Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
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Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
OT: Sampling in the early 90s. Ode to the Ensoniq EPS16 Plus.
I’ve recently recovered my Ensoniq EPS16 Plus from storage and booted it up for the first time in over a decade.
It’s always been my favourite sampler and despite my concerns about revisiting it potentially ruining the nostalgia value I was instead instantly reminded why I’ve always liked it so much. It just sounds lovely and it’s very hands on and tactile.
Anyway as part of my nostalgia kick and to remind myself of some of the more esoteric stuff the EPS is capable of (such as trans waves), I was reading some Transoniq Hacker magazines. This was all pre www so the only way to get this kind of info back then was on paper!
I’ve found an archive of the TH ‘zones and this article caught my attention “The ultimate Bitchin’ EPS Drum Set” by Craig Anderton (a very well know sound designer/writer of the time).
This bit made me chuckle:
“It took about 15 hours to put together a drum kit consisting of kick, snare, four toms, two cymbals, tambourine, three hi hat sounds and some copies of samples for special effects (strange tubings, reverse decay, etc.). I’m real happy with the customised and Alchemized EPS Drum kit. I’m even happier that it means one less piece of gear to take out live!”
15 hours.
One drum kit.
Lol.
And an EPS weighs a ton.
Although to be fair, to try out my EPS16plus and re-familiarise myself with it I sampled a drum kit from my pocket operator PO-32 in about 15 minutes. And it sounds really, really good. Better than the PO 
Some of the fx built in to the EPS still sound great today. I’d be happy to pay for the fx as Auv3 plugins for iOS or Mac!
But I still love my EPS16 Plus. Even though the SCSI has died and I’m stuck with loading and saving times measured in minutes.
It’s still a wonderful instrument. It sounds lovely. It can be crystal clear (it has all sorts of sample rate options and you can mix and match in the same instrument. You can have one sound at 5 kHz, another in 44.1. And play it all with an output rate of 76khz).
And It’s brilliant for lo-if dirty sounds. Quite different from using lo-fi plug-ins in a DAW.
I am totally shocked at how much I like this thing and am looking forward to using it in anger again. I thought it would be laughable with its alpha numeric display and 2 MB RAM (which is expanded from the original 1MB!).
The put it into perspective I have much less fondness for my old AKAI CD3000 which is more powerful on paper but has none of the magic of the Ensoniq. I can’t really see myself using it in anger again. It’s no match for an iPhone :-)
But the Ensoniq... there’s something very special about it. Perhaps it’s just because using it evokes memories of when I used to make music all the time. Whenever I wanted to. And made real songs. And finished stuff.
But even without rose tinted specs, it’s a special machine. It’s amazing how much stuff I used to get done with this keyboard with 2 MB ram and an alphanumeric display and a waveboy parallel fx floppy disk.
What’s more amazing is that I’m actually looking forward to using it again.
I think lockdown must have fried my brain a little more than I care to admit
Comments
The EPS16 Plus features (like the ASR10) a Philips TDA1541 DAC chip, one of the best output converters ever designed. Humble 16bits, but the sound... just GREAT.
I like the fluorescent display a lot - have fun with the machine
Cool. I don’t know about the converter.
It does sound great :-)
They had variable sample rates too. You can set the output sample rate to 30, 44.1 or 76kHz. Plus each individual wave sample can have a different sample rate. So in a drum kit you can get nice crunchy snares at 30k and pristine cymbals at 44 at the same time. And you can downsqmple to something crazy like 5khz.
Clever stuff.
There is a lot of cool innovation in those old Ensoniqs. Having to save Ram was a way of life and a lot of the methods used are very cool.
And as I said before, the fx are surprisingly great too. So musical.
Drum kits through the parallel fx distortion are my happy place. :-)
Going through the old sample libraries is fun too... loafing in things like the original Mirage sounds and you hear sounds from massive 80s hits left right and centre.
The next song I make will have 80s orchestral hits all over it. :-)
I think I’ll see if I can recreate some of the original instruments into Logic and see if I can get them working in AudioLayer. I will share some if they work (assuming I ever get 10 minutes to myself
)
The TDA1541 DAC is famous from high end CD players.
Afaik the chip not only was about $45, but also needs a huge area due to supporting capacitors. It‘s a true 16bit parallel design.
The fx unit is a predecessor of the DP2/4 rack device, which is still highly sought, one of the most „analogish“ digital fx processors. Bottomline: the EPS is a great piece of gear
Unfortunately I learned too late that the Ensoniq ASR-X has the exact same sound hardware as the ASR-10, so didn‘t get one when they were affordable. Prices have increased significantly in recent years...
Those of you who are nostalgic about these older devices (and have a desktop computer) need to check out TAL Sampler. It recreates the DACs of these older samplers and is very easy to use.
I always thought about getting this one but en fell in love with the Korg Trinity V3😳❤️☝️
https://reverb.com/item/35217802-ensoniq-eps-performance-sampler-1988
TAL is great for approximating the sound of machines like the SP1200 and Akai S950. On a technical level an iPhone can do far more, far more quickly and far more easily than the Ensoniq. Old samplers are not usually like lovely old analogue synths in that what they do is all 1s and 0s with far inferior Uis for editing and manipulating, there's no sensible reason to use a hardware sampler from the 80s or 90s.
Having said all of that there is something wonderfully musical and lovely about the EPS16 Plus. It's much more than the sum of its parts. Yes it sounds great but that's just part of the equation. It's capable of a wide range of sounds from nasty to crystal clear and as it’s a 16 bit synth, sounds good when you need it to even today. I love it more for when it's sounding grungy though.
Much like a nice guitar, there's something about certain instruments that just makes you want to play them. Going through the sound libraries I have for the EPS is taking a long time. Apart from the ridiculously long loading times I keep finding instruments I just want to play. For ages.
There's clearly a lot of nostalgia from my part. These are sounds I know on the whole and the EPS was my main keyboard for a long time, even when it was mostly used as a controller. It';s like playing an old guitar you know well... It just feels right.
EPS stands for Ensoniq Performance Sampler and its name rings true. It has a lovely semi-weighted keyboard with polyphonic aftertouch, and patch select buttons that are a genius idea. There are two small buttons above the mod and pitch bend wheels that give you 4 variations for each instrument.
I used to use them for things like having very different envelopes or modulation, and having one button for reversed sounds, etc. It's far more useful than it sounds. Couple that with the EPS16 Plus's 8 layers for each instrument, hard and soft envelopes which can be used as modulation sources for loads of stuff, 128 samples per instrument, Transwaves, many looping features, etc, and it's still a surprisingly powerful machine even with just 1MB expandable to 2 (that’s megabytes not gigs!) of RAM.
And the sound is very much a combination of all those factors. There's something about the way the EPS transposes that emulations don't get close to (which I believe is something to do with the fixed frequency output, it transposes differently to say an AKAI).
Anyway. I'm sure most people would justifiably run a mile rather than use something like an EPS in 2020. things that take no time at all with an iOS sampler can take an age on the EPS, but it's when you come to play the thing that it comes to like. It is indeed a performance sampler.
And as I said in the OP, it's not just nostalgia for old stuff. I have an old AKAI too and that doesn't bring back fond memories; The EXS24 sampler in Logic could read old AKAI disks and I converted much of my old AKAI library and it sounds pretty much the same to my ears as the AKAI. I didn't much care for the UI of the Akai either even though it's technically far more advanced than the EPS with a bigger, better display that can actually display waveforms. And it could timestretch (which is the best thing about the hardware; You get that sound the prodigy used to use to death which DAWs don't always replicate quite right).
Anyway, just like classic cars, old samplers are not for most people., They're inferior in almost every way. But like the right classic car, the EPS makes me smile. And there aren't any plug-ins that can replicate the experience.
The reason for my post is that I'm genuinely surprised that the EPS made me feel like this. I though it'd be horrible. It's not. It's still my favourite sampler.
here's another insight into Sampling and technology in the 1990s...
This is a review in Transoniq Hacker for a service that helped you catalogue and organise your samples. By post. You sent them all the info about your samples and they'd tell you how save them on the fewest disks and charge you to print lists and labels. On Paper. Somebody thought this was a service people would need. :-/
I actually double checked to see if this was the April edition of the 'zine. It wasn't.
We've come a long way in 30 years.
For a long time I had an ESQ-1, a Mirage, a Yamaha RX-5 drum machine and 2 Casio CZ-101’s as my primary setup. Made money with it!
A subscription to the Hacker was a must! I recently read through some of those old issues. Nobody had websites or email addresses. You snail-mailed or called for info or to order product. Ah, the good old days! 😢
I have a Mirage waiting in the queue to be repaired. Covid put all of that on hold. When it was running it was just a glorious sound - absolutely surprised me and blew me away. And turned me into a big Ensoniq fan.
Last spring I acquired an SQ-80 for 100 usd that was/is in beautiful condition. I love the thing dearly.
Again, I just need more time to be with all of this stuff.
You can sample anything into the Mirage and what you will get back defines the word “phat”! And as long as you have the hexadecimal conversion chart, trimming samples is only a little tedious! 😆
These old samplers are getting harder to maintain, besides the ones in good condition are priced pretty high. For thise of you that have them, are there some tips on getting similar sound/fx on iOS? Even 70~80%...?
I really want to do this! Gah! It is sitting in the guy's shop! Think of all the tedium I could be enduring!!!!
Transoniq Hacker was such a fun read. The glory days...
Transoniq Hacker Archive:
http://buchty.net/~buchty/ensoniq/transoniq_hacker/
Deal of year
I actually paid more for a sound cartridge for it. hehehe
The guy I bought it from was a very kind old gentleman who repaired organs and electric pianos. Had a nice workshop. I told him I thought it was worth more than that and did he know that? He said, I'd just like to get it out of here and into someone's hands that will use it. A good day!
Yeah good deal indeed. I’m sure you’ll make the old gent happy by using it a load :-)
Around the time I stuck my EPS in storage (and by storage I mean my Mum’s loft ;-) I saw one sell on eBay for a tenner. With a manual. At the same time somebody else sold just a manual for one for £15.
Now EPSs go for well over £500...
Mind you these old Ensoniqs can be quite fragile. Don’t let them overheat.
Back in the days when an update meant changing out the (hopefully socketed) system chips or waiting until a new model came out! The only hardware music gear I ever had that got an update was the ESQ-1 with a chip swap.
I loved the sequencer in that thing. I drove my whole rig with it and backed everything up to specially formatted Mirage disks!
I wanted an SQ-80 badly but ended up getting a VFX-SD instead. It never had the same feel that the ESQ and SQ had. 😥
Speaking of feels ... the SQ80 has that clacky keyboard. For some reason I like it, I'm sure it's annoying when not playing with phones but it feels like you're getting something done. ha!
I love the lofi sound it can get, I hope I’m able to get one of these one day
And now I’m the lucky owner of TAL Sampler. My wallet doesn’t thank you, @Audiojunkie, but I do.
Was going to mention this very thing about the effect. Indeed, the DP4 is still on my fairly short list of "oh why oh why did I ever sell that" devices. What an absolutely lovely machine.
So good. The parallel fx disk was one of the best audio type things I ever bought. I used it on everything. I also bought the Rez filter and audio-in floppies. Audio-in was great; turned the EPS16 into an fx processor (which you could use at the same time as the sampler, mixing the audio going into the fx busses with the external audio).
The EPS16/Plus have one of the best keybeds I've ever played. They not only feel good but they also have a great contact-less key and polyphonic (!) aftertouch sensor mechanism that hardly ever breaks and doesn't have the limited lifetime today's rubber contact strips have.
Hehe Congrats on the purchase! I quite like the sampler myself. The great thing about it, is that, while your wallet doesn't thank me, it too must realize that TAL products are quite a bit cheaper than other big ticket plugs and yet is very, very usable.
That's what first got me into Ensoniqs. The keybeds are fantastic! Few devices even today have as great a feel. StudioLogic and some older Rolands did, but there's not much anymore that feels that great. That was one of the key things that made me so picky about buying a keyboard specifically for my phone. I ended up getting an Arturia Minilab mkii, which has a fantastic feel for a 25 key do-everything mini keyboard. But now, after purchase, I wish I had picked up the Arturia keystep instead, because it has more keys. I don't actually need all the knobs and pads like I thought I would. But I do wish I had more keys. Over all though, Arturia has put out some of the best mini keyboards lately with fantastic feel.
@Audiojunkie Guess what, I got a Keystep too 😉
Nice! I'm a little jealous. I think in the end, when I'm ready to get another keyboard, I'm going to try to go for a Bluetooth midi with the best feel. I'll have to go and re-assess everything all over, but I think Bluetooth LE for Midi should be great for low midi latency and make my rig easier (I'd never use bluetooth for audio though). It would be nice if Arturia (or anyone for that matter), put out a Bluetooth version with a great keybed.