Free ReBirth RB-338 Clone Released

Bittersweet news for those into classic music software but against AI proliferation - this new Propellerheads Rebirth recreation is said to be bit-perfect, free, and comes with identical audio output to 1000s of songs exported from the original software.

A huge step forward for software synthesis, the original RB-338 was truly iconic and genuinely game changing - giving users a 303, 808 and 909 to jam with on their computers way back in 1998. This new version certainly sounds decent from the demos, in spite of a slightly bland - dare I say generic looking interface. It's good to have it back but you might feel a bit dirty afterwards.. 

Here's an archive of other RB-338 software and songs https://www.peff.com/rebirth/ - the maker of this new version has got a song collection and mod collection they are now hosting, with various sites attributed.
  

OpenRB-338 is a reimplementation of ReBirth RB-338, the 1997 software synth of two TB-303 bass lines, a TR-808 and a TR-909, for today's macOS, Linux and Windows.

Features

• Sounds exactly like the original. The audio engine was rebuilt from ReBirth 2.01 to the bit. A song's exported loop equals the original's "Export Loop as Audio File" byte for byte. This is tested on 1,268 songs of the song collection, 531 of them on 43 third-party mods, and on a 175-render reference corpus.
• The whole machine on screen: the two 303s, the 808 and the 909, the mixer, the delay, distortion, PCF and compressor, with pattern and song mode, the loop, shuffle and recording.
• A scalable vector-graphics panel that stays sharp at any window size and pixel density.
• Songs: opens ReBirth 2.x songs (.rbs, RBS 4.0 to 4.2) and ReBirth 1.x songs, and saves RBS 4.2 files that the original opens. File > Info shows and edits the song's title, text, web page and copyright.
• Mods: plays the drum samples of ReBirth mods (.rbm), chosen per song, with the mod's startup sound. The standard kit is built in, so no file of the original is needed.
• Audio export of the loop to WAV, FLAC or Ogg Vorbis.
• Plays from the computer keyboard: program the synths and select patterns without a mouse (Help > Keyboard Shortcuts).
• orb, a command-line tool, to work with songs and mods from the terminal:
  • orb render: render a song's loop to WAV, FLAC or Ogg, far faster than real time (a five-minute song takes about a second and a half);
  • orb play: play a song without the UI;
  • orb info: print a song's facts (format, title, mod, tempo, loop), also as JSON;
  • orb mod: recrypt mods, and unpack a mod to a folder or pack one from it.
• Packages for macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), Windows (x64 and ARM64) and Linux (x86_64 and ARM64).

Not implemented

• MIDI, VST and ReWire. OpenRB-338 is a standalone application only, with no MIDI input or sync.
• Mod themes: a mod changes the drum sounds, not the look of the panel.
• The original's Edit menu functions on patterns (copy, paste, clear, shift, randomize and the like), and undo.
• The original's preferences and its Windows menu.
• Export to AIFF (use WAV, FLAC or Ogg).

Get the program here: https://github.com/pingw33n/openrb-338

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