Ensoniq Fizmo

[emdot_ambient]

create your own transwaves, I've been experimenting using them in Zebra2...

Examples?

[zerocrossing]

Edit: I remember the TS-10 transwave was very "dirty". It would "scratch" a lot and produce a lot of audible noise. Don't know if they fixed that on the Fizmo. My code is much like the TS-10, so I can't really complain.

Hope that helps.

Best Regards, WilliamK

Ah the TS-10! My first workstation keyboard. I loved it's sequencer... didn't like that odd dithering sound at the end of notes. Is that what you're taking about? It was kind of good... but sad that it wasn't a feature that could be dialed out.

[BERFAB]

Ugo nailed it, however, there is one thing that not many people know.

The Ensoniq ASR-10 is the only Ensoniq synth that can actually produce Transwaves from scratch, that is accept single cycle loops and create transwave patches. It also offers extenssive modulation features and the ability to crossfade between loops if you wish, to make them click-less.

If you search really well online, there are several 'secret' tutorials to make your own Transwave sounds on the ASR-10.

As far as I know, with any other Ensoniq synth like the Fizmo, you are bound to use the onboard loops and that's it.

Finally, here is an experimental short piece I composed about 10 years ago (OMG) using the ASR-10 alone. It's all Transwaves of short voice samples I recorded from the TV. I sampled it straight using an SM57 to my ASR10.

http://handheldsound.com/audio/rl.mp3


Before VSTs...quite amazing sound

Eitan

I've got an ASR-10 rack that I love, but haven't used much since I went 'inside the box' on most of my stuff. The FX are better than anything you can find in VST.

But I'm curious about the Transwaves. I never gave them much thought, and assumed it was a marketing thing--since I always used Ensoniq stuff, I really never had anything to compare the sound to.

Can you provide a link to any Transwave-creation tutorials?

Thanks
-B

[jeamsler]

The Ensoniq ASR-10 is the only Ensoniq synth that can actually produce Transwaves from scratch, that is accept single cycle loops and create transwave patches. It also offers extenssive modulation features and the ability to crossfade between loops if you wish, to make them click-less.
Eitan

I owned the eps, 16+, and ASR at one time. I think the 16+ allowed the creation of samples using transwave modulation too, though maybe it was refined more with the ASR10. I know the eps classic did not but did allow loop start modulation.

Jon

[jeamsler]

[quote="BERFAB"]

Can you provide a link to any Transwave-creation tutorials?

Thanks
-B[/quote]

I can remember this discussion a long time ago in Transoniq Hacker, the ensoniq user journal. As I remember you can (and obviously here people have) make transwaves but at the time generally people did not get the results they wanted and you generally get things that are "glitchy." How times have changed and now this is a good thing. But I don't think you can get a smooth transwave like Ensoniq's or other third parties have done;Waveboy had some and Soundengine.com still sells some. Soundengine has fizmo patches in fact. The gist was you have to do alot of sample massaging to get a smooth transwave transition that can be freely modulated like Ensoniq intended in their original concept. Maybe others have been able to have more success with it. But if you want glitchy then transwaves are the perfect homebrew technique provided of course you have one of the machines.

Jon

[pandashake]

If you come across one, buy it. If you don't like it, sell to me cheap.

I'm still kicking myself for getting rid of mine.

[MarsHottentot]

Finally, here is an experimental short piece I composed about 10 years ago...http://handheldsound.com/audio/rl.mp3

Now you've done it...I really am going to have to dust off my Ensoniq EPS and do a demo of the loop glitch it had that probably inspired Ensoniq to develop their transwave technology. Your sound clip sounds very much like what some of my EPS instruments do, even though my instruments were using an OS glitch exploit.

I've mentioned this numerous times here before, but essentially if you had more than one instrument loaded on an EPS (it could hold up to , and you were editing a loop on one of them, but you took the loop down to nothing, the keyboard would freak out and start playing seemingly random parts of all the instruments. If you played up the keyboard, you'd get a different set of seemingly random parts. So I'd either find ones I liked and record/resample them, or I'd assign the loop position to the mod wheel and make a "playable" glitched instrument. What was really cool to do was to resample 8 of these, load them up and do another one...glitched glitches. Amazing stuff.

So my project for the weekend is to upload some sound samples and post them.

OMG!
A SELF-BENDING SYNTH. You know, until fairly recently I had just figured that digital synthesizer & samplers were a little too 'clean' and 'polite' - I never factored in the reality that Nothing's Perfect.

They are a nightmare to tweak, though.

Emdot, looking very much forward to your tracks!

[BERFAB]

Can you provide a link to any Transwave-creation tutorials?

Thanks
-B

I can remember this discussion a long time ago in Transoniq Hacker, the ensoniq user journal. As I remember you can (and obviously here people have) make transwaves but at the time generally people did not get the results they wanted and you generally get things that are "glitchy." How times have changed and now this is a good thing. But I don't think you can get a smooth transwave like Ensoniq's or other third parties have done;Waveboy had some and Soundengine.com still sells some. Soundengine has fizmo patches in fact. The gist was you have to do alot of sample massaging to get a smooth transwave transition that can be freely modulated like Ensoniq intended in their original concept. Maybe others have been able to have more success with it. But if you want glitchy then transwaves are the perfect homebrew technique provided of course you have one of the machines.

Jon

I LOVE the Hacker! I've got a KS-32 and the ASR-10 and have also owned a mirage rack and an ESQ-1. I must have a couple dozen back issues stashed somewhere.

Before the internet took all the mystery out of such things, I would wait and wait for that funny little rag to show up in my mailbox. With settings written out( ) for the 'patch of the month.' Plus articles written by and for geeks 'just like me.' And ads by Rubber Chicken.

Then it folded.

Then I found KVR.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Cheers
-B

[MarsHottentot]

BERFAB!
You would do us all a HUGE SERVICE by scanning those Hackers!!! Those are SUPER RARE and very informative (from what I've heard).

[teomi]

OK I will answer some of the questions here...
First of all, for any of you that own the ASR-10, do yourselves a favor and scout for the DI-10 digital interface. Having it, not only allows you to play through pristine SPDIF outputs but also allows you to use the FX processor of the ASR (which is very good sounding and is 24 audio!!) digitally. You can integrate it very nicely with most soundcards and use the fx processor as a typical digital send/return to your host!

Moreover, if you use Cubase, you can use the ASR-10 as an external fx that makes all this process really easy, just like a VST plugin. You get all the lush ASR10 reverbs/chorus/amp simulators etc...

You would be surprised how many mint DI-10 interfaces there still are.
One company called Syntaur Productions (http://www.syntaur.com/ensoniq.html)
Still regularity stocks and produces stuff for the Ensoniq. That's where I found my DI-10.

About Trnaswaves tutorials.
I originally was 'trained' to do Transwaves from the master himself - Derek Von-Krogh which produced the Ensoniq CDROM 'The art of transwaves' if you don't have it yet...go get it!!

Also while you're at it, get all the WAVEBOY plugins effects for the ASR10.

So..I've had a lot of talk with Derek years ago and he taught me a lot. Here is something I believe he released officialy that gives a basic understanding of the Transwave operation:

Quick and Dirty Transwaves

Take a microphone and sample the word "hello"(its good for hearing the results) Now press and turn the loop on, loop forward for now(i forgot about this one, its a basic thing) Now you should hear "hellohellohello" Press and scroll to "autoloopfinding". Turn it off. Press again,and scroll to "loopend". Turn it to zero. Now you should hear either nothing or avery high tone (or the whole memory of your sampler,but thats another story) Underline the fine position (the one to the left) and move the loopend away from zero slowly. The tone you hear should become deeper.turn it away until its about the same pitch as your original "hello" was. This is a single cycle loop. Now go to "mod/src" as I told you,select "transwav" as mod. and "wheel" as source. Go to the next page ("mod amt=+0") and turn the modulation amount to maximum,+99. Now if you move the wheel, you should hear your singlecycle (=VERY short) loop. Move from h to e, to l, to o. This won't sound like the best audiomorph youve ever heard, but it explains the basic technique just fine. It depends on the source sample you use what results you get. A simple "bweeeaaaooouuuu" from a resonant filter is a much better source for example. The realtime timestretching can be done if you use the envelopes as the modulation source.a slow envelope will move slowly through the sample, a fast one will do it fast, all without changing the pitch.But, remember, finding the right loop, getting rid of all the clicks that might occur is a HARD job and youd be wasting your time if you try it if you don't know the asr/>eps by heart."loopstart+x" is a much quicker way to get a really wild modulation out of ANY sample! And, once more, if youre interested in all the details, buy the Waveboy Transwave Library. You'll get a great manual and many examples for what a transwave can be good for.

Written by Derek Von Krogh

[mckenic]

I picked up a rack last year and I aint gonna tell how much it cost

To my mind its the hardware version of what Absynth means to me... I can sample some stuff if you like but the thing for me with the Fiz really is the longer you hold the key down the more the sound changes...



Dave

[BERFAB]

BERFAB!
You would do us all a HUGE SERVICE by scanning those Hackers!!! Those are SUPER RARE and very informative (from what I've heard).

It's been a while, but a few years back I did a search and found that someone had beat me to it and scanned a whole mess of back issues and posted them online.

If I can dig up the page again, I'll post here.

-B

[BERFAB]

OK I will answer some of the questions here...
First of all, for any of you that own the ASR-10, do yourselves a favor and scout for the DI-10 digital interface. Having it, not only allows you to play through pristine SPDIF outputs but also allows you to use the FX processor of the ASR (which is very good sounding and is 24 audio!!) digitally. You can integrate it very nicely with most soundcards and use the fx processor as a typical digital send/return to your host!

Moreover, if you use Cubase, you can use the ASR-10 as an external fx that makes all this process really easy, just like a VST plugin. You get all the lush ASR10 reverbs/chorus/amp simulators etc...

teomi-

I've got an ASR-10 Rack. Is it possible that this already has the DI-10 included?

I always thought that I couldn't use the ASR-10 directly with my PC and Cubase4. How do I make the connection to my PC? I've currently got a Tascam US-122 interface.

And if/when I get it hooked up, is there a dashboard or something that you can control it with? Or do you just have to set it up manually?

Cheers
-B

[BFunKu]

create your own transwaves, I've been experimenting using them in Zebra2...

Examples?

Here are Some Examples of Transwaves created with Tranzilon.
http://www.divshare.com/download/4678976-5fe

Here's the Download link for the Application.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~avg/tranzilon/info.html

(You don't need to install Epsilon to run this Program it runs fine without it.)

[teomi]

Mine is also the rack unit. Although it appears the DI-10 is installed (RCA plugs on the back) most likey it is not. It never came standard and even when the ASR was still in production it was always hard to come by.

The best way to check is to try setting up the ASR to sample from Digital (instead of main ins) and see if you get signal.

The way to interface it with Cubase is via the 'External fx' and 'external instrument' settings within VST connections. Your sound card must have multiple ins and outs. The only way to make it work is to hard wire the ASR to its own ins and outs...just like you would do with any hardware outboard. You then set which ins and outs the ASR works with, and Cubase does the rest.

You then add the ASR as an insert or send. It will be listed under 'external plug-ins'

it's not a step by step but it should put you in the right direction
Let me know if you need more help

Eitan