The TB-3 has many effects and each of those effects has many parameters. There are two separate FX slots and a distortion slot that can all be used simultaneously. The documentation is in very small print though and not easily navigable, so I have put the information into a PDF for easier reference which you can access by clicking on the link below.

Roland-Aira-TB3-FX

I finally went and bought a Roland Aira TB-3, for a number of reasons. First, I’ve been wanting a dedicated acid machine for quite a while since I sold my FutureRetro 777, but I wanted one updated for modern production. Another thing I absolutely had to have: patch memory. Almost none of the currently available machines have that capability, including the TB-03 and TT-303. There are some vintage machines available with patch memory but I really didn’t want to go that route. I’d heard the sound of the TB-3 and I liked it, so the choice was easy: Roland Touch Bassline TB-3.

Sounds, Patterns, & Notes

It’s not always clear with Roland’s documentation what things mean, and  integrating it into my system proved more difficult than I had expected. In the context of the TB-3, there are two main components: sounds and patterns. A “sound” is a “patch” or sound program and refers to the synth parameters, while a “pattern” is a series of notes, gates, slides & accents that form a sequence. Patterns can be saved into 8 banks of 8, and can be saved to a computer. Sounds can be saved to one of the new 16 user slots and stored on your computer so that you can create a library of as many extra variations as you want. Roland provides no documented way to save patches on your computer, but I did manage to find an undocumented way. Here are some more discoveries I made that might help you.

1. To save a sound, stop the sequencer (in keyboard mode), [hold] ENV MOD and turn the value wheel until you pick a desired user slot, then press the PLAY/PAUSE button to save it. Only 16 slots, but plenty for a live show.
   1. The user patch section is only accessible by the front panel and cannot be accessed without some human intervention. Once you navigate to the user section, it is possible to send program change to change user slots. If you send program change while in a user slot, it automatically switches to A01. The presets are accessible with program change and bank change.
2. All patterns are saved automatically unless “Lock” is turned on. To set up Lock mode, turn off any record, [hold] PTN SELECT and then turn the value knob. Preset pattern variations 1-1 thru 8-8 cannot be selected via midi either, front panel only.
3. To change the number of steps (1-32), [hold] STEP REC and turn the value knob.
4. To change to triplet timing, [hold] STEP REC and toggle the TEMPO button.
5. To transpose the track up or down, turn on REALTIME or STEP REC and then while holding the KEYBOARD button, turn the value knob.
6. It’s also possible to associate a particular sound with a particular pattern in the user section.

Bypassing the Internal Sequencer

In a live context, i don’t really like to use a machine’s internal sequencer or arpeggiator because they almost inevitably start out of time or fail to sync when they’re triggered. In the TB-3’s case, the sequencer ALWAYS runs and I would have to select patterns manually live, which is not something I wanted to have to remember to do at every live show. So what I do is just record the arp or sequence’s midi information to a sequencer, turn off the TB-3’s internal sequencer, switch to an empty pattern, and then play the information from my main sequencer. Here’s how I did it:

1. Before you start,  make sure midi is set to AUTO and not INTERNAL or it won’t respond to external midi clock. I also turned off the midi thru functionality so only the internal stuff is sent through the TB-3’s output. These are both set by restarting while holding down the SCATTER button. Here’s what mine looks like (midi is set to channel 6). Press PLAY/PAUSE to save, exit, and reboot.
2. First, clear out a pattern ([hold] PTN SELECT and press the CLEAR pad). I chose pattern 1-1.
3. Now choose the pattern you’d like to record into your sequencer. I chose two: 1-6, a straightforward one,  and 5-7, a really slide-y one.
4. Now get your sequencer ready to record. Make sure there are no feedback loops since you will have midi cables both in and out of the TB-3 (this is where turning off midi thru functionality comes in handy). Press play/record on your sequencer, which should trigger the pattern, and record it into your DAW or sequencer. Stop at the end of the phrase.
5. Now unplug the midi out cable from the TB-3 to prevent feedback loops, change to the empty pattern and play back what you recorded into your DAW or sequencer. If this works, then you’ve bypassed the TB-3’s sequencer.

Now you can use the TB-3’s internal sequencer to make a sequence, play it into your DAW, and bypass the TB-3 internal sequencer with no loss of information. Additionally, there is no need to overwrite patterns you want to keep using this method.

Time to Have Fun

Now that we can control the machine externally, go to any pattern, and press PTN SELECT [hold] then press SCATTER to randomize the note pattern and KEYBOARD [hold] then SCATTER to randomize the accents, glides, and octaves. If you press REALTIME REC button in between switching from PTN SELECT to KEYBOARD mode, it won’t erase and start over. Save the pattern by pressing REALTIME REC or simply play the sequence into your sequencer and play it back from there.  No need to back up patterns this way! And you can store patches as well, check out this page for more information.

Check out this document for the rest of the cheat codes. http://airainfo.org/files/tb-3_cheatsheet.pdf

The Keith McMillen QuNexus is a very flexible controller with great software. Even though its main function is a computer USB controller, at which it excels, it also is equally capable in MIDI 5-pin (with the expander) or CV control modes. It will even function as a MIDI-to-CV & CV-to-MIDI converter.

Channel 1 uses keyboard layer

What I’m doing now is using the QuNexus to trigger arpeggiators on separate patches in multimode on  my Waldorf Blofeld. Because of the software included, you can route any controller and any channel to any key or range of keys. In addition you can set the keys to “latch” mode so that you can trigger patches and have them stay running until you press the key again. Generally I route the bottom three or four keys to separate channels, in latch mode, and then assign my sound programs (each of which has an arpeggiator) to those keys, allowing me to trigger them like I would on a sequencer. Then, I route about an octave in the middle of the keyboard for the bassline, which I hold and change while performing. I usually leave around five keys above and below this middle section for other parts, so that I can have multiple melody or rhythm lines running, making sure that their transpose range is assigned properly so it matches the key of the main bassline. If I don’t need a full octave for a bassline, I’ll sometimes assign it to the five keys below the main section, or if I need a number of different arpeggiators or samples, I will assign each of those five keys to separate patches.

all other channels use controller layer. this one is set to latch with a controller assigned to tilt

In one of my more complex tracks, I assign the bottom three keys to a kick, snare, and hihat. With the next four keys, I assign each to a different one-shot sample which I trigger by hand when I want a drum break or want to trigger the vocal sample (to use samples you need the full keyboard version of the Blofeld or LicenseSL). The next section of keys I’ve assigned to a sort of “wub” bass, and the top section is an arpeggiated melody track that lays over the top. For the “wub” bass, I’ve set a modulation slot to vary the speed of the wub sound and then set up the tilt controller so that I can alter it live, and the upper melody section is set up similarly, except tilt acts to raise/lower the pitch of one of the oscillators. It has nine separate programs assigned to this multi, which gives me plenty of variety when trying to make dynamic, live performances.

Of course, the QuNexus is not a sequencer, so it takes practice to trigger the arps exactly on time, and there is even sometimes a bit of a lag in the arp “catching,” but with practice it is doable, and it’s even possible to trigger an arp at a different point in the measure than on the first beat of the measure so that you can creatively alter the rhythm as well, depending on exactly when the arp is triggered in the phrase. In addition, any samples that are set up stop playing as soon as the key is released, so it is easy to say trigger the first part of a sample but not the last part until you hold the key a bit longer.

This is a proposal I wrote for submitting to Unsound Krakow. See more about what inspired this here.

They say that the sooner a smoker has their first cigarette of the day, the more addicted they are, while those who wait until later have a greater handle on their vice. So what does it say about our addictions that so many check their devices before even getting out of bed in the morning? How many smokers keep a pack in the bed with them so that they can grab a few puffs if they wake up in the middle of the night? Do they hold onto their cigarettes throughout the day, carefully cradling them in nearly every conceivable circumstance? This artist believes that our increasing reliance on devices feeds on quietude and rest, something that is increasing every day because of technological advancements and the resulting decline in the need for human labor. Many even consider driving to be an activity that is restful enough to attempt to interact with devices, so the bar to fully engage an audience is set pretty high, and the tendrils extending into the mind’s addiction centers run as deep as anything we’ve ever known.

So how do we combat something that may be more habit-forming than even our most addictive substances? One remedy is activity for which we need to be fully engaged, and the only ones that seemingly meet that standard are primal ones like when we play, eat, make love, or converse with one another. Those moments are “now” moments…ones that require our full attention. That’s one reason why this artist, a Chicago transplant now firmly planted in Krakow, has committed to 100% live electronic music so that every performance is a “now” moment both for the musician and audience, while at the same time shortening the distance between the technology and the art. He’s even taken it further by playing in Krakow’s open areas using only a single synthesizer and controller, which requires him to hand-trigger every sound that is produced, and gives ample opportunity for improvisation, another “now” activity. The artist also participates and contributes to those moments around him by programming facsimiles of the surrounding sounds – like police sirens, church bells, and birdsong – and when their calls appear in his environment, he has a ready response.

When performing like this, one needs to have three things fully engaged: head, hands, and heart, with a goal of inspiring the engagement of those same things in the audience. Head to keep track of everything, hands to translate ideas to action, and heart to forge an emotional connection with the audience. That’s why the artist has responded to the theme “Presence” with a musical project in three parts entitled “Head, Hands, and Heart: H³,” where each part is dedicated to one of the trio. H³ also refers to the name of the most abundant ion in the universe, which exists almost exclusively in the ultra-cool, ultra-slow expanse of interstellar space, and the stillness in which H³ exists is an analogue to the state of being that the music will request from its listeners. It’s not as if people are remarkably different from before we had all this information and entertainment at our fingertips – people still look for the same things, a real connection, a real emotion, things that inspire, and to connect with the now. This artist relishes the opportunity to continue his long-time exploration of genres like ambient and drone, to satisfy those other seekers who search for “presence” through the pure energy of music.

I wanted to see how close I could get my Blofeld to sound like some patches on my MicroWave, so first I made some notes for the settings of the original patch for reference. To understand what values I’m translating from and to follow along at home, you’ll need to reference the table of parameters at the end of the entry.

In general, things seemed to work out one-to-one, for example a 10 filter cutoff on MW roughly equals a 10 on Blofeld as they both go from 0-127. First set both octaves to -16, the equivalent of -1 on mW. Set osc 2 wavetable to #46 PWM Pulse and osc 1 to pulse. As for osc volume, the mWave has 0-7 for wave volume, so a 2 would equal about 36 (around 18 per step) on BF’s 0-127 scale and that translates to about 38-45 on osc 1 and 127 on osc 2, both routed to the same 24dB LPF. To translate the “startwave” and “startsample” wavetable parameters to the Blo, according to the manual

mWave patch: JCJ LOW BASS

Let’s see if I can re-create this drum pattern, TNGHT’s “Higher Ground,”  using the Blofeld’s onboard arpeggiators. It’s not going to be easy, but I’m sure it’s possible, and probably in more than one way. First thing I did was listen to the original track in super slo-mo and mapped out the basic pattern of kick, snare, & clap and put them into a 16th note grid. There is also a hi-hat, a few different snare patterns and rolls, a vocal sample and a lead that I’ll need to add, but I’ll start with the basic stuff.

The kick pattern above sounds like a big 808 kick drum with a long decay and  is on a 16th note pattern, but in the last measure, there is a high version of the kick that lands between the beats. It sounds like a triplet to me, so somehow I’ll need to make a kick pattern that has both a regular beat and then a triplet beat at the end. I had already made some of the other parts, the snares, the claps, and one of the snare rolls, along with the sample, but I still couldn’t get that last kick measure right, pitched up an octave and syncopated against the beat, presumably with a triplet pattern.

My first effort was to just make a triplet beat to see if it sounded right. So to make sure I set up a 4/4 kick and then laid a 1/8T beat, no user pattern, with a hihat sound over it. Yes, that worked. Then to try and make the beats land properly according to the grid, I made the 1/8T beat a 12 step user pattern like in the photo and it seemed to work well, coming around when it should against the 4/4 beat, so, I thought, just change the sound for this arp pattern to a kick, and try to lay a straight beat over it for the other sounds. Well, that didn’t work because the kick would come around too soon, essentially it’s in 3/4 and everything else is in 4/4 so I couldn’t get everything in the proper time.

Then I hit on it…I could just trigger the last two notes as a separate arp at the end of the measure. So I set up a copy of the original kick pattern with arp set to 1/8T…and it didn’t quite sound right. Then I changed to 1/8., or a dotted eight note and it sounded I thought exactly correct. Turns out it probably wasn’t a eight note triplet, it was a dotted eighth note. I left the last measure of the original kick pattern blank and trigger this 1/8. pattern for one measure at the end. It may be possible to latch the high triplet kick pattern so that it syncs with the other main kick pattern, but the closest I got was setting clock to 1/4T, note length 1/16, pattern length 12, with notes triggered on step 11 & 12, but that’s not quiiite right, although it’s close. Gotta keep working on it!