Any ASR10 users out there?

[BERFAB]

The SCSI was also MAC correct?

Does anyone know if there is a SCSI converter for PC (SCSI to Printer maybe? or to USB?).

Garth, is there a solution to my particular problem? Do you sell a thingy that does what I'm looking for?

Re: the Transoniq Hacker--What is always interesting to me, looking back, is that the Hacker always had a page or two devoted exclusively to a new patch for whatever flagship synth was out at the time. And I used to spend quite a bit of time programing, by hand, all the parameters of that patch. Kids today are really spoiled--just login and download hundreds of patches in the blink of an eye. Not to mention entire hosts, synths and samplers. Technology marches on...

[Raindog]

I used a SCSI PCI-card which I put into my Mac. It's definitely not Mac specific. There should be quite some cheap SCSI cards for PCs out there. But don't think you can just connect the ASR to your PC via SCSI. The only thing that works is a SCSI harddisk (where ideally your samples are stored or do you have them ALL on floppies ? . I think that Garth created solutions to bring the content of ASR floppies to a PC (which would make things easy for you) but you should ask him himself. I'm not sure as I'm a Mac guy...
Regards
Raindog

[AudioSphere]

Hey, slightly offtpic, but anyway.... Im a ASR-10 user since 1994. In 2003 I was "stupid" enough to sell it. For a period of 2 years I did some attemps to test Kontakt and a few others, and found out that issues like drumprogramming, loopedit, layercontrol and fast programming in timewise and in general became a nightmare compared to the Ensoniq interface. I constantly got irritated by always open/close windows/scrolling/mini-maximize - just clicking to make things fit- ...and doing everything with a single mouse, insted of my both hands on a interface where nothing is longer than 2-3 clicks away.

Of course ASR doesn't have the grapics, and Kontakt IS a flagship - but it was my workhorse and backbone in my entire setup, and so I was lucky to find a secondhand keyboard-model/16MB/SCSI for 500 EUR, and buy it "back" I know my problems were the usual hard/software-issue, but this machine got soul, and the converters sounds VERY good in the 16bit resolution area. !! I don't know much about Ensoniq inside-history, but from outside, it seems like Ensoniq used too much energy, inplementing the transwave-technology on their samplers, and somehow ignored the all-over demand and need for resonant filters. When Emu took Ensoniq, and Creative took EMU, someone forgot something....in my opinion.
I got quite a few machines and samplers since I bought my first EPS16+, but this one is the real one

[geoslake]

Still, waveboy filters sound better than any Kontakt or Halion etc filter imho...

[sonicod]

RE:Software
I've PM'ed Garth to see what we can do.

RE:Ensoniq Gear
Despite the occasional software crash, for me the ASR10 just sounded right. I used it along side of a Kurzweil K2500 and a EMU E-Synth and although in spec the ASR10 was weaker, it just sounded better to my ears. I think the FX played a major part in this.

The music store I dealt with in early days were big advocates of Ensoniq gear. I had/used a DP4+, two ASR10s, SQ1+ and a DP Pro. I no longer own any of this kit (some of it was other and band members gear anyway) but I still troll ebay for a DP4 or DP Pro as I am yet to hear any VST effect come close to it.

I don't regret the VST/VSTi revolution one bit and I'd much rather have the setup I have today than 10 years ago, but it is a shame to lose the audio characteristics of some of the older kit. With Ensoniq swallowed many years ago, I doubt we will ever see a physically modeled DP4+

RE:Using ASR10 instruments
I had an external Syquest 270MB removable HD with two carts full of instruments. About 40% of these were original patches I sampled/created. By hooking up the Syquest to a Win95 box with a SCSI card I managed to backup all my patches to the PC and burn them to CD. They are .efa files using the weird Ensoniq file system structure.

[pschelfh]

Still, waveboy filters sound better than any Kontakt or Halion etc filter imho...

Yeah, those Waveboy disks were great, especialy the Transwaves one !

Unfortunately my EPS16+ died on me begin this year , there was something 'grainy' and raw in the sound that I haven't found in any other sampler, be it hardware or software.

I've now started converting my CD-Roms into Kontakt (2.1), not always with great succes, but I understand that the envelopes are very difficult to convert.

I wonder if this is legal : I have an old but very good EPS-CDRom from B.E.A. (Belgian Ensoniq Association - ceased to exist in 1996) which I'd like to convert to Kontakt and make available for free.

Peter.

[BERFAB]

RE:Software
I've PM'ed Garth to see what we can do.

RE:Ensoniq Gear
Despite the occasional software crash, for me the ASR10 just sounded right. I used it along side of a Kurzweil K2500 and a EMU E-Synth and although in spec the ASR10 was weaker, it just sounded better to my ears. I think the FX played a major part in this.

The music store I dealt with in early days were big advocates of Ensoniq gear. I had/used a DP4+, two ASR10s, SQ1+ and a DP Pro. I no longer own any of this kit (some of it was other and band members gear anyway) but I still troll ebay for a DP4 or DP Pro as I am yet to hear any VST effect come close to it.

I don't regret the VST/VSTi revolution one bit and I'd much rather have the setup I have today than 10 years ago, but it is a shame to lose the audio characteristics of some of the older kit. With Ensoniq swallowed many years ago, I doubt we will ever see a physically modeled DP4+

RE:Using ASR10 instruments
I had an external Syquest 270MB removable HD with two carts full of instruments. About 40% of these were original patches I sampled/created. By hooking up the Syquest to a Win95 box with a SCSI card I managed to backup all my patches to the PC and burn them to CD. They are .efa files using the weird Ensoniq file system structure.

I wonder if I can do that with the SCSI Zip drive that's currently hooked up to my ASR-10? In addition to the floppies, I think Garth put every sound he had on a pair of Zip disks for me.

Re: Ensoniq gear--All of the Ensoniq equipment was just amazing to me. The perfect marriage of whiz-bang technology and a reasonable price point. If memory serves, they were selling stuff for 1/3 to 1/2 less than their competition. And it was GOOD. I really miss the Mirage, despite it's quirkiness. And the ESQ-1 was sheer genius--that sequencer was the heart of my first real home studio.

But the ASR-10 really topped the list. Unfortunately the only way to get it's sound into my DAW now is through the A/D converters on a PC interface, but there is NOTHING like the digital FX that came packed with that puppy. Garth created a number of additional FX (in both 32 and 44.1) which were great as well. I never had the need for a DP4, but as memory serves, that was something like having the FX of 4 ASR-10's chained together.

Not to mention the fact that the ASR-10 was a sampler that actually SAMPLED. And RE-Sampled. With FX. And accurate looping was a relatively simple affair. Add that to the very powerful on board sequencer, and you really couldn't beat that thing.

But the really interesting thing is that the ASR-10 shipped with only 2mg of RAM. If you wanted to really go nuts (like I did) $500 got you up to 16 mg. Those were the days...

-B

[Distorted_Mastermind]

I have an ASRX Pro and love it. On SCSI to the PC there's a few options out. SCSI to PCMCIA probably PCI too, and also SCSI to USB. I just record mine straight from the sequencer in pairs, one panned hard left and one hard right. It is kind of a pain, but overall probably about the same as if I made it on my pc since the workflow of the ASR fits me better.
Now to get off topic more....if you watch on ebay it is very possible to pick up an ASRX Pro for 300 or so. The Pro has SCSI standard, 2 MB memory stock upgradable to 66 MB via two 32 MB simms, and can use up to a 2 GB JAZ drive for storage (2 GB goes a much longer way on it). I love my ASR.

[sonicod]

Can the ASRX load the ASR10 patches fully? I recall something about the architecture being slightly different with the number of wavesamples or something. The ASRX was released to go up against the Akai MPCs from what I can gather.

Can the ASRX internal effects be used in realtime from the external audio inputs like the ASR10?

[BERFAB]

Can the ASRX load the ASR10 patches fully? I recall something about the architecture being slightly different with the number of wavesamples or something. The ASRX was released to go up against the Akai MPCs from what I can gather.

Can the ASRX internal effects be used in realtime from the external audio inputs like the ASR10?

I seem to recall that the ASRX had a couple of compatability issues as well, though we're talking a dozen or so years ago, and the brain tends to get a little fuzzy on anything prior to yesterday's lunchtime...

-B

[bro. miles]

While I don't much care for Translator or the company that makes it, the free version will do all you need if you are patient. (Limit one conversion per 30 minutes or something like that). Ensoniq products were their exclusive focus until Ensoniq went under so they have had enough years to debug the Ensoniq conversions. YMMV with other formats. My personal experience with Translator as a paying customer was horrid, and I would never give him any money again.

Awave has been updated many times over the years and has always done what it claims to do in my experience.

[chickeneps]

My personal experience with Translator as a paying customer was horrid, and I would never give him any money again.

Miles is just mad because we called him a moron over the phone. (He drove us to it.) He's one of those people who brings up the topic of unresolved playground infractions at 30 year high school reunions.

Miles only converts to SoundFonts, and no longer has a need to convert anything anymore, both which he again fails to mention.

Whatever - we publish our phone number (320-235-9798), so anyone can call us and talk to us about anything or any issue. We like people and help many persons every day.

[Distorted_Mastermind]

The ASRX can be used as an effects processor without actually sampling. It can also of course sample and resample too. As far as the X loading the 10 patches I'm not sure. All the sounds that go into mine go in through the lovely inputs.

[chickeneps]

Well, it's good to see an assemblage of Ensoniq users. I've owned their stuff since the Mirage first came out and still currently use an ASR-10 Rack with a KS-32 as my main controller for my PC based DAW. Tons of ASR sounds from Garth (at Rubber Chicken/Chickensys)are in my library, and he also sold me the increased RAM for the ASR-10 as well as the ZIP drive to keep everything organized (probably a dozen or so years ago--great company BTW--very passionate about their craft). I really miss the Transoniq Hacker!

Those were the days, wasn't it! Back in the non-Internet days, it was a great monthly source of information.

From reading the above thread, I'm very curious about getting my ASR sounds into my PC based DAW. I've got Kontakt 2.1 and run Cubase SX. My ASR-10 sounds are all on old 1.4mg floppies or the aforementioned ZIP drive. Even if I had a floppy drive on my PC (which I don't) would I be able to read the data off of the disks?

Yes, although with both types of media you have to prepare the data first.

Kontakt 2.1 reads Ensoniq stuff (courtesy of Chicken) in three forms:

Off CD
Off Disk Image
Off .efe/efa files

So you have Zip and floppy. For Zip, best thing is to make a disk image of the Zip. You can do this with Nero or Translator or other burning software. Then put the Image where Kontakt advises you - c:\Images or a folder called Images in the Kontakt 2 folder. Then K2 will see it and you can convert the instruments out.

For floppies, you'll need to find a PC with a built-in floppy drive (no USB). Then you need to run the EPSDisk program as advised at the SamplerZone site http://www.ensoniqsamplers.org/faq-epsasr.shtml, see a couple of the articles for more info to use EPSDisk and where to get it).

In essence, you'll want to create .efe/.efa files from the floppy disks onto your hard drive. K2 will see those EFE/EFA files and be able to convert them.

[chickeneps]

Does anyone know if there is a SCSI converter for PC (SCSI to Printer maybe? or to USB?). Garth, is there a solution to my particular problem? Do you sell a thingy that does what I'm looking for?

Well, you can find a SCSI card easy off eBay. Adaptec is best. You'll need that, unless you have a ZipDrive USB or parallel on your PC. You can make the disk image necessary for Kontakt using that.

Re: the Transoniq Hacker--What is always interesting to me, looking back, is that the Hacker always had a page or two devoted exclusively to a new patch for whatever flagship synth was out at the time.

Did you ahve a ESQ or SQ?

And I used to spend quite a bit of time programing, by hand, all the parameters of that patch. Kids today are really spoiled--just login and download hundreds of patches in the blink of an eye. Not to mention entire hosts, synths and samplers. Technology marches on...

Well put! I was talking to a friend yesterday who had a more bizarre view of it, but he was partly right. He said digitial technology was of the devil, in that it has done nothing but essentially take away things from man. I don't know about the first part, but the second part got me thinking. It takes away the natural effort to create something, in part. Maybe that's a little simplistic, or a little extreme, but there's an essence of that that is correct.