Acid techno is a genre of
techno that developed out of late 1980s Chicago
acid house. Acid house was essentially house music made with a specific sound, obtained by using very distinctive instruments created mainly by
Roland, such as the
TB-303 for bass and lead sounds, and the
TR-909 and
TR-808 for percussion.
Acid specifically refers to the use of the Roland
TB-303, or any other synthesizer designed to emulate its unique sound. While modern electronic instruments have memory banks of different sounds or
patches, these machines had to be manually set by adjusting control knobs. The
acid sound was obtained by either setting these controls to extreme parameters, or manipulating these controls in real-time as the track was being recorded, something record producers would call
tweaking.