BehringerTD-3-TG Analog Bass Line Synthesizer with VCO, VCF, 16-Step Sequencer, Distortion Effects and 16-Voice Poly Chain

This is well built, sounds amazing, and is a great value. However, I couldn't get used to programming the interface, which is the same as the original tb303. I ended up sending it back and getting a volca bass, which among other things is easier to program and can run on batteries. I still give this 5 stars, but it just wasn't for me.

Wow! There's a lot of TB 303 in this thing and then some. 130$ for a TB 303 clone isn't bad. My friend has the Roland Volca bass synth and a volca synth. Which, I plan on getting in the future. But thanks to my best friend Tazy, for gifting this to me. I plan on making both Industrial music and a Industrial acid-house mix.

It used to be a no brainer to recommend the TD-3 or the TD-3-MO for that matter. It's a true analog 303. But it's harder now. On the cheaper end there's the Donner B1 Essential. It has a real sequencer and song mode, and live transposing. On the really expensive end there's the DB-01 from Erica Synths. True analog like this, but not plastic like this. It's also five times more expensive...Maybe if you just really want the TB-303 experience. Again, this is it. This is exactly it. And you can find these used for 50 bucks. But for just 30-40 more, you could get a B1 Essential new. And you will love it. Honorable mention to the 303 built into the Roland S-1 also. If you also want a drum machine, it's a great combo device.I mean, if you love 303's. I still had to have one of these. You should get one. But mine is because it's orange. That's the only reason. I like orange. lol. It's not bad. It's just frustrating using it after using a good sequencer, and you don't have to use a bad one anymore.

It’s pretty fun to play with and the price is great. The sounds are kinda limited with only one oscillator, bit the filer sounds truly great. The main problem is the sequencer is a giant pain to program, so I can’t see making regular use of it since there are a lot of easier ways to do the same thing. If you’re looking for a useful piece of studio gear, you might do better putting the money towards something else.

So the Behringer TD-3 is definitely fun when you get the hang of it but it also misses the mark on a couple of features. First off I have never used a real TB-303 so I’m not comparing it to that. I’m just commenting on this as a unique piece of gear. First off this thing sounds great AND fat. I found that the square wave oscillator is almost always better sounding the then saw. The controls are very intuitive and really are just asking to be tweaked in a live take. I found that for my purposes it was more useful to set the accent, decay, envelope, & resonance at my desired levels and just tweak the filter cutoff. Speaking of the knobs, I have to take off a point for the decay knob. I can barely hear an envelope decay of the filter with this thing. It is VERY fast and I really couldn’t hear much difference between the completely closed and open values. This misses the mark even if it’s exactly modeled after the 303. Also I know Behringer were going after making a faithful recreation of the TB-303 but the method for inputting notes is very cumbersome. Apparently it is exactly as it is on the 303 but it is not intuitive at first use. You have to enter all your notes first and then enter their lengths & any rests. It’s not so bad after you get the hang of it but it leaves something to be desired compared to the modern Roland TB-3 which is a pretty great and intuitive sequencer. I take another point off the TB-3 for its horrendous USB MIDI. In short it is unusable. It creates a digital hum that of course you could mostly remove with notch filtering or something like iZotope RX but it should simply not be there. Standard din MIDI however does not have this problem and neither does analog sync. For the money the TD-3 delivers strong & powerful bass with pedigree. The various hardware color options make it fun finding the perfect counterpart to your studio or live setup. There may be flaws in comparison to a real TB-303 that I just have no concept of but I’ve recorded and jammed with the TD-3 and it simply is fun to use.