Members Jokeyman123 Posted November 21, 2014 Members Share Posted November 21, 2014 I know these posts are 2 years old, but I just did a major keyboard build on an old MR76, and I have found a few interesting facts about the mechanicals. I have a full post over at Yamaha UK under the Ensoniq section (there is one!) and there are a few descriptions in these posts which I can clarify. Putting felt or something similar under the counterweights stops some of the clunking caused by the broken tabs underneath, although I found even if the tabs are intact, the felt strip where the keys rest when returning to the top also gets compressed. This causes the counterweights to hit fully on the nylon-type bar underneath which also clunks terribly. if that felt strip is not compressed, the counterweights actually don't hit underneath, they come to a stop just before hitting that part! A detail that drove me crazy until I understood what was happening. One other very important detail, and gives the ability to remove and fix the black keys too, which I had to do. There are tiny phillips screws under the keyboard assembly that attach the entire counterweight assemblies with the connecting rod(s) to the keyboard metal frame. When I took these screws out (there were close to 30!) I lifted out each section of the counterweights-there were 3 separate sections, the rod is not one continuous piece. It was difficult getting these back in because 1) the counterweights have to fit back in flat-try holding these still on a pivoting rod! and 2) each assembly is pretty heavy, so had to be careful not to bend the connecting rods holding these. I could clearly see stress fractures in whatever material they used to make the counterweights-at least 20 had hairline fractures or worse. One had lost the counterweight completely and it was nowhere to be found (a prior owner may have removed it). I repaired what I could with JB Weld quickset epoxy-the clear version, not the steel and had to fabricate a new counterweight. I used a lead weight from my fishing tackle box-split shot worked well! The other noisemaker I found was that the felt on top of the counterweight, although not a great source of noise even when worn, also snakes around the steel rod. Over time, this wears and causes alot of "slop" in the counterweight which makes noise. And there are thin pieces of plastic (supports the keyrods) in between certain parts of the key assembly which on mine were loose and rattled whenever I hit keys anywhere near these pieces. These also break where they are connected to the steel rod and just sit in between certain keys loosely. almost impossible to notice, but was another source of very annoying rattling. As this assembly is very similar to the ones used in the Kurzweils and several other brands (these are all Fatars) I figured the more places I could post this, the better. Over and out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockPianoman Posted November 23, 2014 Members Share Posted November 23, 2014 Some of Ensoniq's boards would fry.....I only knew a couple people with Ensoniq boards and they both had a board fry....they would light up like normal but had no sound..... Same thing with older Kurzweil.....my friend repairs them and he said he would get a lot of the older Kurzweil boards in for repairs.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockPianoman Posted November 23, 2014 Members Share Posted November 23, 2014 (Continued from previous post) My Yamaha, Korg and Roland boards never seem to have problems other than a display that needs to be fixed in an older Yamaha board I have.... Also the Yamaha SY77, SY99 and TG77 had the backlights for the displays slowly get dimmer and dimmer and the floppies they used like in the SY77 had crappy belts that would need replacing....my TG77 display has no light right now but I haven't had it fixed because I don't take it out to shows and there's enough light in the room to read it......my SY77 display was getting pretty dim when I sold it..... I've also heard that older Roland boards had problems with the keys....some Yamaha boards had keys that would stick after a while but Yamaha replaced the whole keybed free of charge....(the original Motif 8 and the P-200 piano)..... The Roland XV-88 had keys that would break and the JV and XP keyboards had key problems (the notorious "pink glue" issues)....from what I understand, the pink glue would fail if the keyboard got hot (from playing in the sun)..... All my Roland gear are racks which work perfectly...... The Yamaha DX7IIFD's aftertouch would quit working (both I bought, the aftertouch didn't work)....I guess I need to withdraw my statement about Yamaha & Roland being trouble free...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jokeyman123 Posted November 25, 2014 Members Share Posted November 25, 2014 Just a followup question. I just sent an mr61 mainboard in to Thesoniq in California after communicating over email. Any body here ever use this guy for any Ensoniq, or did I goof trusting him. On the east coast except for NYC there are practically no decent keyboard techs I have ever found. A few bad ones but no real knowledgeable ones who've kept with the newest stuff. I've got keys all over, been playing for awhile and have had to repair my own but can only do so much. Have an old Gem SK76 trying to resurrect that too. Also keeping a TS-12, my 3rd SY77, an Equinox and a new PX350 Casio which is surprisingly good. And just donated my old Kurzweil rg200 to someone after rebuilding that Fatar action. What a job that was. Later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockPianoman Posted November 25, 2014 Members Share Posted November 25, 2014 I hope you sent it certified mail....that would prove he had received it......most electronic repair techs seem to be reliable.....if it's taking a while for him to finish, there might be hard to find components that need to be replaced..... How long has he had it? It's getting harder and harder to find good techs for music gear or home electronics......also, just since someone knows electronics doesn't mean that having a synth worked on will work out OK (I know you sent a circuit board which doesn't apply to this) but many synths are extraordinarily difficult to dis-assemble and re-assemble.....also, sometimes the ribbon cables that connect different pieces are made so poorly that disconnecting them damages them or the jack and they often must be disconnected for the work to be done.... On old electronics, the jacks and switches were connected by short wires to the main boards which meant if a jack or switch ever took a damaging blow, only the switch or jack would need to be replaced rather than the possibility of cracking the main board.....they haven't made much like that in a long time (maybe top end electronics are still made that way).....they should at least have separate boards for the jacks..... As far as your original question whether Ensoniq will return, it brings the question of whether they could return...... competition in the synth market is almost unbeatable now......do you think they could compete with the Yamaha Motifs or the other boards being made now? Those are the boards people are buying......most synth sales are eaten up by romplers and there's a lot of romplers that would be very hard to beat and also romplers are being released with often many other types of patented technology in them which makes them very unique..... Also with online reviews for everything now, equipment has to be super reliable or the word will get around about it at lightning speed and synth manufacturers know this....people definitely don't want something that's going to breakdown and they read tons of reviews before buying.... Another thing that makes it hard for any company making synths to survive is when they provide support for older gear, either with parts or accessories......it's natural to be angry when you want parts or accessories for older synths and you find out that they aren't available......it costs a company a lot of money to keep making and stocking all that......it makes you not want to buy their stuff anymore when you can't get that stuff (not something they want to happen)..... Free phone and / or email tech support for products is also something that's almost expected anymore which costs the company additional money......if they dare charge for this, it's another reason for people to not want to buy their stuff anymore.....Yamaha and Roland still offer free phone tech support.....Yamaha usually calls you back and Roland provides it for limited hours on certain days of the week but at least they provide it for all products....many companies only provide support for newer products.....Yamaha completely covered the cost to replace the weighted keys on my Motif 8 and P-200 piano long after the warranty had expired on both......pretty impressive in this day and age.... Even if everything would go great for Ensoniq which would be unlikely, poor management often drives companies into deep debt and bankruptcy and they disappear or get bought up by someone that often doesn't have their best interests in mind....name brands that have this happen often go from being great to being awful......word spreads fast when companies turn into crap..... A lot of times, all you can do is buy another board used on Ebay....if parts aren't available and it won't work without them, you really have no choice if you want the same synth..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JeffLearman Posted November 26, 2014 Members Share Posted November 26, 2014 Creative bought Ensoniq as a competitive buyout, for their line of PC soundcards and DSP chips. Their synthesizer line was icing on the cake -- icing that they scraped off. They shut down the keyboard manufacturing & design completely (after all, nobody actually makes money making keyboards!) All the Ensoniq keyboard intellectual property was folded into Emu, which as we know Creative never did much with anyway. So, no, there's no hope of it ever coming back, which is a shame. Their UIs were the most intuitive and their sounds were kick ass. I still have my MR76, which I got in 1997. I recently replaced it with a CP4 for most purposes, but the CP4 doesn't cover all the bases that the MR76 did, and my old soul band is having a reunion gig this spring and I'll definitely gig the MR76 in order to cover the more complex keyboard tunes like Forget You and Lady Marmelade. I find it amazing that a piano in a 1996 design is nearly competitive with pianos designed well into the 21st century. I wish Nord had bought the Coakely samples rather than sampled their own for the horrid acoustic piano in my Nord Electro 2! I sampled the MR76 stereo piano long ago, simply so I could use my piano more conveniently in my DAW: no need to hook up the MR and render in real-time if I do a MIDI edit. I figured I could always re-render the piano track with the MR at the end, but the soundfont is good enough I rarely bother. Since getting the CP4 I've also sampled the SuitcaseRds (what a great patch!) and also plan to save the vibes and a few others. Sadly, there's no way to sample and retain the awesomeness of the lead tenor sax patch. I'd love to know how they got the vibrato so great on that, it's definitely not the usual same old thing. Not that it's the best sax imitation, it's just an incredibly expressive and nuanced tone. It would actually be better if there was no such thing as a sax, so people wouldn't compare it with what it's trying to imitate! I plan to keep my MR76 as long as it continues to power up, so I have no qualms about using samples of it. I won't miss its organs. I don't know why ROMpler makers never seem to manage to do what we really need in a simple Hammond organ patch. (Exception: PX-5S -- the closest a ROMpler comes to a clonewheel.) My MR76 has a few dodgy keys; some thanks to my thumping and some thanks to the thumping of others at blues jams. Someday I may hack it up and turn it into a sound module, just to save space! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Synthaholic Posted December 7, 2014 Members Share Posted December 7, 2014 [h=2]Does any one think Ensoniq will ever return?[/h] I had heard a long time ago that Ensoniq had transitioned from keyboards to hearing aids, which made sense since sampling is basically a sound recording/manipulation science. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JeffLearman Posted December 9, 2014 Members Share Posted December 9, 2014 Just a followup question. I just sent an mr61 mainboard in to Thesoniq in California.Let us know how it works out. I had some correspondence with him and he seemed straight up and clearly knew his Ensoniq gear. I checked out the biz a bit, enough to be comfortable shipping gear to him, but decided not to for unrelated reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Suilebhain Posted January 20, 2015 Members Share Posted January 20, 2015 Don't forget mother-in-laws! Plus rap music and any dialog that begins with the utterance "yo". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Suilebhain Posted January 20, 2015 Members Share Posted January 20, 2015 Yeah, I'd love to see the "wizards of Malvern" come back but they aren't going to. I think they sailed into the West. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members moogerfooger Posted January 21, 2015 Members Share Posted January 21, 2015 I still have a working TS 12 and a EPS 16+ sampler -- love that TS 12 but the key bed is shot, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DmitryKo Posted January 21, 2015 Members Share Posted January 21, 2015 No. Ensoniq had some nice products, but being a small company they never achieved global presence and they were active for like only16 years (1982-1998). E-mu would have far more chances of being resurrected as a synthesizer company, and that's not going to happen either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Crazyfoo Posted January 24, 2015 Members Share Posted January 24, 2015 I thought my ESQ-1 was super. I had a pretty kickin' 80's rig that featured it. me too, it was awesome at the time. I used it as my main board. Heres a photo from 1987 when I was on the road full-time. ESQ-1 & Poly 800 module front, OB-Xa & JX-8P on the side with a Roland MPU-105 for MIDI switching. At the time it was a great rig for playing top 40 six days a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rockfan Posted February 17, 2015 Members Share Posted February 17, 2015 +1 for Ensoniq. Unlike Moog, Korg, and Kuzweil at the time, Ensoniq targeted the masses; sound-wise, it could give the others a run for their money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WDMcM Posted February 18, 2015 Members Share Posted February 18, 2015 Heard some sad news. Bruce Crockett, the founder of ENSONIQ passed away yesterday. He was a great guy to work for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Nostalgia4Infinity Posted February 20, 2015 Members Share Posted February 20, 2015 That's fantastic! I had a duo back in '88 with the ESQ-1 as my main board, and thefull Poly-800 and I THINK an Alesis HR16 for the drum duties. I sequenced most everything except either the main key or guitar part (which I usually played). Although I had the 20K note expansion I loaded using a Midi Filer rack unit made by a company called IVM (Indian Valley). Worked great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Nostalgia4Infinity Posted February 20, 2015 Members Share Posted February 20, 2015 So sorry to hear the news. This was a company truly dedicated to the musician. I used to go to the seminars when they were in town. Wish I still had my ESQ-1, but I do have ZR-76 (Idea pad is wonderful), MR-Rack, and KS-32. BTW - The, at Thesoniq is fantastic to work with - very helpful and friendly. I am so glad to have a tech I can count on, and highly recommend him as a source for Ensoniq gear and support. The MR/ZR sound is still very good - particularly with the wonderful FX options. Not long ago I had some e-mail dialogue with one of the sound designers. Can't recall name right now, but also, just a great guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Nostalgia4Infinity Posted February 20, 2015 Members Share Posted February 20, 2015 BTW - does anyone remember IVM (Indian Valley Manufacturing). I would love to get ahold of the founders at some point. They made a great midi filer in the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Temple of Light Posted February 25, 2015 Members Share Posted February 25, 2015 EBAY Is forever, as is the ENSONIQ CATALOG...no need to bring back what never went away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JeffLearman Posted March 18, 2015 Members Share Posted March 18, 2015 Right. "It's dead, Jim." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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