The latest Captain Pikant video takes a look at the history of the Roland TB-303 in electronic music through 12 songs.
The video discusses some early tracks that featured the 303, and unfortunately repeats the questionable statement that Charanjit Singh ‘invented acid house’ with his album Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat.
Beyond that, thought, the examples are well-chosen and showcase the evolution in the use of the 303:
Note that the video features the Din Sync RE-303, which is essentially a unofficial full-size reissue of the 303 that should have the same sound and sequencing as an original 303. The developer recreated the PCB’s of the original 303, and uses the original parts, so the parts and boards can be used as replacement components to fix the original.
The video also touches on a variety of additional copies of the 303, and the musical examples show the programming and suggested effects for recreating the original basslines.
Check it out and share your thoughts in the comments!
There’s questionable statements, video on youtube millions of views that Kraftwerk “invented techno” …
this is wrong when anybody that’s heard Elctronic music from 1940s 1950s 1960s knows.
Synthhead what are your reasons that you have found for saying
“unfortunately repeats the questionable statement that Charanjit Singh ‘invented acid house’ with his album Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat.”
‘Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat’ is an interesting album, but it’s Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat, not acid house.
The statement that Charanjit Singh ‘invented acid house’ was made to hype an interesting, but basically forgotten, album that featured the 303.
Singh’s album doesn’t feature the distorted 303 or the 303 bassline ‘tweaking’ , though, that are iconic elements of songs like ‘Acid Tracks’ and ‘Confusion’. And, to my knowledge, Singh’s album did not influence acid house in any way.
Statements like this, and the ‘Kraftwerk invented techno’ statement, are questionable at best, and seem kind of disrespectful to the Detroit producers that actually did invent acid house and techno.
Charanjit Singh did however influence acid trance and later the goa scene, its also important to note that the early detroit scene was influenced by Kraftwerk something you’ll hear them say in many documentaries
@Sonic
Kraftwerk conveniently forget forgot to mention the enormous influence of James Brown and Funk on them.
Can hear this on Kraftwerk’s Beats Bass lines.
Whilst Kraftwerk take took the plaudits .
This would be termed cultural appropriation nowadays.
Only Karl Bartos was honest enough to say the massive influence of James Brown and Funk upon Kraftwerk.
A fine example of whataboutism, This is about acid. Show me some james brown 303 stuff
@Sonic
Lol
Let’s Drop some Aciiiid.
What what whatabout
aaah yeah
Papa’s got a brand new cloned tb303.
Synthhead that was a well measured post.
Nice one
Um Synthhead statements like “the inventors of acid house who were from Detroit” seems kind of disrespectful by your metric?
Some acid house innovators have a hard time it seems being objective on this subject which is human and understandable – we give homage and credit to the sound and name and culture being invented and nurtured but it sure is hard to listen to Singh’s work and not hear the 303s ubiquitous slides and programming nuances. Maybe it just doesn’t need to be clearly defined one can certainly be in awe of the totality.
anybody that has heard Electronic music from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s knows thats no music to dance to 😉
Awkward to have a video on THE 303 without a proper Roland TB-303.
@ LaLa
We’d break a leg trying to dance to that lol.
Could be funny Body Poppin.
DinSync is a 303
Just not labelled Roland
Hey Synthhead 🙂 We actually said “Charanjit Singh accidentally invented Acid House” (as in “not intentionally”). It was more of a humorous quip to indicate that in isolation he created something loosely resembling Acid House before that genre actually formed. In the same segment we also say “Pay attention to how the bars alternate between octave jumps and slides. Both are common ingredients of acid basslines.” which we thought would make it clear that we simply compare the track to the Acid House genre.
Nah