Why no DP/4 emulation?

[Teksonik]

The EMT250 retailed for $20k in the 70s. That's $50k+ in 90s money. The DP/4 was excellent, but at $1750, it wasn't in the big leagues when it was new.

Well if you define big leagues as big price tag then yea...

We sold a lot of gear to the big Casino Hotels in Vegas that at the time all had orchestras for the main show rooms and bands for the small rooms and lounge acts. There were more musicians in Vegas per capita than almost any other city.

The big resorts all had budgets far beyond Abby Roads or any other studio you want to name.

But ironically enough it was the very gear that came along in the late 80's that spelled the death of many of those musician's jobs as houses started to go with sequencing and canned music to save money.

But I get it this is KVR and only names that people are told were important matter. Here it's fine to have nostalgia for some old analog mono synth but if anyone asks for something from the early digital age then no one sees the value simply out of pure myopia.

[Teksonik]

There's a DP-4 on my desk. A lot of our stuff is heavily inspired by it.

It's nice to know someone gets it......

[El°HYM]

There's a DP-4 on my desk. A lot of our stuff is heavily inspired by it.

Indeed, they were pretty cool and they're super popular today. They are increasingly in demand and one of the few prosumer boxes of the era that still fetches a relatively high price.

I think that it's unfortunate that Ensoniq went out of business. They were definitely creative. That said, I also remember buying gear in the 90s and actively choosing not to buy Ensoniq because of some of their technical choices. The thing is, you couldn't tell an Ensoniq aficionado that these things were important, they were a bit too loyal for their own good. I specifically remember a good friend of mine, who owned a music store and loved Ensoniq, that I was choosing the K2K over the ASR because of flexibility in the synth engine. He spent too much time trying to convince me, without success, that a resonant filter in the effects engine was just as good as a resonant filter in the synth voice.

Ensoniq users were the 90s equivalent of the 90s mac user for synths. I think that they needed their own Steve Jobs.

Why didnt he just show you the 'synthesized loop' - feature?

[SCprogfan]

I have a broken DP/4 sitting at my workplace. It powers on, but then the display goes off if you so much as tap on the case, and then you can't do anything with it. Is there at least a collection of reverb IRs from the DP/4?

[EvilDragon]

I'd totally love to see a DP/4+ in software.

[Weasel-Boy]

The DP-4 could definitely benefit from a virtual emulation... in that it could take the original horror show that was it’s menu-driven UI and turn it into something ergonomic and fun in a modern UI. I owned one of these units, and although it was really quite versatile and good sounding, it was a nightmare to program.

[ghettosynth]

The EMT250 retailed for $20k in the 70s. That's $50k+ in 90s money. The DP/4 was excellent, but at $1750, it wasn't in the big leagues when it was new.

Well if you define big leagues as big price tag then yea...

We sold a lot of gear to the big Casino Hotels in Vegas that at the time all had orchestras for the main show rooms and bands for the small rooms and lounge acts. There were more musicians in Vegas per capita than almost any other city.

The big resorts all had budgets far beyond Abby Roads or any other studio you want to name.

But ironically enough it was the very gear that came along in the late 80's that spelled the death of many of those musician's jobs as houses started to go with sequencing and canned music to save money.

But I get it this is KVR and only names that people are told were important matter. Here it's fine to have nostalgia for some old analog mono synth but if anyone asks for something from the early digital age then no one sees the value simply out of pure myopia.

It's not just having a big budget. Nobody cares what gear casinos buy. Their name isn't on any records. Nobody is saying that the DP/4 wasn't a good or even great processor, or that there wouldn't be some market for an emulation.


What people are saying is that to create a good emulation of a 90s DSP box without insider knowledge that you will have to reverse engineer it. That is expensive and nobody is going to take that on unless there is a big market. If you look at what the big players do, e.g., UAD, then you can see that they are conservative and tend to emulate the gear that is considered legendary and comes from the "big leagues."

What people on KVR think isn't even a part of this conversation. This isn't a moral judgement or any kind of statement on Ensoniq gear. It's just a recognition of where they were in the hardware market.

I would also bet that there may be a significant problem with trademarks and licensing the Ensoniq name. UAD isn't going to put out something that can't include a license for the trademark usage. That's the brand, they're proud of the fact that they deliver "authentic" plugins of big studio hardware. They put it right there on their plugin web page front and center!

[Teksonik]

It's not just having a big budget. Nobody cares what gear casinos buy. Their name isn't on any records.

No you don't care because you only think a handful of studios in the world matter.

There have been literally hundreds of millions of people entertained by the music and shows in those Casinos. Not all entertainment comes on a record.

What people are saying is that to create a good emulation of a 90s DSP box without insider knowledge that you will have to reverse engineer it. That is expensive and nobody is going to take that on unless there is a big market.

Are you sure you've got proper market numbers or are you also speculating? Urs has a DP4 so would a emulation be worth his effort? Would it sell as well or better than any of the U-He effects plugins? Neither you or I are qualified to say.

This isn't a moral judgement or any kind of statement on Ensoniq gear. It's just a recognition of where they were in the hardware market.

Again you're being myopic with your definition of the market. There are several of orders of magnitude more "prosumers" than top tier studios. You're just not looking at the whole picture.

I would also bet that there may be a significant problem with trademarks and licensing the Ensoniq name.

Now that may be a point although of course you can emulate something without using the name as we can see in DIVA. We don't even know if Creative or whoever owns the Ensoniq intellectual property rights this week would even care.

Anyway I wasn't the one who originally made the request for a DP/4 so I'll let him defend the request.

All I know is I'd much rather see a solid 64 bit emulation of the Ensoniq SQ80, VFX or Fizmo than I would yet another analog emulation no matter what company made it.......

[zerocrossing]

I see all the Lexicon, Eventide, EMT, etc, emulated, but no one’s ever done an Ensoniq DP emulation. Why not? I’d definitely buy a plugin that did the DP/4 justice.

Good question. I’m however more concerned about not having a H3000 plugin that does the real thing justice. Closest I have found in sound quality is Exponential Audio Excalibur but 1) It is not based on Eventide but very capable 2) Is now abandonware.

EDIT: Another one that people often over look at (because it’s NI and is Reaktor) is Molekular. It’s a proper secret gem and can do some of the DP/4 or H3000 madness too.

I do love Molekular.

[zerocrossing]

I’m no software engineer, but I’m assuming that no one gave Valhalla the source code for those suspiciously Lexicon sounding algorithmic reverbs they make. I understand that without Creative we’re not going to get a 1:1 perfect licensed software version, but we could probably get pretty close... no?

[Scotty]

The DP-4 could definitely benefit from a virtual emulation... in that it could take the original horror show that was it’s menu-driven UI and turn it into something ergonomic and fun in a modern UI. I owned one of these units, and although it was really quite versatile and good sounding, it was a nightmare to program.

It is flexible which I suppose translates to complex. I have a DP/4 here ... usually I keep it in dual stereo mode ... and swapping and editing the algorithms isn’t difficult. I have an editor for it that works on Mac OS9 that really helped me come to terms with it. Love this machine. The vocoder is very primitive and the amp sims aren’t great but it has a ton of character, mostly I use it for the verbs, delays and the phaser which is really nice.

[ghettosynth]

I’m no software engineer, but I’m assuming that no one gave Valhalla the source code for those suspiciously Lexicon sounding algorithmic reverbs they make. I understand that without Creative we’re not going to get a 1:1 perfect licensed software version, but we could probably get pretty close... no?

Sure, but, the question is "why doesn't one exist." A pretty good explanation has been given. In essence, nobody has thought that it was worth the effort. Nobody claimed that reverse engineering is impossible, only that it's hard with complex black box DSP. The more information that is available in terms of research papers, patents, and less formal research sources such as interviews or conversations with people in the know, the easier it is.

As far as pretty close, that was stated a few posts ago. Somebody, can't remember who, said something like "an enthusiast armed with a unit, a manual, and some time could create a first order approximation."

That person then went on to point out that it most likely wouldn't please the purists. Before you dismiss that as important, think about how much ink has been spilled over resistor values in the Ibanez TS808, what kind of filter is in the TB303, or which Pultec compressor sounds most like the unit that the vast majority of people asking the question have never even seen in the flesh, let alone used one on a recording.

[zerocrossing]

I’m no software engineer, but I’m assuming that no one gave Valhalla the source code for those suspiciously Lexicon sounding algorithmic reverbs they make. I understand that without Creative we’re not going to get a 1:1 perfect licensed software version, but we could probably get pretty close... no?

Sure, but, the question is "why doesn't one exist." A pretty good explanation has been given. In essence, nobody has thought that it was worth the effort. Nobody claimed that reverse engineering is impossible, only that it's hard with complex black box DSP. The more information that is available in terms of research papers, patents, and less formal research sources such as interviews or conversations with people in the know, the easier it is.

As far as pretty close, that was stated a few posts ago. Somebody, can't remember who, said something like "an enthusiast armed with a unit, a manual, and some time could create a first order approximation."

That person then went on to point out that it most likely wouldn't please the purists. Before you dismiss that as important, think about how much ink has been spilled over resistor values in the Ibanez TS808, what kind of filter is in the TB303, or which Pultec compressor sounds most like the unit that the vast majority of people asking the question have never even seen in the flesh, let alone used one on a recording.

Except that all that holds true for every emulation, and yet many do quite well. I think the majority would forgive it for not being perfect if the vibe was there and the features were there.

[ghettosynth]

Except that all that holds true for every emulation, and yet many do quite well. I think the majority would forgive it for not being perfect if the vibe was there and the features were there.

Go read the Roland thread and then say that again with a straight face.

Urs has one, has the chops, and has even stated that he's developed several products inspired by it. So ask him, maybe he'll make one for you?

[Ah_Dziz]

My buddy with "the big studio" when I was starting out had 3 asr keyboards 2 dp-4s and a giant multirack space sized lexicon box (don't remember the model) for all his digital fx. I had lots of fun with the ensoniqs. They were very fun to control with midi. I'd definitely grab an emulation of it if someone wanted to go to the trouble. I can see why it wouldn't necessarily be a great business decision to go for it though. People seem to be very particular about how multi fx plugins are implemented and I would imagine it would be hard to do something would make everyone happy.