THE WILL SYSTEMS' MAB-303

MAB 303 picture

The doc said :

MAB-303 was designed to emulated TB-303 and MINIMOOG style synhesizers. The MAB-303 is a VCO monophonic bassline synthesizer with an original MIDI interface. Dimension : Half Rack 1U (Black chassis).

Features :

Front panel knobs : tunning, cutoff freq, resonance, env mod, accent, volume/power
Front panel switches : VCO shape, function 1, function 2, increment, decrement
Front panel display : 2 digits led display

Rear pannel connectors : midi in, midi thru, audio out

I heard the sound of the MAB-303 on a demo CD, it's very bassy, the main problem is the Q, which doesnt seems to get high enough, check this carefully before buying ...

Retail price : $699.95, Dr SOUND price : $499.95


Here is a review by Darwin Grosse (ddg@execpc.com):


I have a loaner MAB-303 sitting on my desk right now.  Having had a 303
until recently, I feel OK to review it.

Physically:
-----------
1/2 rack space, flat black finish.

Front panel controls:
Waveshape: saw/square/pulse
Cutoff (of filter)
Q (Resonance)
EnvMod (of filter)
Decay (of envelope)
Accent
Volume/Power
Two buttons to control MIDI and functions
A two character display

Back Panel controls/connections:
Tuning knob
One output
MIDI in and thru
power connector for wall wart

Various functions:
------------------

Err, my loaner didn't come with a manual, so I'm sort or lost here.  There are the
obvious options for MIDI channel, velocity responce and the like.  There are also
functions for slide time (which is implimented by sending MIDI CC#65 controls) and
other options that I don't ken right now.

My Impression:
--------------

It's cool, in a hacked 303 kind of way.  The thing I didn't like about the
real 303 was the music I made -- I would get lured into sitting on a
pattern much longer than I'd
like.  Trance-y?  Yes.  Compositional?  No.

Don't flame me, folks -- it's just my personal preferences here...

Sound is pretty much dead-on.  Biggest piss-me-off?  The front panel
controls do not send MIDI controls, and those functions do not generally
respond to MIDI controls.  Hence, I'm sequencing the thing in Logic Audio,
then recording the front panel controls to an audio track.  I'd much rather
have MIDI control over all functions.

Future Music:
-------------

Basically, they gave it a so-so call, prefering the BassStation for its 'do more', and
the Syntechno TeeBee for its additional functionality.

303 emulation rating : 6/10