So I recently had an Ensoniq Mirage in my possession and before I parted with it I thought I'd try making a full instrumental using only the Mirage and some EQ in my DAW. The results sound....different. Might be worth a listen for someone considering picking one up. They're not fun to program, but you figure it out eventually and the aound is worth it in my opinion as a VST doesn't quite compare. Enjoy.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fOPfKez1uFs
Ensoniq Mirage instrumental
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Straight2Vinyl Straight2Vinyl https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=395170
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 336 posts since 10 Mar, 2017
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- KVRAF
- 21195 posts since 8 Oct, 2014
Yeah, there's a dirt in those old hardware synths that you don't get out of VSTs. The Oberheim Matrix 6 was like that too, as was some Yamaha synths.
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Straight2Vinyl Straight2Vinyl https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=395170
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 336 posts since 10 Mar, 2017
It's definitely a different flavor. It would be interesting to hear an entire album done on one for the muffled sound of it all.
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- KVRAF
- 3080 posts since 17 Apr, 2005 from S.E. TN
Musicians would share copies of sample discs a lot, generally ignoring copyright so far as I saw. A lot of "common" Mirage sample floppies were dubs from Emulator II library. Emu II users also shamelessly copied each others' discs quite a bit.
The main ensoniq factory sound designer (can't recall his name) also did great work considering the woeful tech limitations of the instrument There were only "magic sample rates and musical pitches" which would loop properly, but once recorded and looped could be playback-transposed to the pitch "they were supposed to be at". So often to get "as good possible" results a sample might have to be recorded to tape, then the tape vari-speed played back at a "magic pitch" which allowed proper looping in order to get an in-tune final sample. Quite labor-intensive.
The second sound is riminiscent of (unless my memory is really failing) an Emulator II sample called "bottle blow". Possibly pirated long ago from EMU II into Mirage format.
The first sound is probably short-loop sax samples and maybe from ensoniq library, sounding similar to the sax waveforms also in ESQ-1 and such early ensoniq wavetable synths.
The main ensoniq factory sound designer (can't recall his name) also did great work considering the woeful tech limitations of the instrument There were only "magic sample rates and musical pitches" which would loop properly, but once recorded and looped could be playback-transposed to the pitch "they were supposed to be at". So often to get "as good possible" results a sample might have to be recorded to tape, then the tape vari-speed played back at a "magic pitch" which allowed proper looping in order to get an in-tune final sample. Quite labor-intensive.
The second sound is riminiscent of (unless my memory is really failing) an Emulator II sample called "bottle blow". Possibly pirated long ago from EMU II into Mirage format.
The first sound is probably short-loop sax samples and maybe from ensoniq library, sounding similar to the sax waveforms also in ESQ-1 and such early ensoniq wavetable synths.
