keyboardist - Any insights to an Ensoniq EPS Sampler.

[Bonhomme Richard]

My nephew is giving it to me. He says he doesn't have the patience to work with it. He also doesn't have any sound disk. He's a guitar player like me by the way.
Is it a good find or is it going to be more trouble than it's worth.
One question. Do I have to have it hooked up to a computer to run it? Keep in mind I'm not very high tech.
Thanks

[emulatorloo]

1. EPS or EPS-16+? Both are cool samplers -- here are some links

I am a big fan of older Ensoniq gear. The EPS was well recieved at the time. I never owned an EPS, but a friend of mine did. It sounded good, the keyboard was good, and it had a cool feature for the time that you could load samples while playing what was already there.

Here are some user reviews of EPS:

http://www.harmony-central.com/Synth/Data/Ensoniq/EPS-01.html

http://www.sonicstate.com/synth/eps.cfm

Also, check out the Ensoniq pages at this very cool site, http://www.vintagesynth.com/
Sorry can't post a direct link to EPS info -- just use the menu on the left side to navigate to Ensoniq

Here's a vendor that still supports the EPS, with both computer software and sounds for sale -- I am linking to their page that has a lot of articles about ensoniq samplers "Ensoniq EPS and ASR-10 Knowledge Base" Look down lower on the page and you will see Operating System downloads if you need one.

http://www.chickensys.com/kb/

Good Luck and Have FUN!!!!

[Bonhomme Richard]

2. Thanks for the links

I assume you download a particular sound (for ex. piano) and that is what the keyboard will sound like. Is it more complicated than that?

[emulatorloo]

3. You get sounds on Ensoniq formatted disks, and load them into the EPS

Or you can sample your own sounds and save them to disk. which is a lot of fun. Hope you are getting a manual to go along with the EPS or you will be lost.

You might want to buy some disks on Ebay to get yourself started. I am seeing a few sets up today.... I did a search for "Ensoniq EPS"

example auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1289&item=7314707317&rd=1

There is also that chickensys company -- they sell sounds for the EPS for around 50 for a set of disks. Click on the menu item on thier page that says "Products" and select "sounds" and then select "Ensoniq Floppy Disk Sets" i have dealt with them for other things, they are ok.

http://chickensys.com/home.php


You can find sounds on the internet. You will have to have someway to tranfer them from your PC to an ensoniq format disk. Here is a site that appears to have lots of sounds for the EPS, and the utilities to tranfer to Ensoniq formatted disks. . .sorry don't have a clue how to do this:

http://www.soundcentral.com/index.shtml

[Bonhomme Richard]

4. Thanks again n/t

[emulatorloo]

5. Damn! another link. . .and another observation

http://www.syntaur.com/asr.html

I remember your other thread now. . .this may be too much hassle for you, especially if your nephew doesnt have the manual, disks, and if the EPS doesn't have much memory for loading samples.

So here's some more reqs for used boards w great keyboard sounds.

Kurzweil KME-61

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29552&item=7314407847&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Roland XP-50

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=38090&item=7313657644&rd=1

Roland JV-90

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=64386&item=7314059941&rd=1

[Bonhomme Richard]

6. He says he has the manual..................

and I guess I'll have to wait until he gets it to me and see what all is with it. I know he doesn't have any disk. He's an A&R guy with Sony in the city.
By the way, I'm not actually getting it free. I trading him my Hammond A-100 and leslie cabinet. I was giving him the organ for nothing because I would rather see it stay in the family than sell it and he can't get rid of it unless he ask me first. I need the room in the house and the ensoniq will let me have a decent keyboard in my music room rather than the cheap casio in there now.

[MazeRat7]

7. Calling it a "sampler" was mostly marketing hype of the day (sort of)

Technically it does sample but that is mostly an "added bonus" if you don't like the pre-loaded patches that come with it and are willing to spend hours crafting a new voice based on raw samples. Its been a while since I used one, but as I recall it uses from 1-127 16bit wavesamples in 1 or 8 layers to create a "voice". It is (in my book at least) one of the newer additions to the "vintage synth" list.

As was pointed out earlier in this thread, there are still sample disk available if you dont like the sounds that come pre-loaded. With those all you should have to do is buy a few and load them directly from the FDD. (Saves having to "Create" voices yourself using raw samples, tweaking EG settings, etc, etc). Some of the more advanced models even had an internal SCSI hard drive for storage since you can only have a set number of voices loaded at a single time.

Bottom line you will need the manual to load voices (eg patches) from a disk and backup the ones that are already loaded. That being said - all in all I found it somewhat difficult to use and was not all that impressed with "some" of the voices. I tend to recall, it did things like Rhodes and Clav well, but had a pretty lame piano sound. I don't recall what the organ or synth patches sounded like at all.

If its free, you wont regret it (so long as that Hammond and Leslie are still in the family I mean) and it will be a nice addition to your music room.

Enjoy,

MZr7

[Bonhomme Richard]

8. Thanks n/t

[Bonhomme Richard]

9. Thanks for all the help. Guess I'll be back...............

with more questions once I get my hands on the instrument.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. I've Used Ensoniq For Years

The price/performance curve on their stuff is outstanding. Also, the output tends to have an edge that cuts through for live better than lots of kbds.

I had one of the original Mirage samplers. I've also used the ESQ and the SQ-2. No, you don't need a computer. However, if you want to do your own sampling and want to do proper, no-seam looping, a computer program helps A LOT! You can do it without one, but it's much harder and time consuming.

The Professor

[emulatorloo]

13. For some reason I looked down on the ESQ at the time, but LOVE IT NOW

I dunno, I was all dazzled by Roland and Yamaha or something. But the ESQ rack I got a three years ago has the most lovely liquidy sound. . .

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Yeah, I Think So Too

Aside from the white or pink noise, it sounds very analog. The ability to hard sync differing waveforms is really cool!

The piano samples are marginal, but everything else is pretty good.

The oscilator tone isn't necessarily all that fat (not bad, though), but with 3 sound sources per patch, you can make things pretty big!
The Professor

[SnowGoose]

11. There's one gathering dust in the music room...

it's gathering dust because I ended up getting the later "ASR-88" which was a descendant of your model.

Sure, it's older, and lacks some of the newer bells and whistles, but it's a workhorse - mine has never let me down.

I've got the Operating System disc, and have spent plenty of time in front of the thing, so if you need any additional advice, feel free to PM me.

'Goose

[Bonhomme Richard]

12. Thanks n/t