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Ensoniq ESQ1 PolysynthArticle from Electronics & Music Maker, August 1986 |
The Mirage people announce a synth that uses analogue and digital technology, throws in a multitrack sequencer, and costs just over £1000. Paul Wiffen checks it out.
Having given musicians the first truly affordable sampling keyboard, Ensoniq have taken a step sideways to embrace the synthesiser. The result is the ESQ1, an instrument flexible enough to become the nerve-centre of a complex electronic music system.
"Specification: There are 15 modulation sources, including four envelopes, three LFOs, and various velocity and keyboard tracking curves."
Another page worth its weight in gold is Split/Layer. This allows you to save within the program the fact that two patches are used, and these can then be either doubled to create a layered effect, or arranged so you have two different patches on each side of the assigned split point.
In total, the ESQ1 holds 40 different programs internally, arranged in four separate banks of 10 each. That isn't too many by today's standards, but take heart in the fact that ten named programs can be scanned in the display at any one time, and that each can be chosen in the same way parameters are selected when programming. Another 80 programs can be accessed (in two sets of 40) on the E2PROM Cartridge, and these can also be displayed in banks of 10 before selection. So for live performance work, you've got instant access to 120 programs - so long as a cartridge is in the slot.
Less instantly impressive than the synthesiser section - though no less useful in the long run - is the ESQ1's built-in sequencer. It's a comprehensive beast as integral recorders go, and you can use it in two different ways.
The first option allows you to sequence just internal voices multi-timbrally. In other words, each track can have a different sound on it, so entire pieces of music, of up to eight parts, can be recorded. The second option allows you to sequence eight external synthesisers to the extent of their polyphonic capability, by assigning each of them to a different MIDI channel.
As a third alternative, though, you can use both methods of working in conjunction with each other, using both internal and external synth voices. For example, you could make tracks 1 and 2 play just internal programs, track 3 an external synth, 4 and 5 doubled on both the ESQ1 and other keyboards, and so on. You're limited to eight voices on the ESQ1 itself, but because of the clever dynamic allocation implemented on the machine, those eight voices are always available to play any sound - so provided they're not being used at that instant anywhere else, you can have up to eight notes on each internal track.
Because of its portability, it's conceivable many musicians will use the ESQ1 as a songwriting tool, and then augment it with other synths in the recording studio to put their original performance on tape, while retaining complete freedom over the sounds they're using. Luckily, the sequencer's assignment potential is wide enough to make this possible.
The sequencer can store up to ten songs, each identified by a name, and these can be made up from 30 sequences. Now, you may find, once you start to put your entire live set into the machine, that the Ensoniq's internal memory of 2400 notes doesn't get you past the third song. Don't worry. A cheap cartridge is easily inserted (and held in place by screws) to expand this capacity to over 10,000 notes.
Operating the ESQ1's sequencer is simple enough. All you do is enter the track you want while the required sound is currently selected. This automatically assigns that sound to the track, and you're then free to record your part.
If you select a cartridge sound, its name is displayed in the track space until you remove the cartridge, whereupon the display informs you that you need to re-insert the cartridge before that track will play. Alternatively, you can just go to the MIDI/Mix page and assign that track to both Record and Playback on a particular MIDI channel, simply by entering the appropriate number.
Once a track is recorded, you can edit it in several ways. First there are standard MIDI sequencer functions like Transposition and Quantisation (otherwise known as Auto-correct). The Quantisation bit is particularly cunning, allowing you to select a resolution between quarter-notes and 32nd-note triplets, listen to the corrected part, and then decide if you want to keep the new version or the original. This way of quantising 'after the event' rather than during recording is definitely worthwhile, as it allows you to keep the human element in a performance without having to put up with human fallibility (which I specialise in).
Step-time recording - so often neglected by US manufacturers - is also available on the ESQ1's sequencer. This method allows you to be analytical in your composition, and also to program things you find tricky (or just plain impossible) to play. Step size can be from quarter-notes to 32nd-note triplets, as with the quantisation, and the readout shows the bar number, the beat number and the clock number you're currently on, so you don't get lost.
If you prefer a more tape machine-like way of recording difficult sections and correcting mistakes, the sequencer also features Punch In and Punch Out facilities, enabling you to 'drop-in' small sections in your own good time.
There are some more advanced editing functions available, too. For example, you can use Remove Controllers to get rid of any unwanted MIDI controller data. This is particularly useful in conjunction with something like a DX7, which sends out pressure data whether you're using it or not. This would normally use up even the 32K of expanded sequencer memory ridiculously quickly, so it's as well to have a feature whereby you can remove it if it isn't being used.
Other useful edit functions include Merging Tracks (what we'd call 'bouncing together' in the recording studio) and Copying Tracks, which allow you to move recorded parts around and arrange them in the best format. To build sequences into longer sections (thereby freeing sequence locations), you can use Append, which tacks one sequence onto the end of another. Alternatively, you can extend or truncate a sequence to make room for extra bars, or lose some that are less than perfect. And the MIDI/Mix page allows you to adjust the relative levels of your tracks.
When you have your sequences together, you can start to build them up into songs. Each step of a song can be accessed in the Song Edit page, and each one can be Transposed, Repeated, or Deleted. You can insert extra sequences at any time, and you can move backwards and forwards within the song to facilitate this.
You can also go straight to any point in a song using the Song Locate page, and see what tempo and time signature have been used. The 'Goto' parameter jumps automatically to the step you want.
Synchronisation to the outside world is possible via a variety of options. There's tape sync for the recording studio, and MIDI for drum machines and other relative MIDI devices or even SMPTE-to-MIDI syncing.
The last facility is particularly useful, as the ESQ1 both sends and receives song position pointers via MIDI. Using the Autolocate controls, you can start playback of all MIDI devices with song pointers implemented from any point in the song. Even more importantly, the ESQ1 (in conjunction with a SMPTE-to-MIDI converter like the Roland SBX80 or Fostex 4050) can be made to autolocate alongside a tape machine to start playback automatically at the same point as the tape. The great advantage of this is that parts recorded on the ESQ1's sequencer needn't be recorded onto multitrack, but played back from the sequencer into the final mix. This frees tracks on tape for other instruments, vocals, and so on which can't be sequenced.
The sequencer can also perform a different role. Taking advantage of the fact that the ESQ1 will store patch numbers and transmit them via MIDI even if a sequence has not been recorded, you can hit a sequence number and have up to eight different MIDI patch changes sent to different synths and other MIDI devices like signal processors, setting them up for the next song even if you don't intend to sequence them. Or you can record these program changes as the end of a song in readiness for the next piece. Or why not have the ESQ1 change programs for you on the keyboards you're playing, or while the others are being sequenced?
This facility, together with the flexible MIDI implementation we looked at earlier, means the ESQ1 can readily function as the central controller of an entire MIDI system, especially if you're on the sort of budget where a master MIDI keyboard looks expensive for something that makes no noise itself.
If you own a DX7, you might do your playing and sequence recording from that, to take advantage of the key pressure which the ESQ1 can record and playback-even though it can't generate pressure itself.
If you own a Mirage, you can save and load ESQ1 programs and sequences to Mirage disks via MIDI. This is faster and easier than the tape storage procedure that the ESQ1 also provides, but a bigger advantage with Mirage saving is that you can keep all your ESQ1 programs, sequences and MIDI controller information on one disk.
All in all, it's difficult for me to fault the ESQ1. Yes, I wish they'd put either a MIDI Thru socket on the back, or at least the switch between Out and Thru that the Mirage has, just in case you don't want to use the ESQ1 as your main instrument. And yes, an entirely separate envelope for the filter would have been nice.
But these criticisms seem trivial stacked alongside the ESQ1's good points.
As a synthesiser, it's able to recreate a wide range of 'standard' synth sounds, and create new ones by the innovative way it combines analogue, digital and sampled waveforms. Its voice processing is nothing if not comprehensive, and its programming system is one of the modern synth industry's most friendly.
As a sequencer, it's encouragingly quick and easy to use, and most important, it doesn't do anything which could destroy unrepeatable sequences.
And as the centre of a modern electronic music system - live or in the studio - it has a MIDI implementation so flexible that, whether you're playing your other MIDI instruments directly or sequencing them, it's difficult to imagine a setup that the ESQ1 couldn't cope with.
If this was the latest instrument from an established synthesiser company, it would be worthy of high praise. But as the first synth from a company that hasn't been in existence for more than a couple of years, the ESQ1 is a revelation, and a hugely heartening one at that. Really, an outstanding bargain.
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Review by Paul Wiffen
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