KVR Audio

MeteoXavier · Post by **MeteoXavier** » Mon Jan 27, 2020 4:59 am

Hi there. One thing I've been trying to find lately is the sampler/rompler/whatever that was the source of choir Ahhs for the SNES game Secret of Mana, as used in these videos:

https://youtu.be/cce28S6ht3I

https://youtu.be/c89YgEs1Jog

I've even reached out to Hiroki Kikuta (the composer) on social media for what it could be. I've actually been talking to him off and on for more than a decade and he told me a long time ago that he's actually under contract not to reveal his production stuff for the work he did for them, even as far back as the early 90s. As expected, he could not give me a solid answer for this question for that same reason, but he did "hint" that it is "possible" it came from the Ensoniq EPS16 Plus.

Does anyone have access to this synth and could help verify if that is where the choir samples here came from? I suspect it might be something else as well - I'm fairly versed in some of these MIDI instruments, but to my knowledge, I've never heard this choir sample/instrument used anywhere else, so I think it might be from a lesser known rompler of some kind (i.e. not Roland anything or Korg M1).

Thank you.

AngelCityOutlaw · Post by **AngelCityOutlaw** » Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:07 am

When I looked up the manual for the EPS16 Plus, it appears to come with no onboard samples at all.

AnX · Post by **AnX** » Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:24 am

AngelCityOutlaw wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:07 am When I looked up the manual for the EPS16 Plus, it appears to come with no onboard samples at all.

you load them from floppy disk

AngelCityOutlaw · Post by **AngelCityOutlaw** » Mon Jan 27, 2020 8:24 am

AnX wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:24 am
AngelCityOutlaw wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:07 am When I looked up the manual for the EPS16 Plus, it appears to come with no onboard samples at all.
you load them from floppy disk

Did it come with any floppy disks that had sounds from factory though? Did people make disks for it or did you just have to sample everything yourself?

I can't seem to find any, but I'll admit I haven't been super invested in looking.

MeteoXavier · Post by **MeteoXavier** » Tue Jan 28, 2020 10:43 pm

Bump to see if anyone else might have some idea.

Ghost Snake · Post by **Ghost Snake** » Mon Feb 03, 2020 2:30 pm

lol you wrote the actual composer to ask him for the sounds source ? but why, if I may ask ?
I mean, it doesn't sound that special to me, I think one could easily achieve that sound with TRACKERS for instance, just by using 4-5 samples for the different octaves and by looping the last region of the sample (that's what gives that ' eerie ' character to the sound, combined with the type of chord used (suspended 2 ? Ninth chords ? )

just my 2c

MeteoXavier · Post by **MeteoXavier** » Mon Feb 03, 2020 3:00 pm

Umm, I wrote him because he's the one who would have the highest probability of knowing it?

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Mon Feb 03, 2020 3:35 pm

Of course there was a factory library from Ensoniq. And of course there was a robust third party cottage industry of additional sounds. Not that I can offer any knowledge of the specific sound in question. I used to own an original EPS, but I mostly did my own sampling.

MeteoXavier · Post by **MeteoXavier** » Mon Feb 03, 2020 8:08 pm

As usual on KVR, it will probably be 4 pages of unhelpful, weird responses before someone bothers to post something that isn't useless and I doubt my post here will get that far. I don't want to sound asinine there, but ***damn this is the same thing I always get - folks who find it strangely amusing that I'm not literally rebuilding the song from scratch and brag about how they do something completely different, and folks who don't know anything about the subject but feel the need to post on how they don't know the answer anyway.

Time to quit this particular quest, it's too obscure and more difficult to find than it's worth.

SmoothMountain · Post by **SmoothMountain** » Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:27 pm

Greetings, I feel your frustration...

This is the only source I have found for Ensoniq factory sounds:

https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/pro ... soniq-asr/

I didn't buy the library above, but I did own an EPS 16+ back in the day. That thing sounded GREAT!

Good luck!

BERFAB · Post by **BERFAB** » Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:59 pm

Wasn't Rubber Chicken Software the definitive source for all things Ensoniq?

I didn't have an EPS16, but I did own a Mirage, and ESQ1 and an ASR10. They DID come with factory libraries, but because everything was flash RAM (I believe that's what it was called) they essentially became blank slates when you turned them off, and had to be reloaded. As a result, factory library discs would get mixed up with 3rd party collections, or even home brew sample libraries. I still have tons of discs with sample sets and FX for my ASR10. Most, if not all, came from Rubber Chicken.

I don't know where they might be now, or if they even evolved into something else, but if you can find them, they'd be a great resource.

Cheers
-B

BERFAB · Post by **BERFAB** » Mon Feb 10, 2020 4:01 pm

Ooops...Appears that Google is my friend, yet again: http://www.chickensys.com/

Choir Sound Source - Maybe Ensoniq EPS16 Plus