ZeroBox: Physical modelling simulation that captures all the 303 quirks
Through advanced modelling and simulation shenanigans, Xhun Audio has come up with a powerful 303 emulation that preserves all the quirk while building in some tweaks of its own.
ZeroBox
It was very important to Xhun Audio that it was about more than emulating the circuits and signal path. To do a 303 properly you had to capture all the quirks and weirdness that turned a bassline synth into a little box of magic. How have they done that? Well, who knows? Something to do with physical modelling, Advanced Component Simulations and various bits of cleverness. Suffice to say you’ll find that it works as you expect a 303 to work including various circuit bending along the way.
The sequencer has been tackled in the same way but because this is software the front end has been expanded and pulled out into a much more usable form. One could argue that the fiddliness of the original sequencer is one of the things that made the 303 so mysteriously awesome but it’s always first the thing that emulations want to improve upon.
Xhun Audio has built in a bunch of effects that are available in the front panel including a chorus, flanger, analogue modelled vacuum-tube distortion, a transistor-based distortion, a digital foldback distortion, a bit crusher, a delay and a resonator-based reverb.
All in all, ZeroBox looks like a tidy 303 plugin that will keep your Acid glands satisfied for hours.
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ZeroBox is available now as a VST and AU plugin for macOS and Windows for a special introductory price of €39.90. There’s also a trial you can download if you want to try it on for size.
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One response to “ZeroBox: Physical modelling simulation that captures all the 303 quirks”
The demo tune certainly sounds good, but 303 emulation is quite a crowded space (D16’s Phoscyon , Audiorealism’s quite expensive ABL series and probably others too), not to mention Behringer’s excellent hardware TD3 which can be found brand new for VST prices.
I’m definitely going to try the demo – but owning a real 303 since the early 90’s, my ears are well tuned to the nuances which makes the TB303 unique and I’m quite critical here, especially if a product doesn’t get the dark ‘woooah’ nuance right; the “I’m in pain with toothache” ‘woooah’ – That’s the best way I can describe it but it’s a quality often lacking in emulations.
Will report back after the weekend!