[HN Gopher] 303Gen - 303 acid loops generator
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303Gen - 303 acid loops generator
Author : ankitg12
Score : 150 points
Date : 2025-08-06 12:50 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (303-gen-06a668.netlify.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (303-gen-06a668.netlify.app)
| peterldowns wrote:
| Doesn't work in firefox, console tells me
|
| Uncaught TypeError: a.frequency.cancelAndHoldAtTime is not a
| function
|
| Pretty fun in Chrome!
| oasisaimlessly wrote:
| Apparently fixed mow:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44812638
| mxuribe wrote:
| Also within ungoogled chromium, upon hitting the "stop" button,
| it seems to keep playing either an additional lower-volume track,
| or some long delayed echo....but hitting the "stop" button
| several times eventually stops playback. Even still, the concept
| is pretty neat!
| driggs wrote:
| Not only does this sound excellent, with three great TB-303 synth
| engines with a colored delay, but it's very _musical_. The three
| patterns are locked to a common scale /mode, they autogenerate
| with compatible and often interleaving polyrhythms, and the
| "instruments" - bass, lead, drone - spawn with complimentary
| defaults.
|
| As a longtime synth nerd, it still amazes me to see beautiful
| tools like this running in a web browser.
|
| Excellent job!
| alisonatwork wrote:
| I agree that it's neat to have software synths that can run in
| the browser nowadays, but this isn't really a good TB-303
| emulation. The accent doesn't have a slow enough attack to
| create the "wow" effect, which is a fundamental aspect of
| getting any random acid line to sound properly 303ish. Not to
| take away from what it is, but for a synth that has been cloned
| and emulated as often as the TB-303, your description is
| overselling it a bit.
| quatonion wrote:
| Come now. Being kind is also a thing, and I think it sounds
| more than acceptable.
| driggs wrote:
| Tell me, oh wise HN caricature, do you think the _point_ was
| hardware-level emulation of a 40-year-old analogue circuit?
|
| (Hint, it's also got a variable pulse-width oscillator and an
| LFO, which the TB-303 lacked.)
| errozero wrote:
| Hey, I made this a few years ago. I'm suprised to see it posted
| here today.
|
| It was never finished and I was meaning to add a polyfill for the
| missing cancelAndHoldAtTime function for Firefox.
|
| Edit: I've just hacked in a quick polyfill
| blackhaz wrote:
| This is amazing. Thanks for making it.
| obiefernandez wrote:
| Hey if you don't mind updating this, can you please allow the
| tempo to be as high as 150 bpm?
| radley wrote:
| That might tickle your tinrib. If you want to stay up
| forever, maybe go to 160 bpm. Or even some industrial
| strength 200 bpm.
| diggan wrote:
| And also, different tempos per instrument :)
| errozero wrote:
| Hey, sure! I forgot it was limited to 130, it's been a few
| years! I've just updated it.
| errozero wrote:
| I've just updated this to make it a little bit easier to use on
| a phone. The knobs are now a bit chunkier and should respond
| better to touch and the instruments sit vertically instead of
| horizontally.
| Computer0 wrote:
| Are you interested in open sourcing? I'd love to learn about
| how this was done.
| padenot wrote:
| Sorry, I'll implement it, I had forgotten we didn't do it for
| erm... 9 years.
|
| https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1308431
| circadian wrote:
| This is really lush. Instantly it brightened up my evening.
| This kind of experimentation is always amazing to see.
|
| As many seem to have mentioned below, it brings back memories
| of Rebirth in some ways. What it also reminds me of is the
| beautiful results you could have by plugging some simple
| modules together to create soundscapes. The limits are the
| things that provide some semblance of freedom and this is no
| different. Greetings from a fellow UK acid (techno) head! :P
| djmips wrote:
| How do I export/save a pattern I like?
| errozero wrote:
| Currently, all you can do is save the url which contains all
| of the initial randomisation settings when a pattern
| generates. It doesn't update when moving sliders or anything,
| it's just the intial settings.
|
| I'll look into adding a wav export feature.
| stephenhandley wrote:
| this is awesome. would suggest not randomizing the tempo on
| regenerate, and if it was already playing, when hitting
| regenerate, keep it playing. that would make it easy to quickly
| audition loops at a given tempo with a single click
| schwartzworld wrote:
| This is great and will be an excellent source of samples
| nzoschke wrote:
| Fun. I love the UI style.
|
| See also the Endless Acid Banger:
|
| https://www.vitling.xyz/toys/acid-banger/
|
| And happy Acid August!
|
| Every year we celebrate the 303 with a club night in SF.
|
| https://ra.co/events/2208013
| lynx97 wrote:
| Oh, that is neat! Vitling also makes nice music.
|
| https://music.vitling.xyz/music
| errozero wrote:
| I wish I could attend! I'm in the UK.
| ZFH wrote:
| _cries nostalgia tears in Propellerhead Rebirth_
|
| Thanks.
| racl101 wrote:
| I remember using that one time to make music for a presentation
| for a power point slide. We burnt the music onto a CD and
| brought in a boombox. I it was for my accounting class. It was
| kinda cool.
| shibeprime wrote:
| Human Music!
| efields wrote:
| What would be the level of effort to get some midi transport
| controls and BPM sync in here, now that browsers support MIDI to
| some degree?
| serpent wrote:
| Lovely! Is the source code public?
| errozero wrote:
| No, but the timekeeping part of it is. I put that code into a
| small library to use in my music apps:
| https://github.com/errozero/beatstepper
| tempodox wrote:
| Disappointed, I thought acid loops were fruit loops dipped in
| acid (303 ug a piece?). The sound is nice, though.
| rebolek wrote:
| Where is "Export as MIDI"?
| fumar wrote:
| Export midi or realtime output midi.
| metamet wrote:
| Exporting the generated audio stems would be slick, too, rather
| than having to run capture on it.
| mtts wrote:
| Everybody needs a 303.
| leptons wrote:
| I'm a little sad that the 303 sound had such a short-lived and
| niche life. In the 90's it seemed to me like it was the first
| instrument that could challenge the hegemony of the electric
| guitar. It was so versatile - the sound is bouncy, melodic, and
| had some real "growl", all at the same time.
| jghn wrote:
| > that could challenge the hegemony of the electric guitar.
|
| IIRC when it came out in the early 80s it was intended to be
| a substitute for bass guitars. So perhaps that is part of
| your sentiment.
| kookamamie wrote:
| When clicking Regenerate, it would be great if the sequence kept
| playing if Play was active at that time.
| bityard wrote:
| Oh this is lovely! I love the 303, played with ReBirth a LOT and
| built several x0xb0xes back in the day.
|
| About half of the patterns it generated were something I could
| listen to for a while. Makes me want to get back into electronic
| music again.
| pdntspa wrote:
| It would be cool if this showed the patterns in a visual manner
| that I could copy into my 303 VST of choice
| quatonion wrote:
| It's brilliant. Love it. I want to know more about the
| generation, it looks very well thought out. Worth an article in
| itself.
| errozero wrote:
| Thank you! It's been a few years so I can't remember exactly
| without reading through the code but it's something like this:
|
| It uses notes from the selected scale and octave (from the
| dropdowns). If the pattern is of an even length, say 16, it
| will split it into 4 chunks of 4, then randomly decide if it
| should generate new data for the chunk or copy the previous
| chunk. It uses the repeat slider for the probability on this.
|
| It randomly applies the 303 modifiers (up, down, accent, slide)
| using probability set with the sliders on the pattern tab.
|
| There's also an 'empty' slider which sets the probablity of an
| empty note appearing in a chunk.
| fallinditch wrote:
| Awesome, love it! You could consider adding some randomness
| from random.org so that natural electromagnetic phenomena (or
| a supreme being) influence the output - for the pro service
| perhaps ;-)
| xxr wrote:
| Right off the bat I get something that sounds like something
| Frank Klepacki would have used in the Red Alert 2 soundtrack
| (likely pulled from Methods of Mayhem). Nice.
| nurettin wrote:
| Reminds me of the music of Dynamix (Commodore 64 game)
| racl101 wrote:
| oh yeah. I feel like I'm in the '90s again.
| fallinditch wrote:
| Check out this great album, a study in acid: Filo Loves the
| Acid by Donato Dozzy.
| bitbasher wrote:
| Does anyone have any suggestions for how to get into electronic
| music production?
|
| I am working on a small game and want to make some jungle dnb
| tracks for it.
|
| I grabbed Renoise and follow some tutorials and stuff. Is there a
| better way to go about it?
| bagful wrote:
| Learn by imitation ; if you want to make DnB tracks, try and
| inevitably fail to recreate existing DnB that you admire. With
| time your failures-to-imitate will congeal into a novel and
| personal style.
| andreyazimov wrote:
| amazing, can you please add simple 909 kit?
| octatrack wrote:
| Love it. MIDI sync and start/stop functionality would be great to
| connect it to other gear/software!
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(page generated 2025-08-06 23:00 UTC)