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Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid 1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally samplers and synthesizers. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with electronic engineering. ...
The 1980s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1980 and 1989. ...
// Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining a similar mindset. ...
A musical instrument is a device that has been constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ...
A sampler can be any of the following things: In general, a sampler is any broadly representative cross-section of some collection; for instance, food products are sometimes packaged in samplers containing a variety of chocolates or beers. ...
The term synthesizer is also used to mean frequency synthesizer, an electronic system found in communications, or video synthesizer. ...
Company history
Ensoniq was founded in 1982 by a pussy [Commodore International|Commodore]] engineers Robert "Bob" Yannes (designer of the SID audio chip of the Commodore 64 home computer), Bruce Crockett, and Al Charpentier. Their first product was a software drum machine that ran on a home computer. 1982 (MCMLXXXII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
MOS Technology SIDs: The right image shows a 6581 from MOS Technology, at the time they were known as the Commodore Semiconductor Group (CSG) and the left image shows an 8580 from MOS Technology. ...
Commodore 64 (1982) The Commodore 64 (C64, CBM 64/CBM64, C=64) is a home computer with 64 kilobytes of RAM that was popular in the 1980s. ...
A Boss DR-202 Drum Machine A drum machine is a device designed to imitate the sound of drums and/or other percussion instruments. ...
The home computer is a consumer-friendly word for the second generation of microcomputers (the technical term that was previously used), entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s. ...
Ensoniq entered the instrument market with the Mirage sampling keyboard in 1985. At the price of USD$1500 it cost significantly less than previous samplers such as the Fairlight and the E-mu Emulator. Starting with the ESQ-1, they began producing wave table based synthesizers. Following the success of these products, Ensoniq established a subsidary in Japan in 1987. In 1994 production began on PCI soundcards for home computers. In 1998 the company was acquired by Creative Labs for $77 million, and combined with E-mu Systems. Ensoniq Mirage The Ensoniq Corporations Mirage was an 8-bit sampler introduced in 1985. ...
This article is about the year. ...
USD redirects here. ...
A sampler can be any of the following things: In general, a sampler is any broadly representative cross-section of some collection; for instance, food products are sometimes packaged in samplers containing a variety of chocolates or beers. ...
The Fairlight CMI (computer musical instrument) was the first digital sampling synthesiser. ...
After seeing a Fairlight CMI at a convention in 1979, E-mu founders Scott Wedge and Dave Rossum began working on designing a less expensive sampler. ...
Ensoniq ESQ1 Ensoniq ESQ-1 is a synthesizer released by Ensoniq in 1986. ...
Wavetable synthesis is used in digital musical instruments (synthesizers) to produce natural tone-like sounds. ...
1987 (MCMLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ...
For other meanings of PCI, see PCI (disambiguation). ...
1998(MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...
Creative Technology Ltd. ...
E-mu Systems was a synthesizer maker and pioneer in the manufacture of low-cost digital sampling music workstations. ...
Ensoniq products were highly professional; strong selling points were ease-of-use and their characteristic "fat", rich sound (generally thought of as being an "American" quality, as opposed to the "Japanese" sound which was more "digital" and somewhat "cold"). After the Mirage, all Ensoniq instruments featured integrated sequencers (even their late 80's and early 90's samplers) providing an "all-in-one" "digital studio" production instrument concept. High-quality effects units were included, along with disk drives or RAM cards for storage needs. The manuals and tutorial documents were clearly written and highly musician-oriented, allowing the users to quickly get satisfactory results from their machines. A sampler can be any of the following things: In general, a sampler is any broadly representative cross-section of some collection; for instance, food products are sometimes packaged in samplers containing a variety of chocolates or beers. ...
The terms storage (U.K.) or memory (U.S.) refer to the parts of a digital computer that retain physical state (data) for some interval of time, possibly even after electrical power to the computer is turned off. ...
Random access memory (sometimes random-access memory), commonly known by its acronym RAM, is a type of computer storage (in practice only computer chips) whose contents can be accessed in any (i. ...
The company's heyday was in the early 90's when the VFX synthesizers offered innovative performance and sequencing features (and terrific acoustic sounds), along with the ASR series of 16-bit samplers which also integrated synthesis, effects and sequencer into a single-unit digital studio. The TS synthesizers followed the legacy of the VFX line, improving several aspects such as the polyphony, with a pussy asshole effects engine, sample-loading capabilities and even better synth and acoustic sounds. The DP series of effects rackmount units offered parallel processing and reverb presets on a par with Lexicon's offerings but at affordable prices. Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of several independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). ...
When sound is produced in an enclosed space multiple reflections build up and blend together creating reverberation or reverb. ...
A lexicon is usually a list of words together with additional word-specific information, i. ...
Despite these strengths, early Ensoniq instruments suffered from reliability problems. The company didn't manage to reinvent its workstation concept in order to survive the mid and late 90's, and no lower-budget versions of their keyboards were offered. Excellent synthesizers like the VFX or TS models lacked cheaper rackmount counterparts. Finally, while the competition's products were continually evolving and newer technologies such as physical modelling were introduced, Ensoniq failed to follow the late 90s market orientation, often recycling old concepts on their new products. The incorporation of an arpeggiator and a resonant filter on the latest products (such as the MR synthesizers) could have made Ensoniq a desirable alternative for the dance and electronic crowd (which was almost entirely responsible for the late 90's synth market), but that feature was apparently noticed too late. The fusion with E-mu and Creative Labs sealed Ensoniq's fate: their products and support vanished soon after, much to the sadness and disbelief of their customers.
Timeline of major products Ensoniq Mirage The Ensoniq Corporations Mirage was an 8-bit sampler introduced in 1985. ...
Ensoniq ESQ1 Ensoniq ESQ-1 is a synthesizer released by Ensoniq in 1986. ...
Released in 1988/1989, the EPS (Ensoniq Performance Sampler) was one of the first few affordable samplers on the market. ...
The Ensoniq MR61 was the 61 key version of the MR series from Ensoniq. ...
The Fizmo is Ensoniqs last attempt at creating synthesizers. ...
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