In the ever evolving synthesizer industry where clones now rule the market, Roland follows suit with its latest model, the TB 303 – an abbreviation for Totally Behringer 303.
Roland had been trying to reproduce faithful replicas of their older models for ages, notably the TR 909 and TR 808, often coming close, but never 100%. They had to see other companies like Behringer take the lead while severely lacking behind themselves.
Late 2019, upper management of Roland said enough is enough. Instead of trying to clone their own models, they took competitor’s products as the basis for new releases.
The CEO of Roland described it this way: “You may be the best doctor around, but if you are sick yourself, you go to another doctor for diagnosis. As such, we shouldn’t aim to clone our own products, but we have all the in depth know-how, engineers and production facilities to faithfully clone other companies’ products.”
The first result of the new company strategy is the Totally Behringer 303
A team of 89 engineers worked for three months to reverse engineer the original Behringer unit and is proud to present the final result.
All features of the TD 3 are present in Roland’s TB 303. Ableton.Info had an exclusive opportunity to test out the new product and we must say we are impressed. We couldn’t find any flaws and the clone does sound exactly the same as the TD 3.
The Roland TB 303 will be available from online stores startng 4/1//2020