Would you sell Polysix, Mono/Poly and Moog Prodigy for the Ensoniq Mirage ???

[Roland_McDonald]

Well, this guy did.

 

"Kent freely admits that he himself fell prey to the allure of sampling when it first became popular. "I remember hearing the Kate Bush single with the broken glass sample ['Babooshka']. The concept that someone was producing that by pressing a key was like magic. The keyboard player might as well have had a top hat, a cape and a waxed moustache. A lot of people were taken by that. I sold my whole collection — a [Korg] Polysix, Mono/Poly, [Moog] Prodigy, Roland MC202 sequencer and CR78 drum machine — to a dealer for £275, to put down the deposit for an Ensoniq Mirage. In hindsight, 20 years later you have that 'doh' moment when you realise the Mirage is worth 50 quid and the Prodigy alone is getting on for a grand.”

 

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun13/articles/kent-spong.htm

 

I bought mirage not long ago, sold it after a week, made $50 from it. Couldn't find any floppies for it. Nice sounding synth though, if you find the samples.

[OPEN OCEAN]

never thought gear as prices but how valuable are to my pleasure creating music and for others to hear

[JeffLearman]

Back when it came out, perhaps. Today, heck no! The Mirage is a dated sampler. Anything it can do can be done better by more modern keyboards. The others are analog or digitally-controlled analog, and each has signature sounds. (The sequencer and drum machine, no big loss.)

 

Regardless, I agree with Ocean. Instruments are rarely good investments. If you'd spent that money on Apple stock rather than keyboards, what would it be worth today? But you can't play Apple stock for squat.

[WeiserSound]

In this case though, the current prices do seem to correspond with current usefulness. Those analog boards are full of rich character, with hard to emulate imperfections. While the 8-bit samplers of yesteryear *did* indeed have some character (especially a gem like Kate's Fairlight), I don't think you'll find many players who would rather have the Mirage over the synths you sold.

 

I still feel tangilble pain when I think of the mountains of Mellotrons, Clavs, electric pianos and analog synths that were discarded in favor of 8/12 bit samplers, D-50s and DX7s back in the 80s! This kind of thing has always happened in other areas of life - old towns that covered historic buildings with crappy siding in the 50s-60s, classic handmade wooden cabinets ripped out of homes in the 70s in favor of formica laminate and fake wood paneling, etc. It is the way of things.

[Mmmmqac]

I sold my whole collection — a [Korg] Polysix, Mono/Poly, [Moog] Prodigy, Roland MC202 sequencer and CR78 drum machine — to a dealer for £275, to put down the deposit for an Ensoniq Mirage.

That is hilarious, I really did laugh out loud.

 

I bought mirage not long ago, sold it after a week, made $50 from it. Couldn't find any floppies for it. Nice sounding synth though, if you find the samples.

 

What's the going price for a Curtis filter chip these days? The Mirage had eight of them, and as an ex-Mirage owner, I can say those filters sounded very good. I was about to say that you could probably make a bit by selling just the chips, but now I am thinking that a Mirage would make a great starting point for a hacker project: Rip out the slow 8-bit digital PCBs, keep the analog boards, keyboard and power-supply, and take it from there.

We can rebuild him, better, faster, stronger than before