Merlot; It depends on how you look at it acctually in my opinion.

It's analogue / it's monophonic (and even if you don't like the sound. sample it and do something completly different with the sound). It sure is fun to go out in the park in the summer with an tb303 and other 'battery'-supplied gear, + an AMP of some sort and just jam.

People sure will come around and sit down and talk and just drink a beer and it's just fun.

I love gear that could be run on batteries.

This goes with alot of analogue gear in my opinion.

Yeah, I agree it is a cool piece of gear. It is just the price is too high for me. If I was going to pay that much for a monosynth, I would just keep saving for a moog.
But I do love the acid sound, and can see why some would pay the price. There are just many cheaper alternatives now in software and hardware.

I think nothing can sound exactly like 303, but lots of other synths under $1k
can make much more interesting sounds than 303. Btw, the best 303 emulation
that i ever heard is ReBirth software, no other software/hardware today is able
to emulate the 303 sound as good as ReBirth.

I really don't understand people that say that rebirth sounds like a 303. Put them next to each other and have a listen.

I read through this site looking for info on a good 303 emulation and decided to pick up audiorealism's bassline based on a lot of posts here. Oh my, it is very nice. There goes my weekend :)

I have a MAM MB33 mk2 at home which is a 303 clone but in hardware all analog, midi capable and you can mix between the two waveforms, plus it has a sub-socillator and distortion if you want them. the filter is an 18 dB same as the 303 and it has slide so you can get very similar sounds out of it.

there is an audio sample up on http://www.mam-germany.de/

this one was picked up on sale for around US$50 so was about the best buy for a nice piece of analog gear that I have seen :)

i use audiorealism bassline alot. the actual tone (of the saw wave) comes very close to a real tb. the square isnt quite right. the filter resonance also squeals. it doesnt. overall its the most accurate software representation of the tb i think although something is missing.

the real tb has this amazing quality to it - it kind pushes/punches a little bit of 'air' with each note. so theres this warm, slightly muffled hiss that accompanies the sound. i cant describe it exactly but it accompanies every note and it just gives it this warmth and presence and a little bit of dimension to the sound. play it loud and its amazing. audiorealism bassline has the tone of the saw wave down to a tee. but it doesnt push air like the real thing and loses a little punch because of it. theres no pphhhfffpphh! accompaniment. this is actually very hard to describe and im losing the battle. i hope someone out there gets the point im trying to make

Many 303 users think that ReBirth is one of the best emulators, even better than hardware ones.

And seriously, for 303 sounds, get a real used 303! no other synth can sound like a real 303. Everything in that synth is special, i even heard that 2 different 303s may not sound exactly the same!

that might explain why kai tracid has like 10 teebees.