning? This guy was stating an observation, nothing more.
Really, children should not be allowed on here. Please let your parents know you're on this forum.
Thanks.
Kissy Kissy
Yeah, Reborn was real great, other than the 100ms+ latency, aliasing oscillators, playskool FX, and terrible GIMP interface.
Let's not search for reasons to attack a 'decent' company. They're not Sony, buying and then bastardizing Sound Forge.
How about you lurk for a while before posting?
Hey, how about you blow me?
Thanks.
Vince Clarke is who he is because he's Vince Clarke, not because he has the equipment. My friend Jabwai makes music using Reason. He is signed by a few techno-oriented labels and performs regularly here in Dallas. Maybe you should give his stuff a listen and decide if he's "Vince Clarke-enabled."
It's not Windows-only. It runs fine on my Mac.
Ugh, yeah, Reborn was real great, other than the 100ms+ latency, aliasing oscillators, playskool FX, and terrible GIMP interface.
Propellerhead went and got permission from Roland. This Linux nimrod didn't.
Instead of changing some graphics, he pulled the plug. Gee, sounds like every overreactive geek on slashdot! What a maroon.
Any questions?
What are the open source alternatives?
Here are some that I know:
Beast
Buzztard, a clone of the orphaned, closed source but free as in beer Buzz
Psycle
Any resolution to this?! I can only get one seed as well.
:(
Download in 61 hours...
Concentrate on the functionality first, and do the skins last, if at all.
Too many music projects die after getting skins and nice UI done. I hope this won't.
When you're up to your eye balls in MDMA, what you call depressingly boring, repetitive, deeply lazy music just happens to be the best music in existance.
This is why it's so popular!
Speaking as an official Propellerhead _and_ a /. reader: The reason we acted on the reborn project (which wasn't open source I think - just a Linux product) wasn't that it was too close in UI design. It was because it was our UI - they used our graphics.
We told them we didn't mind competition, but that they'd have to make their own UI instead of stealing our bitmaps. Apparently they didn't feel like doing that and blamed us for shutting them down, which we never did. /tage widsell
propellerhead software
maybe it's just too late and this is just nostalgia software..
"Speaking as an official Propellerhead _and_ a /. reader: The reason we acted on the reborn project (which wasn't open source I think - just a Linux product) wasn't that it was too close in UI design. It was because it was our UI - they used our graphics. We told them we didn't mind competition, but that they'd have to make their own UI instead of stealing our bitmaps. Apparently they didn't feel like doing that and blamed us for shutting them down, which we never did. /tage widsell propellerhead software"
this conversation from linux-audio-dev confirms this.
"100ms+ latency, aliasing oscillators, playskool FX, and terrible GIMP interface"
That's the third time you've posted that comment.
The interface was literally identical, down to the same bitmaps, which is why the propellerheads shut it down.
Latency is irrelevent as you do not use an external midi keyboard to play the sounds live.
It sounded fine, no more significant aliasing than the propellerheads attempt.
I had the same problem until I found this page at The Pirate Bay. Don't know why this edition is four times bigger than the Torrent at the official site.
the relevant linux-audio-dev thread.. here
Hi,
:)
in case someone want a real, physical one. I am selling mine on e-bay right now:
7348497421
Sorry if this looks like a shameless attempt to push my auction, in fact it is.
But maybe someone is interested...
cheers,
Marcus
I got 633 seeds, 14 connected to me. Your BT client is broke.
Hmmm...I guess it's time to sell my TR-909, TR-606 and my...TB-303. No more external wires, sync problems, etc.
Recently I heard about a software called Hydrogen, it is an advanced drum machine with pattern based sequencer.
It is under the GNU GPL.
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/
If anyone is interested...
Personally I use an Akai sampler - I find hardware works much better. Plus the AD/DA conversion is much better - plus the lantency is better - plus my Akai sampler JUST WORKS!!! everytime.
I have been making music for years, ReBirth I always found fun to play with, show friends that are not musicians and they go "wow, cool" but I was never able to make it a productive part of my music making process...there are sooooooo many 303 sims as well as many better synths...the softsynth industry has gotten so big and over-saturated with products, there was justnot room for the ReBirth any more...it was fun in it's day, but technology moved past it.
dB Masters
Rebirth used to be a cool software when it was not popular 10 years ago! when the rave scene wasnt so big aNd commercial! Now it's just another software! was fun but soon discovered that it didnt take much brains to create acid music so now i listen to more intelligent electro.
It's not free, but I wanted to toss out AudioRealism Bassline as another great 303 emulation, which I generally prefer to Rebirth -- it has a larger interface, and more importantly it's a standard VST so it integrates easily with whatever production/DAW software you happen to be using (it sounds great too).
I'm still pretty interested in Rebirth for the 808/909 emulations, though; I haven't seen any other program that does as good a job reproducing the tweakability of those drum boxes.
Also am way excited about the rerelease of Rubber Duck -- to this day, it remains one of the best-sounding software synths I've heard.
I bought 1.0 in a store about a month after 2.0 came out. Seeing that there was no version information on the box, I contacted Propellerheads beforehand to make sure I could upgrade for free if it was the 1.0 version, and they told me I had to do so through Steinberg. Steinberg assured me it would be upgraded at no cost to me, except a small handling charge, and all I had to do was send them the receipt.
Steinberg subjected me to an utter customer service nightmare for over a year before I gave up. Their greatest concern wasn't that I had bought an old version of the software in a retail outlet, or that I felt I deserved the 2.0 upgrade, but that SOFTWARE PIRACY IS EVERYWHERE!
They observed from day one that I could get a substantial discount on the 2.0 upgrade from their web site, but apparently the idea that I shouldn't have to pay for an upgrade to software I just bought is too similar to the idea that I shouldn't have to pay for the software at all.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
My 2Mb/sec connection is maxed out, too. Something funny going on with those people.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Because the one at the Pirate Bays is measured in MiB, as opposed to MB.
And that is exactly why I thought people went to synthesizers to begin with... to get away from that cliche sound of guitar thru a fender twin to something with a much wide variety of tonal capabilities.
Even the 303 has the possibility. But let's face it, the 303's strength is that resonating filter. It's the filter!