They all sound great - but to my ears the original Roland 303 sounds most authentic, of course all the other features make a huge difference in functionality. Having said all that I know for sure that on a dancefloor in a mix with everyone getting into their acid grooves not one single person will give a flying damn what machine is getting them off, just like most other softsynths - it's the music and the groove that is king and the rest is just fluff - just my two cents !
Pls gain stage the plugins the next time after showcasing the volume differences. Helps then to focus on the actual sound. And some more direct jumps between the synths with no talking, for better comparison. Besides that, great video. Super cool that you do these proper comparisons!
the roland is crash happy in studio one . the d16 has the best sound although not exactly authentic but has a ton of great features . im going with d16
Should really have tried gain matching them a bit better, as your reaction to the sound is sometimes influenced by it just being louder imo. The Roland TB303 sounds best to me, mainly because it allows you to push the resonance more without it sounding harsh. It all depends what you want out of your acid noises, but for me I like a more authentic sound like the Roland vst. You say you prefer ABL as it sounds "creamier", which i think it basically the increased mid range, but once you add your distortion fx, this ends up sounding a bit too "boxy" in comparison to Roland's. In future I suggest pre-making your examples, bouncing them down and normalizing them, as you will be able to hear the differences better. Aceeeeeed!
Me too, because I would then just buy the whole D16 ``silver box bundle`` and it would be more affordable. But I'm more accostumed to the ABL, which I have used a lot in the past (older version). So I'm really on the fence here.
It seems to me that the Phoscyon 2 sounds a lot harsher and less warm than the other two. I was about to buy it but I'm not so sure now. Perhaps I'll stick with my ABL 3.
I have the Phosyon2 & I have to say I would hardly consider the differences. Tho I would like the get the Roland plugin for the times I want the more authentic sound. BUT... I'm not signing up to a subscription service for one plugin. so the ABL3 would be the next option. but if you have the ABL3 then up to you. but I love the phosyon!
@@fallenleaf24 I bought Phoscyon 2 and I love it! I also got Arturia's Acid V and that's great too. I prefer Phoscyon 2 even though both that and D16's other great synth - Lush 2 - make my i9 12900HX with 32GB RAM struggle sometimes.
@@TheValueOfN nice I love mine too! Tho I do want a more authentic version fo 4th sake of it xD but the Phosyon is so good that I have never actually brought any other xD
wow this is such good stuff. thanks for this in depth comparison. Phoscyon has been pushing hard on youtube, most people I follow talk about it now, but this unbiased video shows actual numbers and the actual reality, as well as discussing all the alternatives. thanks again
i also got all three of them, soundwise i think abl3 comes closest, but phoscyon 2 has the best workflow and it is a bit more squelchy but i like the low end of audiorealism better.
@@robinsharepointblog haven't, but "acid out from the box" vs original and cables troubles/delay through midi troubles and other not comfort things. Depends from what you need.
Great comparaison video thx ! I'd like to add my .02 cent to everyone saying "Every TB-303 (original hardware) sounds different". Well that's both true and false. They sound different because the internal pots are not at the exact same value, but if you open the silver box and set all pots to the same value every 303 will sound the same. Sure it's analog components so different parameters could affect the sound (age, dust, heat) but it's barely noticeable after all even if played alone without any effect. All this "all hardware sounds different" is a myth. I owned 6 different TB-303 (unmodified) and they all sound the same when internal pots at the same value.
Thanks for watching! 😊Ah, unfortunately I never had the real thing so I can't comment much about it, and thank you for that info, that actually makes a lot of sense!
Roland is the most accurate (no surprise as they model the circuitry itself not just a standard dsp approximation) but that also means some of less appealing features of the original 303 are preserved, huge loss of bottom at high resonance, ott accent gain and so on.
🇵🇱 Phoscyon2 🇵🇱 Composition and workflow End Boss. Period. No one original Tb-303 sounds identical anyway and in a DAW you will EQ and gain stage your basslines anyway. Screw Roland Cloud.
@@RandomNoiseMusic They refuse to re-issue the original hardware Tb-303. Continuing making bad hardware and software clones of your own hardware 😂 How hard can making profitable business decisions be when you are sitting on those golden eggs? Original , re-issued hardware Tr-808 Tr-909 Sh-101 Tb-303 JUST TAKE MY MONEY Domo arigato.
True! And they also killed Rebirth! Reason Studios (Propellerheads back then) had to discontinue it because of their request! I do still appreciate and admire their contribution to electronic music, but they indeed made a few ass moves..
There always seems to be a lot of hate against Roland Cloud. I can understand how people do not like the licensing mechanism but considering that you can buy lifetime keys and that there are a lot of other plugin manufacturers that require some kind of periodic online connection to enforce licensing, I do not see how Roland is particularly evil in that regard. I would also agree that the user interface of many of the Legendary series soft synths is unnecessarily clunky and tends to look updated, but at least these UIs are resizable, something that a lot of manufacturers still fail to offer. And as far as sound is concerned - to me still the most important aspect of a synth - all the plugins from the Legendary series sound great and really close to the originals. So, if you want that sound, it's a great offering.
The main reason why Phoscyon sounds so much different is the "Plain TB303" calibration preset (the hidden menu in the upper right) has the high pass filter at 50% for some reason, where it's at 0% by default on the abl3 (Not sure about Roland, but I'm guessing if it has a HP it's also at 0 by default). Thats why the low end was so weak and the mids/highs were so harsh on Phoscyon here. If you turn the second yellow knob (C21/22) all the way to the left it sounds MUCH more like the other 2. It's still different, but sounds 100x better. Personally, I think the Roland sounds the most authentic, the ABL3 sounds the most pleasant when solo'd, and the Phoscyon has by far the best workflow and sequencer. The Phoscyon sounds the least authentic, but it's probably my favorite honestly - In a mix with additional processing and effects the differences are less apparent, and I find it cuts through a bit better. All 3 have pros and cons for sure.
As you said, you really can not go wrong with any choice of these. When you use it in a mix with insert effects, even with D16's distorsions all of them sounds great. I also love the pure sound of my own-build RE-303, but that is not a plugin, not so easy to shape it's sound. But sometimes it is just fun to hear it's purity. I love 303. I also loved ReBirth RB-338 back in the days
Thanks for this comparison! I wonder if test is made correctly, the Phoscyon 2 sounds terrible, harsh with no low end(5:56 to 6:40), opening the filter. Are there any setting you've missed enabled, low cut filter? Otherwise this is a dealbreaker for me, I was so close a purchase of the Phoscyon 2. The Roland and the ABL3 sounds very good when open up the cut off filter. Though, the Roland is volume weak, or imbalanced volume wise when filter is opened. ABL3 seems to have a volume compensation, which I believe is a good thing, who wants an overwhelming percieved volume raise when opening the filter? I recorded the three ones from your video, interesting wave forms. I have no experience with hardware 303, fyi. And don't care much about the plugins being true to the original hardware or not. Listened with studio pro headphones.
Thank you for watching and the comment! As I mentioned in the video, it is more then possible that my comparison had some flaws, specially with the phoscyon settings. I am not considering myself as an expert at all, and was just trying to give a clue of how they sound together. Interesting point on the waveforms, I will try to record them clean again and compare their form shape as well, will be interesting to see that too
Also I think you should get the trial and demo it to make better decision if you should get it or not. I think its an excellent plugin that offer a lot regardless and in any case
@@RandomNoiseMusic I would very much appreciate a redo of the comparison with the same sequencer pattern opening up the cut off filter(without "... saw square is highpass filtered by default..." , Ward de jager, in Phoscyon 2), and automate the opening of the filter for consistency? Before ending of the intro offer of D16 at PB?
I wonder if you put the Phoscyon through Metaplugin and oversampled it x8, then added Soothe2 to catch the nasty resonances it would smooth the high resonant peaks out. The thing about the real 303 hardware, especially if you had a good one, was that even at the most extreme resonant peaks, it still sounded so organic, like audible lightening. So far, no software has come close to that 'living' sound. Shame Roland won't re-issue the TB-303 given RE-303 have shown it's clearly possible to make them super cheap and charge a fortune. Many would pay.
Thanks for this comparison, very interesting indeed. While both Phoscyon 2 and ABL3 sound great as instruments in their own right, I found that they are quite "off" in many respects when it comes to sounding like an actual 303. Both (and the ABL3 in particular) sound like they are already compressed and somewhat distorted. When working with a 303, you typically work with compressors a lot, and more often than not you will add some kind of additional saturation/distortion. I actually enjoy this because it allows me to shape the sound exactly how I want it to be, which is why I prefer the more unprocessed sound of the Roland plugin. Also, both ABL3 and Phoscyon 2, at the extreme knob positions, produced some weird sounds, which - while interesting in their own way - did not sound like something you would hear from an actual 303. Doesn't mean ABL3 and Phoscyon 2 sound "worse" - just less accurate. Both probably have a lot more sound design potential than the Roland version, but for accuracy, Roland ACB (as found in TB-03 and this plugin) is still the best digital model in my opinion.
Thanks for watching and the great points! I did feel like and even mentioned it in the video that the Roland Cloud version sounds more close to the original but I wasn't able to articulate that like what you wrote here 🙌
Phoscyon. I don’t even want hardware anymore. It’s sounds just as good if not better and the sequencer. Oh my… it reminds me of my first ever program on my PC Rebirth. I was able to figure it out without any issues in 90s so it is speak for itself. It easy to use but very powerful and entertaining at the same time. And the fact I can drag and drop sequence to midi… oh my. D16 reinvented the wheel here. Great job. Also D16 is respectable company so I can be sure it will be supported and updated for years to come.
its a no brainer right i would love a decent emulation of the tr606 without the crashing of the roland cloud stuff . roland cloud is also cpu heavy. really over the top imo
@@th3soundmachinz if its the same quality as the silver line and other stuff they do I would buy it blindly . Just can't stand roland cloud stuff . Expensive emulations of cheap discontinued gear that dosnt warrant an ilok
In the video I said that I like the ABL3 sound better, but ever since I got Phoscyon 2, I have to admit I use it more than the other two because of the extra feature and awesome step sequencer. So as of now Phoscyon 2 is my favorite I guess haha
I can’t understand why you could not figure out here that the Phoscyon 2 output volume was set too high and was mostly clipping throughout the comparison? Anyone could see in the meter! LOL
I remember first getting into the acid sounds and basically got hooked into making music with synths on the very first iMac when using the original version 1 of Rebirth and the 338 synth. Maybe try that in a comparison.
Same here! I had the windows version back then, but Rebirth was mind blowing to me and I still remember it greatly! Too bad they had to discontinue it because of legal issues with Roland though. I did try a while ago to make a Reason combinator in memory of Rebirth 😄 czcams.com/video/2KikKQJE_2c/video.html
you just knew something was wrong with Propellerheads when they discontinued Rebirth....they had no care how much we loved the thing.....and still don't to this day.
I miss my old mixes running Mac OS 8.6 to have a sort of bug but feature that the OS would allow multiple instances of rebirths to run at the same time. I even downloaded and had rebirth on my 2nd gen iPod touch. I wish I left those devices frozen in time without updating.
THE one real and only test of VSTi is , IF ALL parameter on LFO movement - same automation and then show how is the CPU sucks and how is the sound under REAL live , with completely automation of all parameters + pitch etc , I meaning ALL parameters !
Bad comparison because 1 you didn't say which model you used in abl3 ( latest update has 5 models ) 2 phoscyon 2 saw square is highpass filtered by default , turn the second yellow encoder to the left to bring back the bass You can Phoscon 2 almost sound like ABl3 model 1 engine but you need to tweak the trimmers Why even make a video without any understanding of the trimmers ? THat being said , I think phoscyon 2 is a huge improvement over the previous one but I still prefer ABL 3. ABL3 still remains the king of 303 software emulations
Hey, first of all, thank you for taking the time to watch this and leave your comment, appreciate that 👍 1 You are right about my mistake not to mention the model used in ABL3 and not showing the setup of the settings, so point taken. 2 To be honest I trusted D16 suggested presets to set it up to the plain TB303, but I did mention at 15:29 to correct me in the comments in case I got something wrong, so thanks for highlighting this fact about that knob, I will check it out. Now, "why even make a video without understanding of the trimmers?" why not? :) There it nothing wrong in doing things and learning from it in my opinion. I don't proclaim myself to be an expert on any of the subjects I talk about, this is just a hobby and sharing opinions. I wanted to try to test it out as a user, and share my experience in doing so. But again thanks for the constructive feedback, it helps to learn from each other in the community 🙏 Agree on the last statements, version 2 is indeed a huge improvement and the workflow and features are probably the best among the 3 in my opinion. I do as well prefer the ABL3 in terms of sound, but its great that we have all these options nowadays and like I said in the video I really think you can't go wrong with any of the 3 :)
TB303 ist am weitesten vorne , in Bezug auf den internen sequenzer - man kann switchen zwischen Scale des Pattern und die Richtungen / MODE - sehr simple - Kenne Kein anderes Gerät das so einen guten Sequenzer hat . Ideal für psy trance . Der nächste unschlagbare aspekt der Tb 303 versteckt sich hinter dem Panel- Die 2 FX lassen sich automatisieren , das heist Fx1 und Fx2 beinhalten etwa 5 FX je FX1 und Fx2 und diese lassen sich switchen . Eine Note mit Delay , eine Note mit Chorud oder flanger , metall oder overdrive oder tube etc - sehr geil für psytrance ! ABL3 3.1 ist ohne Fx , also Roh , aber man hat 3 OSC Modes und die haben Feuer . Insgesammt die Bessere Wahl . ABL2 ist der Hammer , weils Drive und Distortion on Board hat (reverb , delay , flanger , fx allgemein kann man eh zumischen per aux oder als insert , von daher die Beste WAHL bezüglich Sound ;-) psycon hört ihr selber , es verschönert . Wenn ihr also etwas über paralell fx , pre fx und so wißt , ist die Abl immer noch die coolste Maschine . Sehr stabil ;-)
21:54min it is not right , that psycon better for leads , beacause it is in the color higher . The Eq trick is a hand automation or adsr or lfo movement of Peak or Shelf Eq Frequences , so that you have wuffff and next beat you have no bass , but more middle frequency , and than again whufff bass etc - if the color from psycon to high, than you use the Eq trick . it is the Hammer if the movement of Eq passing some other Eq peaks or shelfs +3 and +3 = +6 ;-) db , if you push some frequency of the Spectrum of the sound. The first ask is , is the sound of the machine good ? and psycon is the machine , who is DASH Glitch using for his tracks . I have roland full and audiorealism full and find , roland and audiorealism have Hammer sound. If I see psycon , it looks more like a sh101 with all the parameters , what it make it to a synthesizer machine , who her SAW or square sounds like a 303 . I don`t need a psycon , the ABL2 or ABL3 or ABL Pro are all better than psycon . 127 patter 64steps have Audiorealism to programming , that is unbeleavable . Tb-303 have 8 pattern a 16steps , but a verygood way to manipulate the patterns, unbeleavable and don`t forget the 2Fx and You kann switch between the fx
Phoscyon2 for me. Never used the Roland TB303 plugin before but I have owned 3 real TB303's over the years. With ABL, although an adequate replication, I found it to sound too digital at some frequencies.. However I've been loving the sound of Phoscyon2 and for $25, you can't go wrong! Good test though.
Abl 3 for the win ( and not just because it sounds louder). I like phoscyon a lot but it’s because of how it sounds with the effects added rather than the pure 303 sound.
I dislike your comparison video. Premake and gainmatch all three plugin loops, and remove your voice comments. There is so much time in between the audio, where you state the obvious, you forget how the sound was. A neutral compare, with maybe some text to let people know with plugin can be heard is enough.
They all sound great - but to my ears the original Roland 303 sounds most authentic, of course all the other features make a huge difference in functionality. Having said all that I know for sure that on a dancefloor in a mix with everyone getting into their acid grooves not one single person will give a flying damn what machine is getting them off, just like most other softsynths - it's the music and the groove that is king and the rest is just fluff - just my two cents !
Agree! This right here! 💯
Pls gain stage the plugins the next time after showcasing the volume differences. Helps then to focus on the actual sound. And some more direct jumps between the synths with no talking, for better comparison.
Besides that, great video. Super cool that you do these proper comparisons!
the roland is crash happy in studio one . the d16 has the best sound although not exactly authentic but has a ton of great features . im going with d16
ABL3 sounds best for me. more analog, more pressure, warm, thx for the comparison
Should really have tried gain matching them a bit better, as your reaction to the sound is sometimes influenced by it just being louder imo.
The Roland TB303 sounds best to me, mainly because it allows you to push the resonance more without it sounding harsh. It all depends what you want out of your acid noises, but for me I like a more authentic sound like the Roland vst.
You say you prefer ABL as it sounds "creamier", which i think it basically the increased mid range, but once you add your distortion fx, this ends up sounding a bit too "boxy" in comparison to Roland's.
In future I suggest pre-making your examples, bouncing them down and normalizing them, as you will be able to hear the differences better.
Aceeeeeed!
I wanted to like D16 best, but unfortuneately it was the Roland that sounded best to me.
Me too, because I would then just buy the whole D16 ``silver box bundle`` and it would be more affordable. But I'm more accostumed to the ABL, which I have used a lot in the past (older version). So I'm really on the fence here.
It seems to me that the Phoscyon 2 sounds a lot harsher and less warm than the other two. I was about to buy it but I'm not so sure now. Perhaps I'll stick with my ABL 3.
You can still demo and trial it. I suggest you give it a try first and decide then
I have the Phosyon2 & I have to say I would hardly consider the differences. Tho I would like the get the Roland plugin for the times I want the more authentic sound. BUT... I'm not signing up to a subscription service for one plugin.
so the ABL3 would be the next option.
but if you have the ABL3 then up to you. but I love the phosyon!
@@fallenleaf24 I bought Phoscyon 2 and I love it! I also got Arturia's Acid V and that's great too. I prefer Phoscyon 2 even though both that and D16's other great synth - Lush 2 - make my i9 12900HX with 32GB RAM struggle sometimes.
@@TheValueOfN nice I love mine too!
Tho I do want a more authentic version fo 4th sake of it xD
but the Phosyon is so good that I have never actually brought any other xD
wow this is such good stuff. thanks for this in depth comparison. Phoscyon has been pushing hard on youtube, most people I follow talk about it now, but this unbiased video shows actual numbers and the actual reality, as well as discussing all the alternatives. thanks again
Thank you for watching and glad you found it useful! 🙏
i also got all three of them, soundwise i think abl3 comes closest, but phoscyon 2 has the best workflow and it is a bit more squelchy but i like the low end of audiorealism better.
Agree, & thanks for watching!
ABL have all the effects on board for creating right from the box? No..so there no a way of the best 303 here like Phoscyon 2
@@NatLifeSounds does the original 303 have that?
@@robinsharepointblog haven't, but "acid out from the box" vs original and cables troubles/delay through midi troubles and other not comfort things. Depends from what you need.
Roland is the Best to my ears. Closest to the original
Great comparaison video thx !
I'd like to add my .02 cent to everyone saying "Every TB-303 (original hardware) sounds different".
Well that's both true and false.
They sound different because the internal pots are not at the exact same value, but if you open the silver box and set all pots to the same value every 303 will sound the same.
Sure it's analog components so different parameters could affect the sound (age, dust, heat) but it's barely noticeable after all even if played alone without any effect.
All this "all hardware sounds different" is a myth. I owned 6 different TB-303 (unmodified) and they all sound the same when internal pots at the same value.
Thanks for watching! 😊Ah, unfortunately I never had the real thing so I can't comment much about it, and thank you for that info, that actually makes a lot of sense!
Roland is the most accurate (no surprise as they model the circuitry itself not just a standard dsp approximation) but that also means some of less appealing features of the original 303 are preserved, huge loss of bottom at high resonance, ott accent gain and so on.
🇵🇱 Phoscyon2 🇵🇱 Composition and workflow End Boss. Period. No one original Tb-303 sounds identical anyway and in a DAW you will EQ and gain stage your basslines anyway. Screw Roland Cloud.
Haha Roland cloud need a complete make over, it has the potential but the workflow is very outdated and missing any innovation
@@RandomNoiseMusic They refuse to re-issue the original hardware Tb-303. Continuing making bad hardware and software clones of your own hardware 😂 How hard can making profitable business decisions be when you are sitting on those golden eggs? Original , re-issued hardware Tr-808 Tr-909 Sh-101 Tb-303 JUST TAKE MY MONEY Domo arigato.
True! And they also killed Rebirth! Reason Studios (Propellerheads back then) had to discontinue it because of their request! I do still appreciate and admire their contribution to electronic music, but they indeed made a few ass moves..
There always seems to be a lot of hate against Roland Cloud. I can understand how people do not like the licensing mechanism but considering that you can buy lifetime keys and that there are a lot of other plugin manufacturers that require some kind of periodic online connection to enforce licensing, I do not see how Roland is particularly evil in that regard. I would also agree that the user interface of many of the Legendary series soft synths is unnecessarily clunky and tends to look updated, but at least these UIs are resizable, something that a lot of manufacturers still fail to offer. And as far as sound is concerned - to me still the most important aspect of a synth - all the plugins from the Legendary series sound great and really close to the originals. So, if you want that sound, it's a great offering.
The main reason why Phoscyon sounds so much different is the "Plain TB303" calibration preset (the hidden menu in the upper right) has the high pass filter at 50% for some reason, where it's at 0% by default on the abl3 (Not sure about Roland, but I'm guessing if it has a HP it's also at 0 by default). Thats why the low end was so weak and the mids/highs were so harsh on Phoscyon here. If you turn the second yellow knob (C21/22) all the way to the left it sounds MUCH more like the other 2. It's still different, but sounds 100x better. Personally, I think the Roland sounds the most authentic, the ABL3 sounds the most pleasant when solo'd, and the Phoscyon has by far the best workflow and sequencer. The Phoscyon sounds the least authentic, but it's probably my favorite honestly - In a mix with additional processing and effects the differences are less apparent, and I find it cuts through a bit better. All 3 have pros and cons for sure.
Which one is your favorite? 🧐
As you said, you really can not go wrong with any choice of these. When you use it in a mix with insert effects, even with D16's distorsions all of them sounds great. I also love the pure sound of my own-build RE-303, but that is not a plugin, not so easy to shape it's sound. But sometimes it is just fun to hear it's purity. I love 303. I also loved ReBirth RB-338 back in the days
Thanks for this comparison!
I wonder if test is made correctly, the Phoscyon 2 sounds terrible, harsh with no low end(5:56 to 6:40), opening the filter.
Are there any setting you've missed enabled, low cut filter? Otherwise this is a dealbreaker for me, I was so close a purchase of the Phoscyon 2.
The Roland and the ABL3 sounds very good when open up the cut off filter. Though, the Roland is volume weak, or imbalanced volume wise when filter is opened.
ABL3 seems to have a volume compensation, which I believe is a good thing, who wants an overwhelming percieved volume raise when opening the filter?
I recorded the three ones from your video, interesting wave forms.
I have no experience with hardware 303, fyi. And don't care much about the plugins being true to the original hardware or not.
Listened with studio pro headphones.
Thank you for watching and the comment! As I mentioned in the video, it is more then possible that my comparison had some flaws, specially with the phoscyon settings. I am not considering myself as an expert at all, and was just trying to give a clue of how they sound together. Interesting point on the waveforms, I will try to record them clean again and compare their form shape as well, will be interesting to see that too
Also I think you should get the trial and demo it to make better decision if you should get it or not. I think its an excellent plugin that offer a lot regardless and in any case
@@RandomNoiseMusic I would very much appreciate a redo of the comparison with the same sequencer pattern opening up the cut off filter(without "... saw square is highpass filtered by default..." , Ward de jager, in Phoscyon 2), and automate the opening of the filter for consistency? Before ending of the intro offer of D16 at PB?
@@RandomNoiseMusic I'm not interested in signing up for an account and install just for a try.
@@RandomNoiseMusic Is ABL 3 easy, visually, to program the sequencer as the Phoscyon 2 seems to be? ABL3 running smoothly in FL?
I wonder if you put the Phoscyon through Metaplugin and oversampled it x8, then added Soothe2 to catch the nasty resonances it would smooth the high resonant peaks out. The thing about the real 303 hardware, especially if you had a good one, was that even at the most extreme resonant peaks, it still sounded so organic, like audible lightening. So far, no software has come close to that 'living' sound. Shame Roland won't re-issue the TB-303 given RE-303 have shown it's clearly possible to make them super cheap and charge a fortune. Many would pay.
How on Earth do you lighten audio? Or is it that perhaps you meant lightning?
Thanks for this comparison, very interesting indeed. While both Phoscyon 2 and ABL3 sound great as instruments in their own right, I found that they are quite "off" in many respects when it comes to sounding like an actual 303. Both (and the ABL3 in particular) sound like they are already compressed and somewhat distorted. When working with a 303, you typically work with compressors a lot, and more often than not you will add some kind of additional saturation/distortion. I actually enjoy this because it allows me to shape the sound exactly how I want it to be, which is why I prefer the more unprocessed sound of the Roland plugin. Also, both ABL3 and Phoscyon 2, at the extreme knob positions, produced some weird sounds, which - while interesting in their own way - did not sound like something you would hear from an actual 303. Doesn't mean ABL3 and Phoscyon 2 sound "worse" - just less accurate. Both probably have a lot more sound design potential than the Roland version, but for accuracy, Roland ACB (as found in TB-03 and this plugin) is still the best digital model in my opinion.
Thanks for watching and the great points! I did feel like and even mentioned it in the video that the Roland Cloud version sounds more close to the original but I wasn't able to articulate that like what you wrote here 🙌
ALB3 wins hands down. No questions
Maybe a limiter on the master bus might have helped reduce volume discrepancies
Phoscyon. I don’t even want hardware anymore. It’s sounds just as good if not better and the sequencer. Oh my… it reminds me of my first ever program on my PC Rebirth. I was able to figure it out without any issues in 90s so it is speak for itself. It easy to use but very powerful and entertaining at the same time. And the fact I can drag and drop sequence to midi… oh my. D16 reinvented the wheel here. Great job. Also D16 is respectable company so I can be sure it will be supported and updated for years to come.
its a no brainer right
i would love a decent emulation of the tr606 without the crashing of the roland cloud stuff . roland cloud is also cpu heavy. really over the top imo
@@davidsiemens6748 The D16 Nithonat is available for € 99.
@@th3soundmachinz hey man thanks . Gonna invest next month
@@davidsiemens6748 in my opinion you should try the demo out first. I'm going to do the same
@@th3soundmachinz if its the same quality as the silver line and other stuff they do I would buy it blindly . Just can't stand roland cloud stuff . Expensive emulations of cheap discontinued gear that dosnt warrant an ilok
@Random Noise In your opinion. Which one do you prefer out of all of the emulations?
In the video I said that I like the ABL3 sound better, but ever since I got Phoscyon 2, I have to admit I use it more than the other two because of the extra feature and awesome step sequencer. So as of now Phoscyon 2 is my favorite I guess haha
@@RandomNoiseMusic yeah, I got Phoscyon 2 and so far it's really good! Love the synth 👌🏾
Don't forget there is also the Xhun audio version.. would be nice if ABL Pro was updated
I can’t understand why you could not figure out here that the Phoscyon 2 output volume was set too high and was mostly clipping throughout the comparison? Anyone could see in the meter! LOL
I remember first getting into the acid sounds and basically got hooked into making music with synths on the very first iMac when using the original version 1 of Rebirth and the 338 synth. Maybe try that in a comparison.
Same here! I had the windows version back then, but Rebirth was mind blowing to me and I still remember it greatly! Too bad they had to discontinue it because of legal issues with Roland though. I did try a while ago to make a Reason combinator in memory of Rebirth 😄 czcams.com/video/2KikKQJE_2c/video.html
you just knew something was wrong with Propellerheads when they discontinued Rebirth....they had no care how much we loved the thing.....and still don't to this day.
I miss my old mixes running Mac OS 8.6 to have a sort of bug but feature that the OS would allow multiple instances of rebirths to run at the same time. I even downloaded and had rebirth on my 2nd gen iPod touch. I wish I left those devices frozen in time without updating.
THE one real and only test of VSTi is , IF ALL parameter on LFO movement - same automation and then show how is the CPU sucks and how is the sound under REAL live , with completely automation of all parameters + pitch etc , I meaning ALL parameters !
Bad comparison because
1 you didn't say which model you used in abl3 ( latest update has 5 models )
2 phoscyon 2 saw square is highpass filtered by default , turn the second yellow encoder to the left to bring back the bass
You can Phoscon 2 almost sound like ABl3 model 1 engine but you need to tweak the trimmers
Why even make a video without any understanding of the trimmers ?
THat being said , I think phoscyon 2 is a huge improvement over the previous one but I still prefer ABL 3.
ABL3 still remains the king of 303 software emulations
Hey, first of all, thank you for taking the time to watch this and leave your comment, appreciate that 👍
1 You are right about my mistake not to mention the model used in ABL3 and not showing the setup of the settings, so point taken.
2 To be honest I trusted D16 suggested presets to set it up to the plain TB303, but I did mention at 15:29 to correct me in the comments in case I got something wrong, so thanks for highlighting this fact about that knob, I will check it out.
Now, "why even make a video without understanding of the trimmers?" why not? :) There it nothing wrong in doing things and learning from it in my opinion. I don't proclaim myself to be an expert on any of the subjects I talk about, this is just a hobby and sharing opinions. I wanted to try to test it out as a user, and share my experience in doing so. But again thanks for the constructive feedback, it helps to learn from each other in the community 🙏
Agree on the last statements, version 2 is indeed a huge improvement and the workflow and features are probably the best among the 3 in my opinion. I do as well prefer the ABL3 in terms of sound, but its great that we have all these options nowadays and like I said in the video I really think you can't go wrong with any of the 3 :)
@@RandomNoiseMusic Well said.
Thanks for the comparison! I think ABL3 is a king here if you want to get as close as possible to the original 303
6:30 . you hear at the psycon more pre reverb, that give you the feeling of more resonanz
ABL2 is the real Hammer . simple tip
All good but the Roland has a more accent flow that’s very original
I like Roland version much better, by a long shot.
TB303 ist am weitesten vorne , in Bezug auf den internen sequenzer - man kann switchen zwischen Scale des Pattern und die Richtungen / MODE - sehr simple - Kenne Kein anderes Gerät das so einen guten Sequenzer hat . Ideal für psy trance . Der nächste unschlagbare aspekt der Tb 303 versteckt sich hinter dem Panel- Die 2 FX lassen sich automatisieren , das heist Fx1 und Fx2 beinhalten etwa 5 FX je FX1 und Fx2 und diese lassen sich switchen . Eine Note mit Delay , eine Note mit Chorud oder flanger , metall oder overdrive oder tube etc - sehr geil für psytrance !
ABL3 3.1 ist ohne Fx , also Roh , aber man hat 3 OSC Modes und die haben Feuer . Insgesammt die Bessere Wahl .
ABL2 ist der Hammer , weils Drive und Distortion on Board hat (reverb , delay , flanger , fx allgemein kann man eh zumischen per aux oder als insert , von daher die Beste WAHL bezüglich Sound ;-)
psycon hört ihr selber , es verschönert . Wenn ihr also etwas über paralell fx , pre fx und so wißt , ist die Abl immer noch die coolste Maschine . Sehr stabil ;-)
21:54min it is not right , that psycon better for leads , beacause it is in the color higher . The Eq trick is a hand automation or adsr or lfo movement of Peak or Shelf Eq Frequences , so that you have wuffff and next beat you have no bass , but more middle frequency , and than again whufff bass etc - if the color from psycon to high, than you use the Eq trick . it is the Hammer if the movement of Eq passing some other Eq peaks or shelfs +3 and +3 = +6 ;-) db , if you push some frequency of the Spectrum of the sound.
The first ask is , is the sound of the machine good ? and psycon is the machine , who is DASH Glitch using for his tracks .
I have roland full and audiorealism full and find , roland and audiorealism have Hammer sound.
If I see psycon , it looks more like a sh101 with all the parameters , what it make it to a synthesizer machine , who her SAW or square sounds like a 303 . I don`t need a psycon , the ABL2 or ABL3 or ABL Pro are all better than psycon . 127 patter 64steps have Audiorealism to programming , that is unbeleavable . Tb-303 have 8 pattern a 16steps , but a verygood way to manipulate the patterns, unbeleavable and don`t forget the 2Fx and You kann switch between the fx
Arturia Acid V all the way
🤘
Phoscyon2 for me. Never used the Roland TB303 plugin before but I have owned 3 real TB303's over the years. With ABL, although an adequate replication, I found it to sound too digital at some frequencies.. However I've been loving the sound of Phoscyon2 and for $25, you can't go wrong! Good test though.
@tyblu were did you find the Phoscyon2 for $25 ?
@@1BorisRoss it was an offer from d16 themselves via email because I had already purchased the first Phoscyon previously.
@@Tyblubearboy ah ok thanks. Good deal tho 😁
💪very thanks
Abl 3 for the win ( and not just because it sounds louder). I like phoscyon a lot but it’s because of how it sounds with the effects added rather than the pure 303 sound.
ABL3
I dislike your comparison video. Premake and gainmatch all three plugin loops, and remove your voice comments. There is so much time in between the audio, where you state the obvious, you forget how the sound was. A neutral compare, with maybe some text to let people know with plugin can be heard is enough.
Thanks for the feedback. I do acknowledge that it wasn’t the best comparison. Now make one and show me how it is done better :)
@@RandomNoiseMusic lol