I got a MAM MB33, beautiful bassline paired with my Digitakt, I love it.
I purchased a RAT 2 with it, and while it is ok, I’m not in love with it. It seems that the drive is nothing at minimum (fine), gets useful to me at the beginning of the course, but quickly gets to a sound where changing the filter cutoff on the bassline has almost no effect.
When resonance is high, yes, but with low resonance, the signal is distorted, and cutoff isn’t much relevant.
I wonder if you people have experiences to share with distortion/overdrive for 303 like instruments.
Sendind the signal thru a DI box before the pedal significantly improved the results. It’s better to feed the RAT with a low volume signal. MXR distortion+ is nice too.
On the plugins side, I like the audio damage fuzzplus
Interesting. I don’t know much either about DI boxes. Would it serve mostly as a gain staging step? Would it be “the same” if I lower the output volume on the MB33?
On the cheap side the Boss DS-1 is a very good one, I’ve used it to great extend for some years. You just need to set the output volume of the synth about halfway in order to balance your clean tone with the distorded one in a live situation.
I recently picked up a RML Electron Fuzz, not the same budget at all but there is so many incredible sound to get out of this combo !
I tried a lot of distortions on my 303, and I always came back to the OG RAT. I know you lose accents and bass but it brings things out in the slides like nothing else I think!
Other folk love the MXR +, I had one for a bit and it’s definitely has more subtle range than the RAT. I always wanted more distortion out of it so passed it on.
I’ve never tried (but would like to) analog Renaissance/cask strength acid screamer or TSX303, both specific distortions for 303 that correct the issues of accent/slides. I think both of these are out of production though.
I can recommend this one too! Has a tone control and a CVable filter, so it‘s quite flexible to shape its character.
I‘d also recommend to somehow hit overdrive guitar pedals with a lower level, just to get the knobs into a more usable „full“ range, but that‘s been discussed above. I used a mixer inbetween for that so far.
Yes this was exactly what I wanted to say: lower the Mb33 volume. It has an internal overdrive circuit built in already and often it sounds much better to send it cleaner to the rat. I have both as well and love the combination!
This may not be exactly what you are looking for, but an iPad with the Fabfilter Saturn 2 AUv3 can take you really far for synth processing. I’ve really enjoyed the Analog Drive, MT-2, Big Muff etc, but the sound quality and versatility of Saturn 2 is phenomenal.
+1 for FabFilter Saturn on iOS. Great for the master out on a hardware setup as well. Honestly, I’d listen Saturn as a top 5 plug-in of mine easily. The range of its sonic palette for saturation, overdrive and distortion are fantastic. Not to mention it basically eliminates the need for an extra EQ plug in.
