EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 57, Issue 13 This issue's topics: Ensoniq for analog & THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP PEOPLE! (3 messages) Ensoniq SQ2 MIDI Set Up Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 09:21:49 -0400 From: "There's a seeker born every minute." Subject: Ensoniq for analog & THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP PEOPLE! First off, thanks to Nick Rothwell and everyone on rec.music.makers.synth for all the help you've given me with my synth questions. Secondly, ought I take another look at the Ensoniq units for my needs? Last year sometime I purchased an old ESQ-1. Although the unit had only 40 waveforms, it had all the basic ones needed for analog sounds: square, sine, etc. That combined with the resonant filters, ability to go monophonic (I made some nice mini-moog variation patches), MIDI, mod wheel and pitch wheel made it a nice little unit (oh yeah, and the sequencer! I'm still without a computer - and the 8 part (I believe) multi-timbrality) In retrospect, if I'd coupled the ESQ-1 with an effects processor, I might have kept it. I got frustrated with dry sounds, and at the time I didn't realize why I was so frustrated. However, with an outboard effects processor, it seems one can only have either one instrument being processed at a time, or the whole mix being processed at a time. So I'm not likely to pick-up another ESQ-1. And, while the analog sounds were good, there wasn't much in the way of digital sounds to satisfy me. (the machine was only 8-bit). How are the SQ-1 and SQ-2 synths? What are the specs on these synths? How many waveforms and/or samples do they have? What kind of sequencer (16 track?) ? Polyphony? What about the effects? Can they be assigned to more than one patch at once? All I'm concerned about is a good basic reverb and delay. Do the SQs do as good a job as the ESQ at producing analog sounds? I remember being told years ago that the ESQ would do a better job because it was an 8-bit machine. (and thus grittier). If these machines are _only_ sample playback machines, please tell me so and leave it at that. I certainly do _not_ want a sample playback machine _only_. I need to be able to program my own patches. Any drawbacks to these machines? Anything I ought to look out for when purchasing one used? Has anyone compared an ensoniq SQ-1/SQ-2 to a Kawai K4 or an SY77 ? Thanks, Dana ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 08:02:15 -0700 From: Thomas Polz Subject: Re: Ensoniq for analog & THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP PEOPLE! On Fri, 29 Oct 1993, There's a seeker born every minute. wrote: > First off, thanks to Nick Rothwell and everyone on rec.music.makers.synth > for all the help you've given me with my synth questions. > > Secondly, ought I take another look at the Ensoniq units for my needs? > Last year sometime I purchased an old ESQ-1. Although the unit had only 40 > waveforms, it had all the basic ones needed for analog sounds: square, > sine, etc. That combined with the resonant filters, ability to go monophonic > (I made some nice mini-moog variation patches), MIDI, mod wheel and pitch > wheel made it a nice little unit (oh yeah, and the sequencer! I'm still > without a computer - and the 8 part (I believe) multi-timbrality) > > In retrospect, if I'd coupled the ESQ-1 with an effects processor, I > might have kept it. I got frustrated with dry sounds, and at the time > I didn't realize why I was so frustrated. However, with an outboard > effects processor, it seems one can only have either one instrument > being processed at a time, or the whole mix being processed at a time. > So I'm not likely to pick-up another ESQ-1. And, while the analog sounds > were good, there wasn't much in the way of digital sounds to satisfy > me. (the machine was only 8-bit). > > How are the SQ-1 and SQ-2 synths? What are the specs on these synths? > How many waveforms and/or samples do they have? What kind of sequencer > (16 track?) ? Polyphony? What about the effects? Can they be assigned > to more than one patch at once? All I'm concerned about is a good > basic reverb and delay. Do the SQs do as good a job as the ESQ at > producing analog sounds? I remember being told years ago that the ESQ > would do a better job because it was an 8-bit machine. (and thus > grittier). If these machines are _only_ sample playback machines, > please tell me so and leave it at that. I certainly do _not_ want > a sample playback machine _only_. I need to be able to program my > own patches. Any drawbacks to these machines? Anything I ought to > look out for when purchasing one used? > > Has anyone compared an ensoniq SQ-1/SQ-2 to a Kawai K4 or an SY77 ? > > > Thanks, > > Dana The ESQ-1 is a great hybrid, complete with analog filters. I hope to add one to my setup one of these days. I got some incredible sounds out of it, onw time when I borrowed one. Lots of routing. Out of the last three synths you listed, I would avoid the Ensoniqs, mostly because they're kinda samey sounding, like most other wavetable synths. I've never heard the K-4 in person, but have heard good things about it, that it can sound incredibly analog. It used to have some kind of problem with MIDI delays, like if you played too many chords into your sequencer it couldn't keep up. THe Sy77 is probably my fave of the three. It can sound very digital, because of the FM, but thanks to the filtering can do some nice analog stuff too, in fact one voice can have up to 8 resonant filters on it. You can also do pretty sophisticated modulation, modulating FM sounds with AWM waveforms. It's supposed to be hard to program, but that's isn't a factor for me if I can get good sounds. I would also recommend the Yamaha SY55. It's kinda like Yamaha's version of the K4, probably not as warm sounding, but has the same filtering section of the 77. No FM, all AWM. If you look around you could get one for a decent price ($+/-600). -- ms20 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 13:46:08 -0400 From: Joe McMahon Subject: Re: Ensoniq for analog & THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP PEOPLE! > Secondly, ought I take another look at the Ensoniq units for my needs? Well, the VFX family (VFX/VFXsd/SD-1) is a sampleplayer, and it doesn't have resonant filters, but it *does* have multiple outs, and transwaves - these are waveforms that are composed of a number of slightly different single waves than can be scanned through, allowing you to simulate that resonant sound. I have at least one patch that fooled an experienced synthesist into thinking that he was listening to an Xpander instead of the VFXsd. The effects are good; somr of the multiple effects allow you to route different voices to some of the effects and not others, to bypass the effects completely, or to send the voice to an auxillary output for processing by something else entirely. 21-voice polyphony (the SD-1/32 had 32-voice polyphony) and built-in, fairly reasonable sequencer; it's quite possible to do very acceptable compositions on the VFXsd alone. The VFXsd and SD-1 have floppy storage (no SCSI); the VFX requires you to use some sort of bulk dump program or librarian program to save patches, or you can buy an outrageously-priced RAM cartridge. Downside of the VFX family: there were bugs in the software that made it much more difficult to use in a larger MIDI network than it should have been, and there was a hardware problem with the VFX and VFXsd which was easy to fix, but was very difficult to track down and essentially made the machine unusable, giving it kind of a bad name. That said, I really like mine. A VFX should probably sell now for less than $1000, maybe less than $750. --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 13:06:34 +0100 From: Denis Trcek Subject: Ensoniq SQ2 MIDI Set Up Hello everybody! Could someone that is familiar with Ensoniq SQ2 tell me, what exactly to do in order to get various internal sounds to be played while SQ 2 is driven by external sequencer. For example: -On MIDI channel 1 I would like to have (and hear!) grand piano -On MIDI channel 2 I would like to have (and haer!) trumpet -On MIDI channel 3 I would like to have drums -etc. So: -What should be exact MIDI Channel value of these presets? _What should be exact MIDI Program value of these presets? -What should be exact MIDI Status value? -What should be Base Channel/MIDI Status and MIDI Mode/External Controller values? -And what MIDI Track Name/Voice Muting values? Thanks to anyone who will respond - and please (if possible) send me mail directly. denis.trcek@ijs.si ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************