Nearly two years after wiping Propellerhead’s ReBirth software off the internet, Roland is launching a new software emulation to its family of Roland Cloud “Legendary” series.
Roland Cloud’s TB-303 claims to use the “same Analog Circuit Behavior modeling” as other additions to Roland Cloud’s legendary line of virtual instruments. The TB-303 “software instrument” follows on the Roland JUNO-106, JUPTER-8 and other additions to the Roland Cloud suite.
In June 2017, Roland fired a legal warning at Propellerhead over the latter’s ReBirth software, which emulated the 303, 808 and 909 instruments. ReBirth had been available for some 20 years before Roland’s action, which resulted in the app versions being removed from the iOS App Store.
Roland also recently filed for trademark protection in Germany of the 303 and 808 designs. Nevertheless, Behringer’s forthcoming clone of Roland’s TR-808 is one of the most anticipated products of the year, a machine that nearly anyone could have made – and several have made their own, as this list of 808 hardware clones shows.
Notably exempt from that list: Roland. The Japanese company has taken the perhaps admirable stance of attempting to introduce products that build upon their classic suite of instruments and relegating reproductions of their classic instruments to the faux “boutique” series and software emulations like this one.
According to Roland, the Cloud version of the TB-303 can hold 64 patterns and 64 patches per bank, plus 32 presets and 48 unique sounds.
The TB-303 software instrument was launched in conjunction with the manufacturer’s “303 Day” festivities celebrating the original acid box on March 3.
