Critical Reception
ReBirth was an early software synthesizer, pioneering this class of instruments along with Cubase, Cakewalk, Digital Performer, and Reality in the mid-1990s. The sound quality during live playback (as opposed to saving the generated sound to disk), assuming that the CPU could cope with the sampling rate, was imposed by the quality of the sound card.
The software emulates two monophonic bass synthesizers with filters, two analog drum machines, effects, other filters, and patterns simultaneously, also processing and sending MIDI messages. This suggests highly optimized programming on Propellerhead's account, contrasting with extremely CPU- and soundcard-demanding modern soft synths and plug-ins.
Some enthusiasts have criticized ReBirth's software emulation of the TB-303 as being an inferior copy of the genuine sound. Such criticism is common to many software synths that emulate analog synthesis (which the TB-303 featured), due to the reputedly inimitable sound of analog synthesis, and quality degraded by low-end sound cards. Despite this, Roland contacted Propellerhead Software to give it an unofficial thumbs up, which Propellerhead considered to be the Roland seal of approval.
Read more about this topic: ReBirth RB-338
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