Ensoniq ZR-76 appreciation thread

[Morrissey]

Was reminiscing about this board today. Good weighted 76 key action (not too common in its day IIRC). Solid Coakley "Perfect Piano" sound. Innovative idea pad / sketch pad recorder. Weighed about a million pounds. Care to join me on a stroll down this particular memory lane?

[Delaware Dave]

Remember when it came out after the MR-76. I had the TS-12, SD-1 32 voice and VFX, all which had polyphonic aftertouch (don't hear much about that anymore). My favorite boards from a UI perspective. Very easy to program. Also loved the fact that the manufacturing facility was about an hour away. Ruined by the Creative Labs purchase.

[DaveMcM]

The Idea Pad was a great feature and well implemented. Not sure why no other manufacturer has picked up on it.

[SteveCoscia]

Not too many of those were manufactured as that was near the end. The MR/ZR line of keyboards were late to the game due to R & D preoccupation with the DP-4 Effects Processor. While the DP-4 was a good product, it didn't sell enough volume to justify the R & D and marketing investment. It was many years ago, but my recollection was that the DP-4 was a money pit. The delay in new synth development cost Ensoniq dearly especially as KORG was killing it with their new synths. Had the MR/ZR keyboards come out sooner things would have been different.

[jerrythek]

Well I left after the MR-Rack, during the development of the keyboard versions, so I don't know all of the story... but without giving away too much insider information, I wouldn't put the blame solely on the DP/4 platform. A LOT of engineering attention had moved over to the computer sound cards, and the music side of the company was suffering from that. We redesigned the whole voice architecture in the MR-Rack to get away from the old, buggy, band-aided code and that task turned out to take way longer than planned (or hoped). That's why the MR-Rack was not programmable from itself, you had to use Unisyn. That saved a lot of development time and code. But there were some incredibly good features in the keyboards, specifically the Idea Pad and the Drum Machine section.

 

Truth: the Idea Pad concept came directly from C-Lab Notator/Creator, and the the fact that they were always recording in the background. We had been distributing Emagic from when they broke away from C-Lab and we became enamored of that feature. So we built it up into a feature that the user could see, and work with. Credit to Gary Giebler for designing the spec and implementing it. It was really well done!

 

Jerry

 

Not too many of those were manufactured as that was near the end. The MR/ZR line of keyboards were late to the game due to R & D preoccupation with the DP-4 Effects Processor. While the DP-4 was a good product, it didn't sell enough volume to justify the R & D and marketing investment. It was many years ago, but my recollection was that the DP-4 was a money pit. The delay in new synth development cost Ensoniq dearly especially as KORG was killing it with their new synths. Had the MR/ZR keyboards come out sooner things would have been different.

[ProfD]

Not too many of those were manufactured as that was near the end. The MR/ZR line of keyboards were late to the game due to R & D preoccupation with the DP-4 Effects Processor. While the DP-4 was a good product, it didn't sell enough volume to justify the R & D and marketing investment. It was many years ago, but my recollection was that the DP-4 was a money pit. The delay in new synth development cost Ensoniq dearly especially as KORG was killing it with their new synths. Had the MR/ZR keyboards come out sooner things would have been different.

Brotha Steve was in the building.

 

I'd imagine nobody at Ensoniq expected the DP-4 effects processor to become a collector's item.

 

The MR/ZR were cool KBs but it did feel like they came out too late considering the competition available at the time.

[SteveCoscia]

JerryK was in the building too and his perspective is correct. My point is that most MI (musical instrument) R & D resources were consumed with the DP-4.

 

In those years, Ensoniq had MI (musical instrument), HA (Hearing Aid) and MM (mult-media) divisions. The HA division was phased out in the early 1990s or thereabouts. Resources for software development, hardware, engineering, etc. overlapped among these divisions and evetually the MM division gained traction due to Ensoniq's unique intellectual property (this is what caught Creative's interest years later).

 

It's been many years and memory gets fuzzy. I recently met with Roy Elkins in Wisconsin and we talked for hours and we could have talked for hours more, I suppose that's why it's top of mind for me now.

[Morrissey]

This is great insight and perspective. I launched the thread hoping a few people would recall owning one of these boards. Wasn't expecting this fantastic peek behind the curtain!

[vonnor]

I had one back in the mid 2000's bought it NOS (new old-stock) from 8th Street Music. It had some issues within the first couple months and 8th Street had to vouch that they would cover repairs under warranty. They also covered shipping to and from a guy named The (pronounced "Tay" as I recall) shop was called "The Soniq". I remember liking the action and the sounds, but I didn't keep it long after getting it repaired. Was kinda reluctant to gig with it.

 

~ vonnor

[RABid]

I had the MR-76, MR Rack and all of the expansions at one point. Great system and sound. It had one hardware issue that bothered me and I noticed it on multiple machines that I tried in the store. The vibration caused by normal playing on the keys would cause the data knob to activate and change the value of what ever it was set on. I would set it on something that did not affect to sound to keep from suffering from the defect. At the time there was not another 76 key weighted action in that price range that sounded nearly as good.

[DaveMcM]

In those years, Ensoniq had MI (musical instrument), HA (Hearing Aid) and MM (mult-media) divisions. The HA division was phased out in the early 1990s or thereabouts.

 

The Ensoniq Hearing Aid was far more advanced than anything else available at the time. While I worked at Ensoniq, my father was set up with one, and it made a world of difference for him.

[jerrythek]

In those years, Ensoniq had MI (musical instrument), HA (Hearing Aid) and MM (mult-media) divisions. The HA division was phased out in the early 1990s or thereabouts.

 

The Ensoniq Hearing Aid was far more advanced than anything else available at the time. While I worked at Ensoniq, my father was set up with one, and it made a world of difference for him.

 

Yes, my Dad was a beta-tester and they were great. Basically multi-band EQ with good measuring equipment versus the technology before it, which was like a basic Tone knob on an old stereo. Too bad Ensoniq (we?) botched the roll-out into the industry, getting all high and mighty about how much better our way was, offending the industry "captains" and causing them to stonewall us. Great product, terrible sales/marketing. a shame.

 

Hope you're doing well Dave, I always enjoyed your playing!

 

Jerry

[jerrythek]

And I forgot about PARIS - the hard disk recording system. I think that is the project that sucked up the time and money from everything else MI, not the DP/4.

 

Jerry

 

Well I left after the MR-Rack, during the development of the keyboard versions, so I don't know all of the story... but without giving away too much insider information, I wouldn't put the blame solely on the DP/4 platform. A LOT of engineering attention had moved over to the computer sound cards, and the music side of the company was suffering from that. We redesigned the whole voice architecture in the MR-Rack to get away from the old, buggy, band-aided code and that task turned out to take way longer than planned (or hoped). That's why the MR-Rack was not programmable from itself, you had to use Unisyn. That saved a lot of development time and code. But there were some incredibly good features in the keyboards, specifically the Idea Pad and the Drum Machine section.

 

Truth: the Idea Pad concept came directly from C-Lab Notator/Creator, and the the fact that they were always recording in the background. We had been distributing Emagic from when they broke away from C-Lab and we became enamored of that feature. So we built it up into a feature that the user could see, and work with. Credit to Gary Giebler for designing the spec and implementing it. It was really well done!

 

Jerry

 

Not too many of those were manufactured as that was near the end. The MR/ZR line of keyboards were late to the game due to R & D preoccupation with the DP-4 Effects Processor. While the DP-4 was a good product, it didn't sell enough volume to justify the R & D and marketing investment. It was many years ago, but my recollection was that the DP-4 was a money pit. The delay in new synth development cost Ensoniq dearly especially as KORG was killing it with their new synths. Had the MR/ZR keyboards come out sooner things would have been different.

[Tom Williams]

Ah, Ensoniq -- we never forget our first love. When I could afford either a DX-7 or a Mirage, I took the Mirage without hesitation, and never regretted it. Eventually I followed it with two EPS-Thirteen-Minus that served as my main keyboard and backup band. Subscribed to Transoniq Hacker and wrote one article for the Chicken Chronicle. Finally, learned how to get two different simultaneous effects out of an SQ-2 32-voice / 6 octave keyboard that became my centerpiece until it had a stroke one day and lost all long-term memory. (Yes, I replaced the battery.)

 

I still miss the EPS polyphonic portamento capability, and of course the polyphonic aftertouch. I also regularly heckle the Aussies at Mastering VAST about Kurzweil's inability to achieve the internal sequencing and sample editing capabilities of the original EPS, let alone the later models.