ENSONIQ: Let's talk about this great American synth manufacturer

[JoJoB3]

7 hours ago, zephonic said:

I think I bought the one Ensoniq product that was kind of meh, the SQ2. It didn’t convince as a gigging instrument, but it blended nicely on tracks when layered with the JV-880. It was heavy, too, but I think my love for 76-key semi-weighted synths started there. I eventually traded it in for a D-70 and never looked back.

 

I did dig the TS-10/12 I found in a studio I worked at, and always lusted after an ASR-10 (Timbaland!). My main regret is not copping a MR-Rack, that thing was underrated.

 

 

 

Yeah, that is a meh (sq1 and 2). Built like a tank but an unnecessary tank.

[JoJoB3]

5 hours ago, Doerfler said:

Holy moly, Redkey .

 

Oh Boy. This thread is making my brain overload.  Ensoniq was a HUGE part of my life 35 plus years ago.

 

I was gigging with an EPS in the late 1980's. A sampler that could load new sounds while playing other sounds for under US $2000.00

 

My salesperson (still a lifelong friend, story for another thread) wanted to sell me a Korg M1. M1 was all the rage at the time. 

 

 I started working at Washington Music Center in 1991. I became "the Ensoniq guy" of the keyboard department.

 

Whenever a customer walked into the store and inquired about Ensoniq, the other salespersons pointed them to me.  WMC was one of the largest Ensoniq dealers at that time.

 

Doug Nestler was the Ensoniq rep, great guy. 

 

I did gig with a SQ-1 over a SQ-2 for a short while , they were  great value for the money compared to other offerings in 1991.

 

Roy Elkins was running Ensoniq school at the time, he had previously worked at Washington Music Center, making his fame selling Ensoniq Mirage's.

 

Roy introduced me to Joey DeFrancesco while attending Ensoniq School in 1992. We (Joey and I) kept in touch until his passing 2 years ago. Roy took a photo of us, which I managed to get Joey to

 

autograph many years later. I last saw Roy at NAMM 2020. Hope he is doing well.

 

I have more recent photos of Joey and I , but that first one is the one I chesish the most.  

 

I need a drink now. 

 

 

 

The EPS 16+ Joey Defrancesco organ series was my first "organ" before finding the real thing. Old clonewheel.

I remember the JD 3 (soft, 808 w a hint of the 9th) being a fave along with the split.

 

The System sig series is also pretty killer.

[Reezekeys]

I had the original Mirage - got it when they first came out. I also had the "Advanced Sampling Filter" and remember the times with my finger on the "increment" and "decrement" buttons as I scrolled thru the hex values to set a parameter. The Mirage replaced my OBXa on a few Liza Minnelli tours - I was the "string section replacer." The OB sounded great but not as realistic. I may be remembering wrong but I think you could map velocity to attack and release times, which I may have used in those shows.

 

I also seem to remember a period in rap & hip hop where used Mirages were getting big bucks. Probably should have sold mine then! It's actually in a storage facility, along with a Crumar T1B organ and my turntable & LP collection.

[dazzjazz]

13 hours ago, JoJoB3 said:

 

Wow. I've used the Esq1, sq80, and eps16+ for sooo many years live and in studio. Aside from battery replacement and pwr supp recaps I haven't experienced any of these reliability issues. They absolutely slam.

It’s possible they were less reliable in markets like Australia with 240v power - I seem to remember something about the power supplies not being suitable, even though they were rated for 240v. 

[dazzjazz]

11 hours ago, AUSSIEKEYS said:

 

Hey dazz

 

Are you comfortable sharing the music store you worked at. Im assuming it was a Sydney store

Sure, I worked at Turramurra Music. Great music store with consistently good people. 

[mpn_user7629]

I had the grey DSK-8 Mirage as sole Ensoniq equipment.

 

Power supply was iffy and chips needed to be reseated every time I moved it around but the floppy disk drive never failed once.

 

 

Had tons of librairies from K-Muse and Softworx.

[Doerfler]

11 hours ago, BenWaB3 said:

The late great Len was also my first (and only, actually) salesman too. I had often wondered what had happened to him also. Since he was older than most of us, I had feared he might no longer be with us and am sad to hear that is the case.

OT to the thread, but since you asked, Len Halik passed about 10 years ago. Him and  I were very close despite our difference in age ( he was much older than I)

 

How close, you ask.  He walked my wife down the asile 33 years ago  when I got married. 

 

RIP Len 

[SteinwayB]

ESQ-1 was my first poly synth (Korg MS20 was my first synth).  I loved the sequencer on it, so easy to use although it quantized too much to allow a decent jazz bass line.  After hearing the Joey D series on the EPS16+ at Chuck Levin's I bought that piece on the spot!  

[AUSSIEKEYS]

3 hours ago, dazzjazz said:

Sure, I worked at Turramurra Music. Great music store with consistently good people. 

 

Ah yes Daz although i lived a fair while away I visted Turramurra Music often amoung most major stores in Sydney. I bought a fair bit of gear there over the years. Id do gear cruising days in my little Morris Minor just for fun of the hunt.

 

Turramurra was an important shop to me in gear purchases. Of some of the gear i bought there I fondly remember buying my Kawai K5000W. Hoping to pull it out of storage soon along with my K5000S and my K5000R.

 

I'd travel all over Sydney in my little Morris Minor checking out shops to see what bargains were to be had. A bargain hunter was I. Turramurra was very competitive (the days of expectng at least 25% off minimum or walk away) and the junk bin was fun with cheap bargains too and a great Keyboard dude running it.

 

Even though i lived miles away i was also around Turramurra as my grandfather and my step grand mum lived there and some of my friends from the local church. So had non keyboard connections there too. Id always call in on my step grand mum after visitng the shop after my grandad passed.

 

So very Fond memories of Turramurra. Although my bands never really played much on the north side i remember playing a Trio at a church Coffee shop nite in Turramurra with Andy James (the original bass player from Midnight Oil) and my ex girlfriend singing. (Dad was teaching her singing so we were still in contact).

 

For overseas people Turramurra Music as i knew it then was home or rather meeting place to a lot of big international Aussie musos/bands many having a connection to church backgrounds (perhaps mates from local churches etc).  Turramurra was known then as the centre of the so called Bible belt. My second and 4th band was formed from church buddies so understood that scene. So i believe the music shop was intrinsic in correlating many of these big and small bands. I lived too far away to be there often enough to know any of the musos personally. I was purely there to buy a bargain.

 

So Turramurra as a town and a shop has some fond memories. People and places. Im 12 hours removed now and unlikely to ever see Turramurra again in my lifetime  although I see their adverts frequently.

 

The keyboard guru there was a really great guy but i cant remember his name. I liked him wish i could remember his name. He made the shop at that time.

 

Thanks for jigging my memories.

 

So endeth the second reading. Sorry my tomes are long.

[Stokely]

Racking my  brain, but I think the only Ensoniq I ever had consistent access to was an ESQ-1 that was in the jingle/composing studio where I worked as an engineer.  Off hours I'd be in there doodling on my own sequences.  I remember that had a couple really nice ethereal lead sounds in it, can't recall what else.

[Mitch Towne]

Great thread, Jim!

[stoken6]

Nobody mentioned the KS32? My first "proper" electronic keyboard. Heavy as anything, but nice action and an astonishing 1MB AP sample. 

 

Cheers, Mike.

[eric]

I never officially owned any Ensoniq gear, though my college synthesizer teacher let me borrow his studio's ESQ-1 and Mirage Rack one summer. I didn't do all that much with them aside play around a bit at home and really had fun with them. In that timeframe, the Mirage samples were pretty breathtaking in comparison with a lot of other gear. I also remember a silly preset on the ESQ-1 called "Laughing" or "Laughs" that really did sound like people laughing and thought it was clever.

[YashN]

17 hours ago, Tom Williams said:

One thing I don't understand is why my 30-year-newer Kurzweil doesn't have 1/10 the sample manipulation capability of an EPS.

 

P.S. (after reading a couple of late posts) Transwaves on the SQ2 were wonderful.  I also learned how to make my own transwaves on the EPS by loop modulation in the sample.  Good times....

 

I am curious as to what else you think is missing in the Kurzweil. I mentioned the realtime Control over loop point and moving Start + Loop points in tandem.

 

Let me know, but be aware than a Kurzweil has a Variable Architecture right next in the signal path. It's nuts.

[JoJoB3]

17 minutes ago, YashN said:

 

I am curious as to what else you think is missing in the Kurzweil. I mentioned the realtime Control over loop point and moving Start + Loop points in tandem.

 

Let me know, but be aware than a Kurzweil has a Variable Architecture right next in the signal path. It's nuts.

He may be talking about sample rate (features, adjustment, etc) inherent in these older ensoniq samps (the 16+ ranging from 11.2 kHz to 44.6 kHz, The Mirage can get even nastier).  Memory limits for it's vintage are inherent of course.
I have a K2000S and although it has more sample memory I still prefer ensoniq as they can produce crunchier. K2000 limited to 29.4, 32, 44.1, or 48 kHz.

[AROIOS]

2 hours ago, stoken6 said:

Nobody mentioned the KS32? My first "proper" electronic keyboard. Heavy as anything, but nice action and an astonishing 1MB AP sample. 

 

Cheers, Mike.

It was Ivan Lins' main board in the 90's. The EPs fit 80's/90's Sophisti-Pop styles perfectly.

[Steve Nathan]

21 hours ago, BenWaB3 said:

Doug Nestler was the Ensoniq rep, great guy. 

That may be the guy who came to see me at Muscle Shoals Sound.  I believe they'd only had the Mirage for a short time, and I bought one immediately.  He came to the house after for dinner and we had a really great time.  For some reason, I recall him saying he was from Malvern???  Is that him?

[Doerfler]

49 minutes ago, Steve Nathan said:

 For some reason, I recall him saying he was from Malvern???  Is that him?

Ensoniq was based in Malvern, PA, so yes your memory serves well.

[tapes]

I've always been fascinated by this company, especially since a lot of my heroes like Jam & Lewis were such big Ensoniq fans. Back in the early 90's a lot of famous producers and artists also created their sample libraries for the Ensoniq samplers, like Marcus Miller, Jason Miles, even DJ Jazzy Jeff and Dr Dre... Some producers swear by the ASR-10 even to this day.

 

12 hours ago, Stokely said:

Racking my  brain, but I think the only Ensoniq I ever had consistent access to was an ESQ-1 that was in the jingle/composing studio where I worked as an engineer.  Off hours I'd be in there doodling on my own sequences.  I remember that had a couple really nice ethereal lead sounds in it, can't recall what else.

 

The ESQ-1 (or its module version ESQ-M) was an incredibly versatile synth, with a beautiful analog filter. I briefly owned one, bought it after having seen all those numerous Ensoniq ads in Keyboard magazine over the years. The factory presets on it were horrible, IMO. It came out during the days of the DX7/FM and D-50, so all the presets tried to mimic FM-like tones, unsuccessfully. But once you start programming that thing, you can get very nice results.

 

Nice to know: Arturia's SQ-80 plug-in actually loads in ESQ sysex as well. After selling my ESQ-1, I grabbed all my custom patches and loaded them into the plug-in as user banks - very handy.

 

Would love to get an ASR-10 one day as well, I'm just not going to pay $1000+ for one.

[George88]

I played in a top-40 band playing hotels when I was 19. I had a VFX and VFX-SD on an Ultimate Support Aphex stand and was told, after failures on the gig and taking in for repairs, that the motherboards were breaking in the center of the board. I supposed the stand didn’t help as there was no support in the middle. I digress.  Years later, I bought another SD and it needs a new battery. Any pointers on that step is greatly appreciated.  
 

All said, they remain my favorites and I wish there were a better plug-in version than UVI Vintage Synth.  The UI was so nice for the noob I was.

[jerrythek]

On 6/6/2024 at 10:17 AM, JoJoB3 said:

 

The EPS 16+ Joey Defrancesco organ series was my first "organ" before finding the real thing. Old clonewheel.

I remember the JD 3 (soft, 808 w a hint of the 9th) being a fave along with the split.

 

The System sig series is also pretty killer.

Joey was upset at first about recording a demo sequence for his collection. “People are going to be able to steal my s***!”

 

As if…

 

[jerrythek]

1 hour ago, George88 said:

I played in a top-40 band playing hotels when I was 19. I had a VFX and VFX-SD on an Ultimate Support Aphex stand and was told, after failures on the gig and taking in for repairs, that the motherboards were breaking in the center of the board. I supposed the stand didn’t help as there was no support in the middle. I digress.  Years later, I bought another SD and it needs a new battery. Any pointers on that step is greatly appreciated.  
 

All said, they remain my favorites and I wish there were a better plug-in version than UVI Vintage Synth.  The UI was so nice for the noob I was.

That was a major issue we had back then. The main boards weren’t breaking: the body was flexing and a connector between two boards was losing connection. 

[jerrythek]

5 hours ago, tapes said:

I've always been fascinated by this company, especially since a lot of my heroes like Jam & Lewis were such big Ensoniq fans. Back in the early 90's a lot of famous producers and artists also created their sample libraries for the Ensoniq samplers, like Marcus Miller, Jason Miles, even DJ Jazzy Jeff and Dr Dre... Some producers swear by the ASR-10 even to this day.

 

 

The ESQ-1 (or its module version ESQ-M) was an incredibly versatile synth, with a beautiful analog filter. I briefly owned one, bought it after having seen all those numerous Ensoniq ads in Keyboard magazine over the years. The factory presets on it were horrible, IMO. It came out during the days of the DX7/FM and D-50, so all the presets tried to mimic FM-like tones, unsuccessfully. But once you start programming that thing, you can get very nice results.

 

Nice to know: Arturia's SQ-80 plug-in actually loads in ESQ sysex as well. After selling my ESQ-1, I grabbed all my custom patches and loaded them into the plug-in as user banks - very handy.

 

Would love to get an ASR-10 one day as well, I'm just not going to pay $1000+ for one.

No Dr. Dre Signature Series. But yes to all those others. 

[jerrythek]

20 hours ago, AUSSIEKEYS said:

 

Ah yes Daz although i lived a fair while away I visted Turramurra Music often amoung most major stores in Sydney. I bought a fair bit of gear there over the years. Id do gear cruising days in my little Morris Minor just for fun of the hunt.

 

Turramurra was an important shop to me in gear purchases. Of some of the gear i bought there I fondly remember buying my Kawai K5000W. Hoping to pull it out of storage soon along with my K5000S and my K5000R.

 

I'd travel all over Sydney in my little Morris Minor checking out shops to see what bargains were to be had. A bargain hunter was I. Turramurra was very competitive (the days of expectng at least 25% off minimum or walk away) and the junk bin was fun with cheap bargains too and a great Keyboard dude running it.

 

Even though i lived miles away i was also around Turramurra as my grandfather and my step grand mum lived there and some of my friends from the local church. So had non keyboard connections there too. Id always call in on my step grand mum after visitng the shop after my grandad passed.

 

So very Fond memories of Turramurra. Although my bands never really played much on the north side i remember playing a Trio at a church Coffee shop nite in Turramurra with Andy James (the original bass player from Midnight Oil) and my ex girlfriend singing. (Dad was teaching her singing so we were still in contact).

 

For overseas people Turramurra Music as i knew it then was home or rather meeting place to a lot of big international Aussie musos/bands many having a connection to church backgrounds (perhaps mates from local churches etc).  Turramurra was known then as the centre of the so called Bible belt. My second and 4th band was formed from church buddies so understood that scene. So i believe the music shop was intrinsic in correlating many of these big and small bands. I lived too far away to be there often enough to know any of the musos personally. I was purely there to buy a bargain.

 

So Turramurra as a town and a shop has some fond memories. People and places. Im 12 hours removed now and unlikely to ever see Turramurra again in my lifetime  although I see their adverts frequently.

 

The keyboard guru there was a really great guy but i cant remember his name. I liked him wish i could remember his name. He made the shop at that time.

 

Thanks for jigging my memories.

 

So endeth the second reading. Sorry my tomes are long.

Did you know a gent named John McCubbery? Worked for a guy named Sperry who ran our local distribution there. A dear friend of mine…. Came over to Korg when I got there. after bouncing around for a while. 

[jerrythek]

On 6/6/2024 at 5:15 AM, b3plyr said:

You missed a key player at Ensoniq - Albert J. Charpentier (Al). He was key to the synthesizers as VP of engineering and CTO. I had the pleasure of knowing him and will say he is a great guy and very talented person. And what a shame that Ensoniq was sold. They were working on revolutionary synthesis technology that to the best of my knowledge, no manufacture has used to date.

 

As one of the founding partners Albert was of course very important. But even by the time I started there (1989 as the Director of Marketing) he was not very involved in the music products: more focused on expanding the company. Yes, he ran the chip group and was “in charge” of engineering, but not really affecting things. 
 

He had been diagnosed with some hearing loss, and when he saw how limited and antiquated the technology in hearing aids was he developed the Ensoniq Sound Selectors, with 13-band programmable EQ. We never made them a success though (sadly). He then drove the development of the computer sound cards, which did really well. Almost too well, as that success was a big factor in Creative later swooping in and buying up the company.
 

Credit for the synths should go more to (of course everyone played a role):

 

Bob Yannes

 

Gary Trappuzzano (head of Engineering - I learned a lot from him that made me successful at Korg)

 

Bill Mauchly - chief DSP guy/inventor of Transwaves and so much more

 

John Senior - software and interface expert

 

Joe Friel - software

 

John Dattorro - DSP guru

 

Tom Metcalf - early sound development and later hardware

 

 Bill McCutcheon - soundware and manuals

 

And so many others. 
 

Sadly, the sound cards started stealing resources and attention from musical products and the music stuff suffered. Creative Labs were savvy, and bought up both E-mu and Ensoniq due to our huge sound libraries (downloadable samples to sound cards was gonna be the next big thing), and our business with Gateway Computers. It never worked out for either brand. 
 

Some of the best years of my life, yet fraught with peril at many junctures. 

[My Keys And Me Are Vintage]

2 hours ago, jerrythek said:

As one of the founding partners Albert was of course very important. But even by the time I started there (1989 as the Director of Marketing) he was not very involved in the music products: more focused on expanding the company. Yes, he ran the chip group and was “in charge” of engineering, but not really affecting things. 
 

He had been diagnosed with some hearing loss, and when he saw how limited and antiquated the technology in hearing aids was he developed the Ensoniq Sound Selectors, with 13-band programmable EQ. We never made them a success though (sadly). He then drove the development of the computer sound cards, which did really well. Almost too well, as that success was a big factor in Creative later swooping in and buying up the company.
 

Credit for the synths should go more to (of course everyone played a role):

 

Bob Yannes

 

Gary Trappuzzano (head of Engineering - I learned a lot from him that made me successful at Korg)

 

Bill Mauchly - chief DSP guy/inventor of Transwaves and so much more

 

John Senior - software and interface expert

 

Joe Friel - software

 

John Dattorro - DSP guru

 

Tom Metcalf - early sound development and later hardware

 

 Bill McCutcheon - soundware and manuals

 

junctures. 

hi Jerrythek- I was 23 and in love with my ESQ-1 in 1987. Maybe you have some stories on Ensoniq development discussions you could share. For instance, the decision to introduce the poly-aftertouch SQ-80 keyboard. Or why later ESQ-1 bodies swapped to plastic components. Just a curiosity thing - costs? Availability? Road to more riches? Such a competitive time, and the lightning-fast pace of new technology must have been a nightmare to plan for a couple of years out. But I sure did drool over EM magazine glossy ads of the time! 

[The Real MC]

Never cared for the Ensoniq products.
 

Ensoniq had a great product with the Mirage, can't deny that.  But I never cared for samplers, not a product I was interested in.  Their piano samples never appealed to me.  A buddy had an EPS-16 so I had some flight time with it.  As long as you're not using piano samples, it's not bad.  Then he got a disk claiming to be a sample of a Bosendorfer piano.  He's not a piano player.  I am a piano player and I have played Bosendorfers.  That sample did not sound at all like a Bosendorfer piano.  That doesn't exactly instill integrity in sample libraries of a product.

Their non-sampler products were big jumps in technology but to my ears they sounded sterile.

Another buddy loves his TS-10.  He says the sequencer is the most intuitive one he has ever used, and TS-10/12 products are hot on the used market.  But I'm still not a fan of the sound.

 

I don't deny they were a breakthrough product for musicians.  They're just not my cup of tea.

[LarsHarner]

I remember they were in Malvern PA- wasn't there some connection with someone from Commordore computers? I thought they were from there as well.

I didn't buy one but loved playing the KT88 at various music stores in the Philly/SJ area. It had a great Baldwin sound. Utimately I purchased a Fatar controller as I had sound modules.

[jerrythek]

1 hour ago, My Keys And Me Are Vintage said:

hi Jerrythek- I was 23 and in love with my ESQ-1 in 1987. Maybe you have some stories on Ensoniq development discussions you could share. For instance, the decision to introduce the poly-aftertouch SQ-80 keyboard. Or why later ESQ-1 bodies swapped to plastic components. Just a curiosity thing - costs? Availability? Road to more riches? Such a competitive time, and the lightning-fast pace of new technology must have been a nightmare to plan for a couple of years out. But I sure did drool over EM magazine glossy ads of the time! 

That’s cool - appreciate your loyalty. I started in December of 88 - long after the ESQ and SQ-80 were developed, so I can’t help you. We were developing the VFX when I arrived, and I was there for everything from that up through the MR-Rack. We were also developing the ASR-X and PARIS systems, as well as the MR keyboard, but I left (June 96) before their release. 

[jerrythek]

26 minutes ago, The Real MC said:

  Then he got a disk claiming to be a sample of a Bosendorfer piano.  He's not a piano player.  I am a piano player and I have played Bosendorfers.  That sample did not sound at all like a Bosendorfer piano.  That doesn't exactly instill integrity in sample libraries of a product.

We released a Bosendorfer on our CDR-3 collection, maybe it was also on floppies. It certainly came from a real Bosendorfer piano. The one in George Duke’s studio. 
 

But back then, with such small memory, we really couldn’t do it justice. To be candid, I didn’t care for our pianos either. 
 

The Rhodes in the MR-Rack was my personal unit. I liked that! 😉

 

It would be a pretty boring world if we all liked the same sounds, the same music, the same food.