Introducing Troublemaker: this is not a 303: The legendary TB-303 has magical properties; it is filled to the brim with analog shimmer. Its output jack is a gateway to a parallel universe and when you twiddle the filter knobs an army of highly trained pixies chisel the square waves from freshly harvested unicorn souls. So if you want a TB-303, you should buy a TB-303. But if you’re after *that sound* Troublemaker will give you everything you need in spades.
Troublemaker sports a carefully crafted diode filter emulation and among the available oscillators are the typical raspy, nasal sawtooth and rubbery squarewave with its oddball shape and shifting pulsewidth. It also has the wow.
Troublemaker is fully Audio Unit (AUv3) compatible, so you can go wild running multiple instances in your favorite DAWs.
It also has:
- Ableton Link synchronization,
- MIDI CC controllers for all knobs (predefined),
- Core Midi, Virtual Midi, Bluetooth Midi input,
- MIDI Clock Sync, MIDI Start / Stop support
- Realtime Mutation Probability Engine
- Standalone sequencer supports 1-64 steps
- Audiobus 3 support (audio + MIDI)
- Exports MID and WAV files from the standalone sequencer
- User manual and MIDI charts on ruismaker.com
And unlike the TB-303, it can actually sound like a bass guitar 😉
Check out here my introduction and review video of the Troublemaker Synthesizer by Bram Bos (Ruismaker). You will find also a lot of sound demos in this review.
Review Summary
Positive
- Authentic sound quality
- Upgraded TB-303 Sequencer
- Clear and easy-to-use GUI
- AUv3 support
- Good connectivity to other apps
Negative
- Standalone version doesn’t allow to save sound parameters of your patterns
Available here: Troublemaker Synthesizer
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