Acid Box

€40

Web www.audioblast.me Format Mac/PC/Linux, VST/AU/standalone A reimagining of Roland’s legendary TB-303 bassline synth, AcidBox aims to bring one of the most evergreen sounds in dance music to your DAW with all the niceties of a modern virtual instrument, including live performance potential.

In Host and Internal Sync modes, the bottom half of the interface houses the essential 303 step sequencer, but switching to MIDI In mode replaces this with a piano keyboard for real-time play – note velocities over 81 trigger accented notes, and overlapping notes slide.

The sequencer can be extended to up to 64 steps in length, with the display always showing the currently playing bank of 16 steps. Sequences are programmed in traditional 303 style – manually activating steps and adjusting their pitches, with per-step Accent and Slide buttons for embellishment – or recorded via MIDI by activating Keyboard mode. The last is a fun way to come up with patterns quickly, but the lack of playback position indicator in the sequencer makes it a more seat-of-the-pants exercise than it needs to be. Four banks of eight patterns can be stored at once, and switching between them is done using MIDI note input – there’s no onboard song sequencer, sadly.

The synth itself sounds wicked, with that characterful saw/square oscillator and famously squelchy filter in full effect – a more than passable impression of the real thing. It also incorporates a Groove knob for swinging the sequencer, as well as a Distortion effect with four algorithms and a syncable Delay module with Ping Pong option.

The interface is kinda shonky in places: the usual Spacebar start/stop key command doesn’t work in standalone mode, you can’t type into the Tempo and Steps fields, the delay time isn’t displayed, user patches don’t show up in the presets menu, and having the tiny on/off buttons serve as targets for all right-click menus is absurdly fiddly. But in terms of sound and playability, AcidBox is a very likeable synth.

n8/ 10n