I'm an Ensoniq evangelist! EPS16+, MR-Rack, ESQ-1 and SQ-80. Wish I had the DP4 and the Fizmo! My first sampler was the Mirage, which my best buddy has now. Truly amazing gear those cats put out.
I think sq80 and esq 1 was some of the best synth of the eighties. I think most of the historic material of Carpenter was made wit an sq80. I wish to have one of that. Never say never.
Well, I think they might have ended up like Korgs and Rolands, way more powerful but less interesting. although Ensoniq did seem a more creative and risk taking company especially with poly aftertouch which really should have become a standard for keyboards along time ago, I think anyway
@@korsmakolnikov No. Most of Carpenters historic material (like the films from the late 70:s and early 80:s) were made with mainly analog Synths. He was a fan of the Prophets. Some arp and Moogs were used in various films too.
Ensoniq had already gotten rid of resonant filters after the first few generations of hardware, so were already going in a bit of a wrong direction before E-mu acquired them, which was then acquired by Creative Labs. The last Ensoniq product, Fizmo, was interesting, but a dud, and even the MR series weren't much of a improvement over previous products. I have an SQ-2 and love it, though, but mostly use it as a controller now.
xnonsuchx what you say is technically correct, but a bit unfair. The last products like the ASR-X and Fizmo were rushed. But this is due to financial problems Ensoniq was feeling at the time. If Ensoniq existed today then, at the very least, there would have been no financial crunch, and these instruments would have been “finished”. I suspect they would be revered as much as the ASR-10 is now.
In the 90's I worked at a music store and sold a ton of Ensoniq keyboards. In those days, Ensoniq was secretly rewarding all sales you made with "Ensoniq points." I turned my points in for their EPS sampler, Dp-4 processor, VFX-SD synth and an SQ-1 synth. Korg later sent their sales rep Jordan Rudess out to where I was working to find out why I wasn't selling any Korgs. I didn't tell him I was getting free gear from Ensoniq for making sales. If I ever see him again, I'll apologize for making him come out to upstate NY in the dead of winter.
I worked at GC in 98-99 and they would not let us receive anything from the vendors at that time except for small stuff and NFR copies of software. I moved on to Mars Music after GC and they not only allowed it, but promoted the program. In 2001 I won a trip to Germany from a vendor@@schance1666
We got smart and started taking it to our mix sessions and then sampling our own drums back to it after they’d been compressed and eq’d. Our drum sounds would JUMP out of that thing when you’d press play after that! Then everybody started saying to us, “Wow! Why does your Ensoniq sound so different from mine?!”
This channel's content takes me to the closest as I can get to taking a time machine back to the 80's! Just incredible! I can feel your passion and that you are not in 2020, but in a 80's time machine...lol, that's great! I have never used that keyboard by the way, it sounded great in the day though! The brass sounds were really popular and sought after.
THE 4RD SAMPLE MADE THE STINK BUG IN MY ROOM COME OUT OF HIDING... IT MUST BE THE HAPPY NOTE IT LIKED...THE WHOLE LESSON WAS VERY INFORMATIVE AND FUN!!!
@@EspenKraft Hi my friend, I think this might be the best sampler for techno drums, it has a lot of bass and low end, Akai robs it and sounds like a 808 snare with white noise, no good for 808 like kicks. I might get this instead of the s 1000 or the roland s760.
Still have all my ensoniq’s in superb condition and I think 7 of them and I won’t sell them. In my opinion they still compete with todays synths in every way. Incredible sound. Too bad the company does not produce anymore but I have a feeling someone will bring it back seeing all the success of the old names coming back. Always a pleasure to watch you Mr Kraft the 80’s man.
Great video Espen! Yeah - The EPS/EPS-16+ is a beast of a sampler. With its "bidirectional crossfade loop" you can loop sounds that other samplers can't. And it sounds really awesome - in the early 90's I sampled many sounds of my synths and workstations into the EPS to give them more punch and warmth. With the EPS it's also able to scratch samples by controlling the loop points via modulation wheel.
Fantastic, thank you Espen! Back in the day, I dreamt of buying one, when I had saved up enough money. So glad you showed us how to create great sounds and music with this wonderful sampler!
After 30+ years all the button combinations are still in my muscle memory. It's so fast and easy to work with. Love it! Tip: check out the truncate function: cmd wave 4. You're welcome ;)
the "samplers" of today ( say, Roland's FA, and Fantom series ), allow you to sample a single sound or sounds which respond to a hit of the sampling pads, but what they DON'T do, and this is a MAJOR difference, is extrapolate the sampled key across the whole keyboard....I used to do this with my Mirage and it was extremely easy to do...I would borrow a different keyboard from one of my friends, and if there was , say, a certain electric piano sound that I really liked, I could sample it and then the mirage would allow me to play not just the one sampled sound, but again, the whole range of notes up and down the keyboard....you could do this by sampling one single note, but if you multi-sampled several notes spaced apart, the quality would be even better.
Modern sampling keyboards must be able to map a single sound (via pitch-shifting) across the entire keyboard. It would be ridiculous if they couldn't, as most users don't have the time to record all 81 notes or whatever it is. Modern samplers are very powerful. You can pitch-shift, timeshetch, map as a one shot or percussive sample, or a pitched instrument zone, and there are a million ways to mangle the recorded sample. Try can obviously do everything an old Ensoniq could do... And more.
I had this keyboard in the early 90s. My band played a cover of Just What I Needed by The Cars and I remember sampling white noise and making a sine wave out of it for the lead part. Great memories with this keyboard
Ah, as soon as the strings and bells were sequenced the track turned instant espen. You have such a distinctive flavour 👌 Really like these real time retro tech videos. It’s very interesting and fun to follow your workflow and get an insight into your creative mind.
About to crank up my EPS16+ after over a decade in storage... wish me luck! Had to watch some vids on it to reacquaint myself with it, but I used to rock this sampler up one side and down the other. This was the perfect vid to watch, it's coming back to me now! Heh! Thanks for the killer vid. and a great track, too, by the way.
I had an Ensoniq EPS16plus. It was huge and very heavy. The instruction manual was the size of a car Haines manual and you needed it as doing anything meant going through a load of menus and buttons. However once you had all your samples in it was totally awesome.
Yep, I had one of these too :) My band mate had the Mirage and one of these...and some things we still just preferred on the Mirage (had that extra cool grit).
Eu tinha um desse... Pensando hoje em dia, eu deveria me sentir um herói tocando ao vivo com ele, pois muitos timbres tinha que carregar durante uma música e outra. Obrigado pelo vídeo, pude relembrar dessa fase importante pra mim. Abraços
I bought an Ensoniq TS10 in 1993 a few days after it was released. Still have it and use it to this day. Even though it doesn't have a sampling function, it reads EPS16+/ASR10 sample discs and I eventually bought the SCSI option a few years after so I didn't have to load from floppies. And with software, it's easy to do sampling on the PC and load it up on the TS10. A+ for the time and still a great piece.
Rob Cosentino Great Rob! I've literally just bought one of these, but noticed it only works with its own sample format, so interested in how you sampled > transferred to TS-10 compatible format > import into TS-10? Look forward to your reply!! 😷👍🎹🍻
@@theaudioeng You create floppies or CDs in the ASR/EPS format. I use Chicken Systems Ensoniq Disk Tools to do this. It works in Windows 10! www.chickensys.com/products2/disktools/
Then you miss the ensoniq sound , import does not give it if you dont sample in an ensoniq, also they have the best samplers but there is a big drawback , you have to play the samples through the main outputs of ensoniq samplers ,,if you use one of the output expanders for eps16 /asr the samples lose the special something through extrapolation , if seperate outs are required akai is much better
@@cnfuzz The TS10 has the same output converters as the ASR10. That's how it's able to play back it's 44.1 Khz samples. However, the internal ROM sounds are sampled at 32 Khz.
@@nonsuch Great thanks a lot Rob! I recall this Co. from back in the day from my EMU Emulator X3 VSTi (think it came bundled with translator SW from them). Good to see they are still going with Garth Hjelte who I've seen name before. May need to get their Full Version I see on their website...👍🍻
I love that Italo/Soviet Disco-Pop!! 🇮🇹 Thanks a lot Mr. Kraft👍 I love that brutal, punchy drums, like hits effects, from my favorite martial arts movies of 1980's.👊
Nice. On a sampler what makes a string pad sound this good is that eachl the note in a chord loops at different point... ...big part of the magic comes from actual limitations of this so simple system.
I still have my EPS classic, although it doesn't get used anymore. It took me months to save up for it and then additional months to save for the 4x RAM expansion, I didn't know I needed. But it gave me a sampler, with a sequencer and 8 tracks to play with instead of 4-track cassette...a HUGE upgrade for me. Only problem was that it crashed a lot at the worst possible time. The 16+ can do transwaves, which my classic cannot.
Mine too and still have it, but with Memory Expansion board with amazing 2 MB memory ;-) I took my EPS16+ on stage because it was great to load the next bank while playing a set. I think the EPS16 was the only sampler with this function then?
No need to retrigger the sound when changing loop points like you do in the video. The EPS 16+ and ASR-10 will update the loop points while the sample is playing.
@@EspenKraft The EPS 16 + has been on the radar for a long time, that is until the DSS-1 with the Veristock upgrade turned up... since getting the DSS-1, most of the modern synths have been relegated to propping up the wall.. I can see why you have all this 80's gear!
Great Espen! I owned several Ensoniq too. Behringer should clone one of them with more stability. They are a bit delicate with keyboard callibration and other issues...However are fantastic synths :)
I’m on the look out for ensoniqs but the rarely come up here in The Netherlands. We had one ESQ1 in highschool and I loved the sound. It was later superseded by a Roland D50. Which I honestly never really liked.
Very good sampler and the effects are just wonderful. Beware that it (or just some units?)has a tendency to overheat though, use a table fan if that's the case.
Yes mine would get very hot too, maybe its normal as the heat sink at the back is massive. Been meaning to use it again but it needs a good dusting off and maybe a service.
Quick way to save memory and a samples endpoint , its to reverse the sample, and trigger it while moving the end point value back...When happy, just change it to play forward (Fast even not knowing macros... Even faster if you know macros) ..... all real time, non destructive, and you save a lot of time.... Especially on long samples... Overall, you add it up (or take it away... Mwhahaha
Awesome exercise!, I actually did the same on my Kurzweil K2000 only a couple years ago, but the floppy drive started acting up, so my work may be gone forever!
Hi! I trying to figure out how to quantize a sequence on my EPS OG... the manual says it can be done in the appendix but i cant find it anywhere in the manual. Can you give me a hint? /SynthFellow
@@EspenKraftJepp! There it is! :) Funny thing is that this is the manual for EPS 16 plus ... not a word about it in the EPS manual. Well, thank you very much! :)
Enjoyed! I would’ve sampled the drum sounds as different layers of an instrument slot. [Worth mentioning: 1. I believe the 16+ also had poly-aftertouch 2. Waveboy (3rd party) had 3 disks available: Parallel FX, Resonant Filter, & Audio In (which let you use the 16+ as an FX processor via the sample ins) 3. Patch select buttons (to trigger different layers) You could also sample your sequence (memory prohibitive) as one instrument... Quite a clever little machine! Keep up the good work!😉 ✌🏻😎🎹🌴🌞
Sure, could have been done many ways, but I needed a fast result and the whole gig was done on camera as you see and ported out to the one needing it. Sometimes you can work on a prject for 15 years, sometimes it has to be done in 15 minutes. ;-)
The EPS16(not this model) was popular amongst DJ's in the late 80"s...the 16 bit capability was very sought after..however the sampling time was a bit short if you went for that.
I had Ensoniq sampler for some years ago. It's fantastic with it's 8 tracks. It had a fantastic sound. For me the best sampler I had. But when the years it got working very bad with a lot of malfunctions. This sampler became my mind instrument. But i sold it to a guy for 1000 danish crona because it was useless. But the guy who bought it did not care. He was convinced about he could fix it and get some good stuff out of it.
I love ensoniq stuff. Thank you espen. Why didn't you cutoff that bass a little? I would see filters in action. Also, I was curious about layering instruments. The interface anyway seems so easy. Great machine. Thank you.
Thanks! I didn't want to filter off anything on that bass, it cuts through more now, the whole purpose of sampling it again at a higher frequency, as I show. ;-)
My wife heard this and started to sing along to it, her lyrics were, you are a fucking nob, you never shut your gob, while keeping eye contact with me through out... 😂, must admit it was catchy....
EPS 16 AND THE ASR10 GREAT KEYBOARDS BUT THIS OVER HEAT REALLY BAD. AND THEN FREEZE UP, THEN YOU HAVE START YOUR PROJECT ALL OVER AGAIN FROM THE TOP! I HAD BOTH OF THIS KEYBOARDS SO SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE ! MY WORK AROUND IT WAS TO PUTTING A FUN POINTING AT THE MEMORY SLOT !
ASR is pretty stable in comparison to the EPS, but yeah it might be worth retrofitting it with a Switchmode PSU. I just worry about any noise that may be introduced using a SMPS vs the traditional transformer from factory.
I made a psu recap, still overheat, made a keyboard pcb bypass to make it more reliable (infamous two half keybed PCB problem the connector on the middle lost connection beneath and the kbd cpu make fail messages, it happens usually after u stress the whole keyboard), and put a smaller heat sensor silent type fan at the right side inside, made a small holes on the side. Power it to 5 volts, at the PSU for the floppy drive, to not get in the analog circuit. That solve the overheat freeze problem. The overheat is because of the quality. That unit using linear based regulators all of the place, that make the circuit high quality and noisless, but in the cost of heat and wattage. This unit eat 50W VA. But there is large clean digital noiseless headroom (not like roland and akai-s) when u record. SCSI option, and scsi to sd card is there too. Total Commander Ensoniq read write plugin. And the modernization is done well! The SMPS is deadly for the audio instruments if it is not designed well, and this is happening a lot. and it is not as reliable when it gets old you get digital noise instead of white noise, and it is matters a lot.
Petroci Gabor wow 😳 brotha that’s great information. You should do a UA-cam video sharing this information. I had 3 ASR10 and all 3 overheated ! And my house is 75-80 degrees inside. So is not like I have it out in the hot sun
you made that look easy , bet it was a nightmare ! :-) ohhh i do admire you ... but what a hastle - that menu diving , those blue letters - the timing - fun to watch - bet its not fun to use an old seq you nutter - whats with the baseball cap backwards ? bit backstreet boys !!!
Sure, i only scratch the surface in this video. This was an actual work-situation as I say in the beginning, and my main concern was to make that intro tune as fast as possible. ;-)
Why does a saw-wave from one synth sound different from another? Same thing. ;-) There's loads of different ways the manufacturers devised their samplers. Bit depth, sampling frequency, how they change the pitch as you transpose, and all the electronics shaping the sound. Combined this separate the different samplers, by a lot. You should check out my latest sampling video where I show how the same sounds sound on 5 different 12-bit samplers from the same era. Very different. Cheers
Hei Espen, Great video and channel :) Question: Any chance you have the factory tec service/repair manual? My EPS16+ has a issue on the main board. Display is in test mode. My guess is a issue on one of the chips. Powersupply is fully recapped a few years ago. But I am short on time for repairs this fall. So to save me from reverse engineer the board to source out the issue. Im hoping some fellow 80s Synth geek, have the elusive factory service/repair manual. My old trusty Dss-1 is taking care of the samples. But I miss having my EPS16+ in to the mix.
Many thanks Geir! I sold this EPS16+ some time ago. I don't have anything left of what I gave the buyer. I don't have the space for all the keyboard versions. I desire the module versions more. ;-)
@@EspenKraft Ok, can't argue with you on that one ;-) I only have room for 8 keys my self. The rest is in the racks. :-) Im gonna give the scope, calculator and my multimeter a go in the weekend and see if I can figure out the error on the main board. I hate leaving old tech for dead. So I have to repair it some how. :-)
Ensoniq gear is so underrated. Their samplers were excellent value for money and their synths sounded great too. I love my ESQ-1.
I have the Mirage.. excluding that one. Yes
My esq 1 is on the blink but yes I love it too! Time to get it fixed 😃
I'm an Ensoniq evangelist! EPS16+, MR-Rack, ESQ-1 and SQ-80. Wish I had the DP4 and the Fizmo! My first sampler was the Mirage, which my best buddy has now. Truly amazing gear those cats put out.
I was an Ensoniq kid. Mirage, EPS-16+, ASR-10 (module). Syquest 270Mb cartridges over SCSI. DC offset PA meltdowns. Loved it.
If only Ensoniq were still going.. imagine how their workstations would have evolved! Love my SQ-80 s (2 of them, with overflow you get 16 voices!).
I think sq80 and esq 1 was some of the best synth of the eighties. I think most of the historic material of Carpenter was made wit an sq80. I wish to have one of that. Never say never.
Well, I think they might have ended up like Korgs and Rolands, way more powerful but less interesting. although Ensoniq did seem a more creative and risk taking company especially with poly aftertouch which really should have become a standard for keyboards along time ago, I think anyway
@@korsmakolnikov No. Most of Carpenters historic material (like the films from the late 70:s and early 80:s) were made with mainly analog Synths. He was a fan of the Prophets. Some arp and Moogs were used in various films too.
Ensoniq had already gotten rid of resonant filters after the first few generations of hardware, so were already going in a bit of a wrong direction before E-mu acquired them, which was then acquired by Creative Labs. The last Ensoniq product, Fizmo, was interesting, but a dud, and even the MR series weren't much of a improvement over previous products. I have an SQ-2 and love it, though, but mostly use it as a controller now.
xnonsuchx what you say is technically correct, but a bit unfair. The last products like the ASR-X and Fizmo were rushed. But this is due to financial problems Ensoniq was feeling at the time. If Ensoniq existed today then, at the very least, there would have been no financial crunch, and these instruments would have been “finished”. I suspect they would be revered as much as the ASR-10 is now.
In the 90's I worked at a music store and sold a ton of Ensoniq keyboards. In those days, Ensoniq was secretly rewarding all sales you made with "Ensoniq points." I turned my points in for their EPS sampler, Dp-4 processor, VFX-SD synth and an SQ-1 synth. Korg later sent their sales rep Jordan Rudess out to where I was working to find out why I wasn't selling any Korgs. I didn't tell him I was getting free gear from Ensoniq for making sales. If I ever see him again, I'll apologize for making him come out to upstate NY in the dead of winter.
Fantastic and cool story man, thanks for sharing! I bet Mr. Rudess was scratching his head over the fact that Korg had no sales ha-ha.. ;-)
oh wow - nice little insight into the Biz there!
Japanese companies have never been good at discounts
Wish i'd known that when i was slangin' keys for GC in '98! Ensoniq was so underrated.
I worked at GC in 98-99 and they would not let us receive anything from the vendors at that time except for small stuff and NFR copies of software. I moved on to Mars Music after GC and they not only allowed it, but promoted the program. In 2001 I won a trip to Germany from a vendor@@schance1666
Man, Ensoniq synths have such a personality. :) Love those fluorescent screens.
I watched this and I was on the edge of my seat. Loved it. This board changed my life.
Cheers! :D
We got smart and started taking it to our mix sessions and then sampling our own drums back to it after they’d been compressed and eq’d. Our drum sounds would JUMP out of that thing when you’d press play after that! Then everybody started saying to us, “Wow! Why does your Ensoniq sound so different from mine?!”
This channel's content takes me to the closest as I can get to taking a time machine back to the 80's! Just incredible! I can feel your passion and that you are not in 2020, but in a 80's time machine...lol, that's great! I have never used that keyboard by the way, it sounded great in the day though! The brass sounds were really popular and sought after.
Many thanks for saying! I just love the 80s and its music and that's what this channel is all about. :)
THE 4RD SAMPLE MADE THE STINK BUG IN MY ROOM COME OUT OF HIDING... IT MUST BE THE HAPPY NOTE IT LIKED...THE WHOLE LESSON WAS VERY INFORMATIVE AND FUN!!!
Cool man, glad I made it come out of hiding! ;-)
@@EspenKraft Hi my friend, I think this might be the best sampler for techno drums, it has a lot of bass and low end, Akai robs it and sounds like a 808 snare with white noise, no good for 808 like kicks. I might get this instead of the s 1000 or the roland s760.
😂😂😂
My main Instrument for sequencing and sampling.Made so many hit songs for chinese artist in Hong Kong!
I love my EPS 16+
It was my most creative tool for about 20 years.
Still have all my ensoniq’s in superb condition and I think 7 of them and I won’t sell them. In my opinion they still compete with todays synths in every way. Incredible sound. Too bad the company does not produce anymore but I have a feeling someone will bring it back seeing all the success of the old names coming back. Always a pleasure to watch you Mr Kraft the 80’s man.
Cheers!
Another great 90's machine, thanks for sharing!
"In life there are not shortcuts". I loved that 👍
Many thanks! :)
Technically 80s,
Great video Espen!
Yeah - The EPS/EPS-16+ is a beast of a sampler. With its "bidirectional crossfade loop" you can loop sounds that other samplers can't.
And it sounds really awesome - in the early 90's I sampled many sounds of my synths and workstations into the EPS to give them more punch and warmth.
With the EPS it's also able to scratch samples by controlling the loop points via modulation wheel.
Fantastic, thank you Espen! Back in the day, I dreamt of buying one, when I had saved up enough money.
So glad you showed us how to create great sounds and music with this wonderful sampler!
Thanks Mark! :)
After 30+ years all the button combinations are still in my muscle memory. It's so fast and easy to work with. Love it! Tip: check out the truncate function: cmd wave 4. You're welcome ;)
the "samplers" of today ( say, Roland's FA, and Fantom series ), allow you to sample a single sound or sounds which respond to a hit of the sampling pads, but what they DON'T do, and this is a MAJOR difference, is extrapolate the sampled key across the whole keyboard....I used to do this with my Mirage and it was extremely easy to do...I would borrow a different keyboard from one of my friends, and if there was , say, a certain electric piano sound that I really liked, I could sample it and then the mirage would allow me to play not just the one sampled sound, but again, the whole range of notes up and down the keyboard....you could do this by sampling one single note, but if you multi-sampled several notes spaced apart, the quality would be even better.
Modern sampling keyboards must be able to map a single sound (via pitch-shifting) across the entire keyboard. It would be ridiculous if they couldn't, as most users don't have the time to record all 81 notes or whatever it is. Modern samplers are very powerful. You can pitch-shift, timeshetch, map as a one shot or percussive sample, or a pitched instrument zone, and there are a million ways to mangle the recorded sample. Try can obviously do everything an old Ensoniq could do... And more.
I had this keyboard in the early 90s. My band played a cover of Just What I Needed by The Cars and I remember sampling white noise and making a sine wave out of it for the lead part. Great memories with this keyboard
I had my Ensoniq Sd-1 workstation for years in the late 90s, love the lush sounds and excellent 24 track sequencer.
Ah, as soon as the strings and bells were sequenced the track turned instant espen. You have such a distinctive flavour 👌
Really like these real time retro tech videos. It’s very interesting and fun to follow your workflow and get an insight into your creative mind.
Thanks! I've got my way of doing things yes, and I like that it's recognizable. ;-)
About to crank up my EPS16+ after over a decade in storage... wish me luck! Had to watch some vids on it to reacquaint myself with it, but I used to rock this sampler up one side and down the other. This was the perfect vid to watch, it's coming back to me now! Heh! Thanks for the killer vid. and a great track, too, by the way.
Cheers!
I had an Ensoniq EPS16plus. It was huge and very heavy. The instruction manual was the size of a car Haines manual and you needed it as doing anything meant going through a load of menus and buttons. However once you had all your samples in it was totally awesome.
11:02 "The Uzi 9mm" I laughed so hard at that...I say that all the time joking around with people! 😂
Haha, cool man! I always do these Arnold impressions with my friends.. ;-)
@@EspenKraft You did a good job with the accent, I thought for a moment it was an Arnold sample haha
"Geht to tha synth-ah-si-zah!!!" :D
@@NPrescott 😂
Yep, I had one of these too :) My band mate had the Mirage and one of these...and some things we still just preferred on the Mirage (had that extra cool grit).
Enjoyed this one. Love this instrument. Good to see you put together a quick track with it.
Thanks! :)
ahhh my first sampler.. (couldnt afford the ASR 10 back in the day) I had it for over 20 years, this thing is a blast!
I have one and I still love it.
Inspired me to turn my EPS 16+ on and sample some noise. For years I used it as a poor man's Rhodes at gigs and nothing else.
Eu tinha um desse... Pensando hoje em dia, eu deveria me sentir um herói tocando ao vivo com ele, pois muitos timbres tinha que carregar durante uma música e outra. Obrigado pelo vídeo, pude relembrar dessa fase importante pra mim. Abraços
Thanks!
The EPS was my first sampling workstation. Looking at this, I'm missing it right now.
I think if I was trying to do this - That 'quantize' feature would be invaluable!
Perfect (as always), Espen!
Thanks for the support! :)
I bought an Ensoniq TS10 in 1993 a few days after it was released. Still have it and use it to this day. Even though it doesn't have a sampling function, it reads EPS16+/ASR10 sample discs and I eventually bought the SCSI option a few years after so I didn't have to load from floppies. And with software, it's easy to do sampling on the PC and load it up on the TS10. A+ for the time and still a great piece.
Rob Cosentino Great Rob! I've literally just bought one of these, but noticed it only works with its own sample format, so interested in how you sampled > transferred to TS-10 compatible format > import into TS-10? Look forward to your reply!! 😷👍🎹🍻
@@theaudioeng You create floppies or CDs in the ASR/EPS format. I use Chicken Systems Ensoniq Disk Tools to do this. It works in Windows 10! www.chickensys.com/products2/disktools/
Then you miss the ensoniq sound , import does not give it if you dont sample in an ensoniq, also they have the best samplers but there is a big drawback , you have to play the samples through the main outputs of ensoniq samplers ,,if you use one of the output expanders for eps16 /asr the samples lose the special something through extrapolation , if seperate outs are required akai is much better
@@cnfuzz The TS10 has the same output converters as the ASR10. That's how it's able to play back it's 44.1 Khz samples. However, the internal ROM sounds are sampled at 32 Khz.
@@nonsuch Great thanks a lot Rob! I recall this Co. from back in the day from my EMU Emulator X3 VSTi (think it came bundled with translator SW from them). Good to see they are still going with Garth Hjelte who I've seen name before. May need to get their Full Version I see on their website...👍🍻
I love that Italo/Soviet Disco-Pop!! 🇮🇹 Thanks a lot Mr. Kraft👍 I love that brutal, punchy drums, like hits effects, from my favorite martial arts movies of 1980's.👊
I had a feeling this would be up your alley Sal! :)
@@EspenKraft Oh yes, this is exactly my alley😊👍
Very clear explanation! I believe this one was a smart instrument in the past.
Thanks. I have had this keyboard a while and don’t know how to use it. Thanks.
Always quality content from your sir. You should have far more subscribers.
Thanks! Rome wasn't built in one day, the rise is steady on this channel so in time... ;-)
Nice.
On a sampler what makes a string pad sound this good is that eachl the note in a chord loops at different point...
...big part of the magic comes from actual limitations of this so simple system.
Looks incredibly complicated. Well done.
I still have my EPS classic, although it doesn't get used anymore. It took me months to save up for it and then additional months to save for the 4x RAM expansion, I didn't know I needed. But it gave me a sampler, with a sequencer and 8 tracks to play with instead of 4-track cassette...a HUGE upgrade for me. Only problem was that it crashed a lot at the worst possible time. The 16+ can do transwaves, which my classic cannot.
The rack version was my first sampler~
Mine too and still have it, but with Memory Expansion board with amazing 2 MB memory ;-) I took my EPS16+ on stage because it was great to load the next bank while playing a set. I think the EPS16 was the only sampler with this function then?
How come they didn't make the Sequencer standard in all their products after the EPS16+?
My ASR-X really could have used it. lol...
Agreed! The eps sequencer was great and straightforward. The asr-x not so much.
My first Sampler/Sequencer. Still got it in the basement.
@Poykeh Official Good idea, the holidays would be a nice chance to check if it's still running.
Great video! So many memories and feelings with all that gear. Subscribed!
Thanks Kevin, I appreciate it! :)
No need to retrigger the sound when changing loop points like you do in the video. The EPS 16+ and ASR-10 will update the loop points while the sample is playing.
Old habits.. ;-)
Espen Kraft I think that works on looped sample playback. You get better audio feedback by retriggering drum sounds while editing.
Definitely enjoyed this.
Cheers
I know the EPS 16 + has the built in sequencer, but how does it compare to the Korg DSS-1 for overall sound and sampling features?
They're both great, but the DSS-1 is the one I prefer. It's a superior synth when it comes to the sounds and filters.
@@EspenKraft The EPS 16 + has been on the radar for a long time, that is until the DSS-1 with the Veristock upgrade turned up... since getting the DSS-1, most of the modern synths have been relegated to propping up the wall.. I can see why you have all this 80's gear!
Great video! It's nice to hear a sampler from those days. :)
Thanks man! :)
Tack så mycket
Tack själv! :)
Great Espen! I owned several Ensoniq too.
Behringer should clone one of them with more stability. They are a bit delicate with keyboard callibration and other issues...However are fantastic synths :)
Thanks man! Yes, the keyboard calibration can be a pain, especially cold.
The calibration issue is often related to ribbon cable connection. Keep in clean enviro and deoxit d5 is always your friend with vintage gear.
I loved my Asr-10. Wish it was still working. Need to get it repaired.
It's worth it!! DO IT!!
Its time to pull my EPS from case... what a video!
With its diverse sample loop modulations I have created from 1992-2001 very unique synth sounds which sound modern today, 25 years later.
I've been working on reconditioning a unit for years. It had all sorts of problems and is "almost" there!
What a nice groove
Cheers!
Still love the keyboard quality
I’m on the look out for ensoniqs but the rarely come up here in The Netherlands. We had one ESQ1 in highschool and I loved the sound. It was later superseded by a Roland D50. Which I honestly never really liked.
Love those over Espen's shoulder videos!!!
Sweet! :)
Very good sampler and the effects are just wonderful. Beware that it (or just some units?)has a tendency to overheat though, use a table fan if that's the case.
Yes mine would get very hot too, maybe its normal as the heat sink at the back is massive. Been meaning to use it again but it needs a good dusting off and maybe a service.
My Ensoniq ESQ 1 was the easiest sequencer ever to learn on.
Dwight Shockley yes its very good. I have once eps16+ then got asr-10 oh I miss this machine every powerful and you can do almost everything only this
Came here for the '80s, stayed for the early '90s.
Quick way to save memory and a samples endpoint , its to reverse the sample, and trigger it while moving the end point value back...When happy, just change it to play forward (Fast even not knowing macros... Even faster if you know macros) .....
all real time, non destructive, and you save a lot of time.... Especially on long samples... Overall, you add it up (or take it away... Mwhahaha
Awesome exercise!, I actually did the same on my Kurzweil K2000 only a couple years ago, but the floppy drive started acting up, so my work may be gone forever!
Thanks! All workstations froze up sooner or later.. ;-)
You can swap the floppy out for a drive that supports USB memory cards.
Come for the sampler workflow, stay for the Pet Shop Boys B-sides. 🎶 🔥
Hi! I trying to figure out how to quantize a sequence on my EPS OG... the manual says it can be done in the appendix but i cant find it anywhere in the manual. Can you give me a hint?
/SynthFellow
I sold the EPS a long time ago, but check out this link:
www.manualslib.com/manual/1168266/Ensoniq-Eps-16-Plus.html?page=206
@@EspenKraftJepp! There it is! :) Funny thing is that this is the manual for EPS 16 plus ... not a word about it in the EPS manual. Well, thank you very much! :)
Cheers!
very hot stuff!
Thumbs up! :)
Indiana USA.
Thanks! :)
Your humble opinion is correct! That is great! :-)
does anyone know anyone that fixes the asr 10 in north carolina?
I so want an EPS 16+
It seems everything is superb classic.
My first sampler with SCSI-II interface + 512 MB Seagate Barracuda and Waveboy discs :) Those were the days...
Those WaveBoy disks are great fun.
It's a n 8 voice. Nice beefy tone. 👍
Enjoyed! I would’ve sampled the drum sounds as different layers of an instrument slot. [Worth mentioning: 1. I believe the 16+ also had poly-aftertouch 2. Waveboy (3rd party) had 3 disks available: Parallel FX, Resonant Filter, & Audio In (which let you use the 16+ as an FX processor via the sample ins) 3. Patch select buttons (to trigger different layers) You could also sample your sequence (memory prohibitive) as one instrument... Quite a clever little machine! Keep up the good work!😉
✌🏻😎🎹🌴🌞
Sure, could have been done many ways, but I needed a fast result and the whole gig was done on camera as you see and ported out to the one needing it. Sometimes you can work on a prject for 15 years, sometimes it has to be done in 15 minutes. ;-)
If you wanna go this route, get the Ensoniq ASR-10 instead, it's so much better. Yes, I have owned and used extensivly both the EPS and the ASR-10.
What's better about it
@@dannymolns3573 The best hardware sampler ever made, such a pleasure to work with.
Great stuff.
Did you also got the Essential Sound Disks too?
Thanks. No.
Muy buen video. El secuenciador es realmente poderoso.
The EPS16(not this model) was popular amongst DJ's in the late 80"s...the 16 bit capability was very sought after..however the sampling time was a bit short if you went for that.
Would things be just the same on a classic EPS? What's the difference between the two work stations?
Effects and stereo outs are the main differences.
@@EspenKraftthey both have stereo outs.
19:19 " That was great, I think, in my humble opinion," Yes, you're right. Thanks ;-)
Nice
Good job
Thanks! :)
Does the keyboard have and transmit polyphonic aftertouch?
It does.
@EspenKraft great! Thank you! And it is well responsive in your opinion?
I have no idea. Never used it when I had the EPS16+
I had Ensoniq sampler for some years ago. It's fantastic with it's 8 tracks. It had a fantastic sound. For me the best sampler I had. But when the years it got working very bad with a lot of malfunctions. This sampler became my mind instrument. But i sold it to a guy for 1000 danish crona because it was useless.
But the guy who bought it did not care. He was convinced about he could fix it and get some good stuff out of it.
These are fixable and capable of much much good stuff still. No plugin comes close.
Ja, jeg er 100 procent enig med dig.😇
I love ensoniq stuff. Thank you espen. Why didn't you cutoff that bass a little? I would see filters in action.
Also, I was curious about layering instruments. The interface anyway seems so easy. Great machine. Thank you.
Thanks! I didn't want to filter off anything on that bass, it cuts through more now, the whole purpose of sampling it again at a higher frequency, as I show. ;-)
Well done Espen, you have immense talent and you make it look so easy. Does this particular EPS16+ have SCSI or did you save everything to Floppy?
As you can see from the video, it has SCSI, but I usually don't save samples after use like this. And I didn't do it here either. ;-) Thanks!
@@EspenKraft Ahh, I went back on the video and see the me-16plus, that was plugged into the SCSI port. Thanks again for your informative videos.
My pleasure, as always! :)
uwielbiam Twoje filmy.pozdrowienia z Aten:-)
Thanks! :)
Wish I had your skillz
12:02 Pet Shop Boys: A Man Could Get Arrested ;-)
My wife heard this and started to sing along to it, her lyrics were, you are a fucking nob, you never shut your gob, while keeping eye contact with me through out... 😂, must admit it was catchy....
i think i will get another asr10,in keyboard form,or find a ASR88...
EPS 16 AND THE ASR10 GREAT KEYBOARDS BUT THIS OVER HEAT REALLY BAD. AND THEN FREEZE UP, THEN YOU HAVE START YOUR PROJECT ALL OVER AGAIN FROM THE TOP! I HAD BOTH OF THIS KEYBOARDS SO SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE ! MY WORK AROUND IT WAS TO PUTTING A FUN POINTING AT THE MEMORY SLOT !
WHAT???? I COULDN'T HEAR YOU!!!!!!
ASR is pretty stable in comparison to the EPS, but yeah it might be worth retrofitting it with a Switchmode PSU. I just worry about any noise that may be introduced using a SMPS vs the traditional transformer from factory.
I made a psu recap, still overheat, made a keyboard pcb bypass to make it more reliable (infamous two half keybed PCB problem the connector on the middle lost connection beneath and the kbd cpu make fail messages, it happens usually after u stress the whole keyboard), and put a smaller heat sensor silent type fan at the right side inside, made a small holes on the side. Power it to 5 volts, at the PSU for the floppy drive, to not get in the analog circuit. That solve the overheat freeze problem. The overheat is because of the quality. That unit using linear based regulators all of the place, that make the circuit high quality and noisless, but in the cost of heat and wattage. This unit eat 50W VA. But there is large clean digital noiseless headroom (not like roland and akai-s) when u record. SCSI option, and scsi to sd card is there too. Total Commander Ensoniq read write plugin. And the modernization is done well! The SMPS is deadly for the audio instruments if it is not designed well, and this is happening a lot. and it is not as reliable when it gets old you get digital noise instead of white noise, and it is matters a lot.
Petroci Gabor wow 😳 brotha that’s great information. You should do a UA-cam video sharing this information. I had 3 ASR10 and all 3 overheated ! And my house is 75-80 degrees inside. So is not like I have it out in the hot sun
you made that look easy , bet it was a nightmare ! :-) ohhh i do admire you ... but what a hastle - that menu diving , those blue letters - the timing - fun to watch - bet its not fun to use an old seq you nutter - whats with the baseball cap backwards ? bit backstreet boys !!!
It's not a nightmare to use, nor was it. It's sheer fun man ;-)
This beat is nice
Hey, if you create 1 sample of all those drum hits you can actually sample that and then have it all on 1 track because the EPS16plus can do layers.
Sure, i only scratch the surface in this video. This was an actual work-situation as I say in the beginning, and my main concern was to make that intro tune as fast as possible. ;-)
The EPS16+ logo looks like it could be a Sonic the Hedgehog level intro card or something.
Right XD
Question, if a sampler is just a sampler, how do they sound different ?
Thanks, Espen
Why does a saw-wave from one synth sound different from another? Same thing. ;-) There's loads of different ways the manufacturers devised their samplers. Bit depth, sampling frequency, how they change the pitch as you transpose, and all the electronics shaping the sound. Combined this separate the different samplers, by a lot. You should check out my latest sampling video where I show how the same sounds sound on 5 different 12-bit samplers from the same era. Very different. Cheers
@@EspenKraft Many thanks for taking time to reply, Cheers Espen :)
The condenser on my kitchen refrigerator has a better sound than vintage analog waveforms. Thank God for digital synths'
Nothing like loosing your work with Error 144 displayed but I love this thing anyway.
Hei Espen, Great video and channel :) Question: Any chance you have the factory tec service/repair manual? My EPS16+ has a issue on the main board. Display is in test mode. My guess is a issue on one of the chips. Powersupply is fully recapped a few years ago. But I am short on time for repairs this fall. So to save me from reverse engineer the board to source out the issue. Im hoping some fellow 80s Synth geek, have the elusive factory service/repair manual. My old trusty Dss-1 is taking care of the samples. But I miss having my EPS16+ in to the mix.
Many thanks Geir!
I sold this EPS16+ some time ago. I don't have anything left of what I gave the buyer. I don't have the space for all the keyboard versions. I desire the module versions more. ;-)
@@EspenKraft Ok, can't argue with you on that one ;-) I only have room for 8 keys my self. The rest is in the racks. :-) Im gonna give the scope, calculator and my multimeter a go in the weekend and see if I can figure out the error on the main board. I hate leaving old tech for dead. So I have to repair it some how. :-)