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Does any one think Ensoniq will ever return?


DJ RAZZ

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I wish Ensoniq would return. Granted all the original guys are gone like NASA. I would not want them to destroy their synth legacy like Emu just did. I just thought their stuff had it's own huge character and usability, the kind that makes a company in my mine part of the big three clan (you know KURZ, Roland, KORG, YAMMI) I know it is not really 3 anymore when one is looking at it this way.

 

Cheers.

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I wish Ensoniq would return. Granted all the original guys are gone like NASA. I would not want them to destroy their synth legacy like Emu just did. I just thought their stuff had it's own huge character and usability, the kind that makes a company in my mine part of the big three clan (you know KURZ, Roland, KORG, YAMMI) I know it is not really 3 anymore when one is looking at it this way.


Cheers.

I owned the VFX, SD1 and TS12. Best user keyboard's I've ever owned with patch selects, mod mixers, huge display, poly pressure, the list goes on and on. If they would reintroduce the TS12 with upgraded samples, 9 sliders for the hammond and increased polyphony, I'd buy one in a second...

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In 1984/1985 the two keyboards 'everybody' had to have were the Yamaha DX7 and the Ensoniq Mirage, as I remember it. My college roommate had borrowed somebody's Mirage in the fall of 1985 and I simply could not pry my envious hands off of it. It was the best piano sound I ever heard coming from a keyboard (up to that time of course). That company also made the ESQ1 which sported 3 oscillators, amplitude modulation, and the easiest-to-navigate digital user interface. Wonderful company, I wish they were still around.

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Yes you are right.

 

I used to own an ESQ-1, an SQ-2, and an ASR-10, and then finally a MR-76. Did not care for the SQ-1 but the ASR-10 and the MR-76 will remain special in my memory. Now I lusted over the SQ-80, the EPS and EPS16plus, the VFX, and finally the TS-10 when they all came out.

 

The ASR-10 took care of the sampling lust though, one of my biggest regret sales, along with my D-50, D-20, my Nord Modular G2X, and my KURZ PC2XO, but this is my pattern. :cry:

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My first one was an EPS-16, then an SQ1+, and SQR, a DP4, a TS-12 and a KS32. They were excellent for the money, and for some reason, their OS was the easiest for myself and most of my then customers to learn. It was not quite as deep as te Japanese stuff, but you could be up and running in an hour, making sequences, etc., without looking at the manual...I also thought the Peavey stuff was very underrated and died preamaturely. My main complaint about Enoniq was everything seemed hardcoded at the smiley face EQ.

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I have this gem boxed-up out in my shed:

It needed some work, but couldn't find a repairman for it. Yeah, I loved it. I remember some controversy over the Ensoniq KT-88. Can't remember what it was??? I do remember that the memory cards for it cost a fortune.

 

Best, John :cool:

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It's sad how some of the best companies stop making new products or simply go out of business. This thread reminds me of my Aardvark audio interface. I remember they had suddenly disappeared.

 

I wanted to sell it, but the company had gone out of business before new operating systems came out. The latest operating system this beauty works with is Windows XP, which means I'll probably never be able to part with it, lol.

 

I wonder how many DAW owners still use Windows XP.

 

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MR-76 is still my main DP, sitting under my NE2. I'd love to find a suitable replacement -- after a few too many blues jams a couple keys are broken in ways I can't fix. (They still work but feel wrong. I can fix the white ones when they break, but not the black ones.) And I want more than just a DP, for occasional strings or lead synth parts.

 

When it's finally gone, the sound I'll probably miss the most is the SuitcasePiano (rhodes). It's not my favorite or the best Rhodes, but it has qualities I've never found in anything else. For example, the stereo vibrato triggers per-note, which is inauthentic, but makes for a remarkably lovely effect in certain cases. It also layers sweetly with piano and other sounds.

 

Creative bought Ensoniq for its DSP technology, and as a competitive buyout. The fact that Ensoniq made keyboard instruments was irrelevant, and probably just an added nuisance. They swept that technology into their EMU dustbin. Such a shame! I'd love to be able to get at some of the underlying samples.

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if Ensoniq ever did return, I could imagine it would go something like this:

 

Day One - music trade press reports that Creative Labs, owners of the Ensoniq line of synthesizers, will revitalize the classic line of synthesizers with a few new surpises at the next NAMM.

 

Day Two - The Lord proclaims in a mighty voice "IT IS FINISHED!"

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just thought their stuff had it's own huge character and usability, the kind that makes a company in my mine part of the big three clan (you know KURZ, Roland, KORG, YAMMI) I know it is not really 3 anymore when one is looking at it this way.

 

Once you add Kurz to the Big 3 list, I think you have to add Nord too. ;-)

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In 1984/1985 the two keyboards 'everybody' had to have were the Yamaha DX7 and the Ensoniq Mirage

 

... with, unfortunately, two of the most obtuse programming systems ever devised. And they seemed especially convoluted compared to all the knobby analog style stuff that preceded them. And the then there was the Korg DSS-1... Luckily, things have gotten, well, slightly better since then.

 

Later Ensoniqs really got much better there. One nice thing about Ensoniq, Emu, and Kurzweil... at least their manuals were far better than most of the ones from Korg/Yamaha/Roland. It seems strange that the Japanese companies wouldn't invest in having their English documentation written by native English speakers But I heard a story once which explained it... the short version being that the Japanese simply don't see anything wrong with their English manuals, and its hard to convince them to fix a problem that they don't believe exists.

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For example, the stereo vibrato triggers per-note, which is inauthentic

I'm not familiar with the MR76 but is this due to poly pressure being turned on? In the VFX series I think (but can't exactly recall) you can turn off poly pressure and just have mono pressure. This might solve that issue if this is the source and is adjustable on the MR76.

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