Roland TB-303 Devil Fish w/ MIDI in Aluminum Case

via this auction

"Serial #178, Version v.4.0B

In December 2003 I purchased my very first TB-303 via Peter Forrest’s VEMIA auction, it was immaculate and functionality perfect. In the next couple of years I purchased several TB’s, but it was clear that the first was the nicest, and so, in 2005, I sent it off to Robin Whittle to undergo the Devil Fish treatment.

In a stroke of luck, I happened to be lucky enough to acquire one of the revered and totally gorgeous alu cases that Martin Rothlisberger designed in his spare time and sent this to Australia so that Robin could built the Devilfish into it.

The fitment into the case is a very tricky affair, they are carved from solid blocks of aluminium by a computer, and thus super accurate; the problem lies in the TB itself, which hailing from the 80’s is not so accurate! Some of the potentiometer positions can subtly vary, and there are other pitfalls, for example the wires can get pinched in different places. This TB has been fitted to the highest standards possible. There are crazy aspects to it, like 2 by 2 carbon fibre washers, an even larger capacity lithium battery than the one Robin uses as stock for the bank memory back up and the rear of the case attaches via precision machined titanium bolts. It’s a functioning piece of design / art.

Robin strikes me as the classic genius engineer and in implementing the modification, I guess his priority is in making sure everything works, not necessarily whether it looks beautiful. As a result, I have expertly implemented a host of cosmetic amendments myself to make things like the LED’s shine more attractively, the knobs sit at a comfortable height and, perhaps most practically, I have implemented a delightfully simple but important idea that buffers the main PCB board, in the event that the machine ever falls face flat, which due to the design by Roland, does leave the machine quite susceptible to a cracked PCB. Some of the ideas I have shared with Robin (to his interest!), others I have not as yet, but I suspect he and other TB enthusiasts would find them interesting, if not a touch obsessive :-)

As the numerous pedantic personal touches might indicate, I never foresaw parting with this machine, but am contemplating it primarily for two reasons, I have another Devil Fish (non MIDI version) so I wouldn’t miss this one all that much, principally I am interested to acquire something entirely different for my studio, which would entail raising the necessary funds.


Long description:
Ok so if you’ve read the short version and would like to know more, then please continue. First up a bit more about the alu cases, you can learn more about them here www.acid.ch. Martin Rothlisberger of Switzerland is a self confessed TB obsessive, and started to make these cases several years ago. They are absolute works of art, however since he is employed full time and a musician / DJ, he could only devote what spare time he had into manufacturing the cases for others and subsequently not many at all have ever escaped from his vicinity; I think a sum total of about 30 alu cases exist out there, of which this one is number 28. As it stands today, I believe Martin is carrying a waiting list, but it is probably longer than my arm, and I really can’t foresee him significantly ramping up efforts into production anytime soon, which is a shame because they are truly marvellous creations.

The cases themselves are made from two halves of solid blocks of aluminium, that are then machined by a (CNC) computer that uses CAD information that Martin would have programmed over a number of hours I best not contemplate. The process is so accurate, it can engrave a line thinner than a strand of human hair without leaving any scratches, pretty impressive! I acquired this case via a seller in Italy who grew tired of having his Devilfish as a standalone unit, and wanted to instead have it rackmounted. I saw my acquisition of it as a small coup, the only downside was that the case was electric blue in colour with grey infilling of the engraved lettering; not exactly to my tastes. And so came another coup – through a stroke of luck, Martin agreed to set aside some time in his super hectic schedule and offered to reanodise the case, if I sent it back to him. Of course, I did!

But before I did, I took the case to a CNC workshop here in London, and they charged me a pretty penny to have some additional engraving done on the rear and the back of the case. That done, it was off to Martin.

Previously, Martin had sent me a picture of a case of his that he had clear anodised and I really loved that look, so we went with that and I picked red infilling of the letters, it sounds a touch cheesy but it was an homage of sorts to the classic Terminator movie cyborg, plus of course, I wanted to tip my hat to the ‘Devil’ theme. Really, I think silver and red just go great together. I was delighted with the results once the case came back to me from Switzerland, and clearly the anodisers there were really great. I’ve yet to find a great British based one, but that’s another story for another time.

With the case done, it and my nicest stock TB-303, went off to Robin Whittle in Australia. I think that for the longest time Robin has aimed for a three week turnaround, but I was unlucky enough to catch him at a time he was moving house. Having moved house a year ago myself, I know first hand how chaotic it can be. In short, I was left waiting near enough a whole year while Robin slowly unpacked his life and cleared his backlog, but of course, it was totally worth it.

It is worth me mentioning that along with the ‘works’ fee to have the TB-303 transformed into a MIDI Devil Fish, Robin charged me separately for two things, firstly with great care, I had tracked down some lovely diffused white LED’s. Most white LED’s are hyperbright and not diffused, these were, but were still a touch too bright and so Robin had to reengineer the TB-303 drive electronics to power them correctly. I feel this was really worth it though,a s they look absolutely stunning in pictures and more so in person. Secondly I had to pay for Robin’s time towards fitment of the machine inside the alu case, which is, shall we say, very tricky and extremely time consuming, particularly as the Devil Fish electronics leaves even less room for manoeuvre in an already overcrowded environment. Consequently great care has to be observed when squeezing everything inside, it’s really fiddly.

How do I know this? Well...... that is a long story in itself and I’ll try to concisely relay it here for your benefit.

It was a very happy day when the box from Robin landed on my doorstep, and while everything worked perfectly, I quickly identified a few niggling problems. The one that bothered me the most was that I had found that the knobs for 3 of the upper 6 control potentiometers would scrape significantly against the alu case when rotated – damned and blast! It’s worth noting that the same phenomena can be observed on stock TB-303 cases, but since they’re plastic, I just think the grinding effect is just audibly less severe sounding.

The second problem concerned the way in which two LED’s functioned. Part of the Devil Fish modification involves an additional ‘gate’ LED that normally shines through the ‘e’ on Robin’s polycarbonate sticker that attaches to the original TB-303 case. This LED does not poke through the case, however, on Martin’s alu cases, there is a 3mm hole purposefully placed with this LED in mind. On the machine in question however, the LED fell several millimetres short of poking through the hole in the alu case and this bothered me quite immensely. This was however certainly not sloppy workmanship, it all had to do with the way Robin implemented the functionality of yet another nearby LED – a blue hyperbright one designed to indicate the varying MIDI states of the machine, Robin decided to have this LED shine through the gate LED at 90 degrees. I’m sure that ordinarily, this idea works perfectly well, however since the alu case is littered with several machined openings, I found that the MIDI blue LED, when active, would literally light up the internal circuitry and I wasn’t so fond of that phenomena at all.

I discussed these matters with Robin, ever the gentleman, and he was the voice of reasoning; if I recall correctly, he said something like these things are to be expected for a handmade case and modification, likewise administered by hand. Of course these were largely cosmetic issues that did not impair functionality at all. Be that as it may, for want of a better expression, my OCD was not placated. I was really averse to sending the machine out of the UK again, having waited so long to get it back and so thought about opening the case myself to perform the necessary adjustments. It was less daunting than you might think, since I of course took apart the case when I originally acquired it. At that point of course it was a mere empty shell,. but I knew exactly how it snapped together and had previously opened up my other Devilfish (in an original Roland case) so certainly felt up to the task.

To curb the issue of the knobs scraping against the case, I resoldered the potentiometer lipped brackets. This is utterly simple to do, but really time consuming to get it right. After many hours of tinkering, I was pleased to find the upper six knobs no longer scraped the case whilst rotating.

With regards to the gate and MIDI LEDs with the machine open, a rather bright idea popped into my head – I wondered if the case afforded me enough clearance such that I could have the gate LED pass through the hole in the case leaving sufficient room to slip the MIDI one directly below it. As luck would have it, it was a perfect fit – woohoo! The cherry on top was in wraping the pair of LED’s, first in white heatshrink, to encourage reflection, and then in black to contain any spillage of light. The images below will tell the story far more eloquently, but suffice to say it was a sublime solution and even Robin was impressed to learn of it.

Before I buttoned the machine back together again, I figured it was a good opportunity to tend to anything else and amidst these thoughts, I discovered that the next size up Varta lithium battery for pattern memory back up purposes could squeeze into the available space. It affords just that bit more capacity, and therefore, hopefully that much more longevity with retention of pattern memory. Seeing as this is my first mention of actual electronics, I should mention that I am by no means an amateur at electronics, so you’ll be pleased to hear that the battery’s flying leads were covered in PTFE sleeving, red for the positive terminal, black for the negative one. Necessary? Probably not (though it does remove a possibility of shorting), but that’s just how I work whenever I heat up the soldering iron :-)

Speaking of which, amidst the works, I happened across this page. When the machine was transformed by Robin, he had installed brand new replacement tact switches. Amazingly, at the time they were still made by Alps (they’re now discontinued), a nice touch, but the design remained open and unsealed and thus, over time, they would be susceptible to to dirt, dust and flakes of skin contaminating them, leading to intermittent contact, commonly known as bouncing switches. That phenomena is incredibly frustrating by the way. I also wasn’t so keen on the plastic dust guard that Robin installs. It’s a great idea, of course, but a sheet of thin plastic inside such a lovely case? I don’t know, perhaps it was my OCD rearing up again. Also, occasionally the thin plastic did make a ‘plasticky’ flex type of noise when the buttons are depressed, so I suppose there was a practical slant to what I was considering doing. And consider it I did – I ordered a set of those replacement switches from Analogue Renaissance – a completely sealed design with a touted 10 million depress operational life was just too good to miss :-) Just to touch on my electronic nerdness again, I am even a bit meticulous about the solder I use, preferring a 63 / 37 formulation made by Warton. It’s just beautiful to work with and manages to even not smell as obnoxious as other solders I have used in the past.

That done I dispensed with the plastic dust guard and then as briefly mentioned above, I had a specialist British firm manufacture some custom made 2 by 2, 2mm thick carbon fibre washers for the tempo and volume knobs and the two selector switches sandwiched between them. This was just to inject an even greater element of individuality, something different for my machine. It required a lot of subsequent machining of the little carbon fibre pieces by me, but with the washes only just visible with the knobs on, it still manages to impart a degree of sexiness to the machine in the way that only carbon fibre does.

The final chores before closing everything up were quite simple – I replaced the red and black flying leads from the main PCB leading up to the battery terminals, originally they are a really cheap PVC plastic, forever falling victim to getting pinched when the case is assembled and disassembled. As a result, I replaced them with a thicker PTFE sheathed OFC wire. Unlike PVC, PFTE leaves a slippery finish, and thus it naturally resists pinching effects. This is a good example of the kind of attention I have given this machine – the kind of thing no one would really ever notice or care for, but I did, because it was for me and I wanted something as bulletproof as possible.

I had bought some sheet PTFE (can you tell I love Teflon yet?!) at great expense, and machined little circle cut outs from it with a view to inserting them inside the upper six control knobs such that they would sit higher. Robin used to use foam inserts, then later switched to leather, principally because if during use, the user pushes down or imparts a diagonal force, it encourages the pot wipers to wear the tracks inside it. So ideally the knob inserts ought to be not too solid, but also not too soft. I personally found leather too soft, and also the idea of something organic inside my Devil Fish didn’t bode well. The PTFE sheet was a great candidate and I was very pleased with their effect. Keeping with PTFE (ok now you can really tell I love Teflon!) I had found a very clever way to ensure the knobs don’t shake loose from the pot shafts. Robin uses blu tac – something I thought was incredibly clever. But as far as I know, blu tac is derived from linseed oil, and again I felt shy to have something organic inside the machine. Through serendipity, I discovered that PTFE tape, commonly used by plumbers and available at very modest cost from electrical and hardware stores was a perfect way to hold the knobs on the pot shafts in a totally secure but non permanent way. Another really sublime solution and I plan to use it in the future anytime a knob seems at risk of shaking loose from equipment.

And yes – PFTE for the last item as well..... An item on the aforementioned Analogue Renaissance site left me cold – someone’s TB had fallen face down and the impact on the central four knobs had led to a massive crack through the main PCB board, a totally heartbreaking accident that could afflict any TB owner. Of course when Roland designed the TB-303, they did not have long terms use in mind, it was supposed to be a cost effective device, hence the original plastic case (Roland can do indestructive when they want to, case in point, the TR-808) and it really scared me to think that if I ever dropped my machine, it could fall victim to the same fate.

While the machine lay open, it seemed like a good time to think about how I might allay these concerns. If it hadn’t have been open, I would probably just be careful in day to day use. I really thought about a simple solution to this, and after pouring over electronic catalogues, the answer eventually came – I found a product called PTFE foam tape. It is really fascinating stuff – quite hard to the touch, but on impact, it squashes like plastercine or dough. Funnily enough anytime Robin installs a Devil Fish into and alu case, he does employ some custom made spacers to push the TB innards up and flush against the upper alu case half, and I figured I could do away with those and install a series of PTFE ‘tower blocks’ such that the underside of the main board PCB always had some ‘hands’ supporting them. The idea is that in the eventuality of the worst – if the machine ever falls face down, those ‘hands’ would squash and in doing so, absorb the impact instead of transmitting it directly to the fragile PCB.

Some of you reading this might be thinking this is totally overboard, and a part of me really wants to agree with you; but the harsh reality is that TB-303’s are becoming rarer by the day, and anything we can do to preserve their existence can only be a good thing. That and my mum always told me that prevention is better than cure :-)

The final cherry on the cake concerned the screws that hold the case shut, I dispensed with the originals and instead employed some beautifully machined and polished natural titanium hex bolts. It gives the rear of the case a really dramatic look and goes beautifully with the CNC machined alu case and carbon fibre accents to impart a strangely modern twist on an otherwise antique machine. I feel proud that I have contributed to this machine being a piece of functioning art, if you will.

If you’ve read this far, firstly congratulations, I am sorry to have written so much and, believe it or not, have skimped on many details that you may not know or even care about, but certainly if you end up being the high bidder, I will be open to boring you with them for as long as you care for :-) And even if you don’t win, send me a message; I enjoy conversing with fellow 303 acid addicts.

It may not surprise you to learn that much of this work was completely personal to me, depending on your POV, I am a real perfectionist / pedant and can confidently say no one but me would probably have cared to lavish the inordinate amount of hours I’ve put in towards making this machine quite simply perfect. I thought I would own it forever, but then, I quite like Robin’s idea that rather than own these wonderful machines, one rather places oneself under the care of them. If that’s true, then I am contemplating the end of that tenure, and allowing someone else the honour of being under the care of a pulsating, wailing and screaming Devil Fish.

On a less hokey token, the reason it is up for sale is because I have another Devil Fish and while having two is a pretty wild experience, I think one is okay. For sure I’ll miss it, but by the same token, I will feel pleased that someone out there will get the chance to enjoy it as much as I have. And with the funds I raise, I will wonder what ‘new voice’ I can invite into the studio, and that’s quite exciting.

It’s quite hard to suggest what this machine would be worth, but in your bidding, you may wish to keep in mind that in the present climate, the cost for a perfect condition TB-303 is about £1,200, that the ‘works’ Devil Fish modifications costs about £1,000, depending on the exchange rates, and that if one were lucky enough to acquire an alu case from Martin, it would cost about £400. And that’s before we get to the separate fee for fitment of the machine into the case, all the work I have painstakingly completed thereafter and of course the numerous shipping, customs fees and taxes – which believe me were both vast and complicated. There is also the small matter of a zero wait period – an extremely rare luxury for these machines."