Re: [AH] sampling-based synthesis

From Andrew Horton
Sent Tue, Mar 27th 2018, 20:49

You realize there was like 20 years of samplers after the mirage, right? You=
 can find a million fully featured insane sample synthesizers on reverb righ=
t now!

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 27, 2018, at 4:35 PM, Brent Busby <xxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
>=20
> I've purchased an Ensoniq Mirage rack (not arrived yet), because I
> wanted to experiment with my own sampled waveforms and analog filters.
> Partially my choice of the Mirage was because of the amount of money I
> have to spend right now, not because it was necessarily the best choice
> for this.
>=20
> I am rather disappointed by its voice architecture though.  It offers
> two oscillator (sample playback) per voice, but there is only enough
> independant control over the pitch of the second oscillator to allow for
> chorus/detune type effects.  There is one LFO, which can only send
> triangle waves, and can only modulate the pitch of both oscillators.
> (Basically it's hard wired to be a modulation wheel effect.)
> Thankfully, the filter does have its own EG separate from the output
> EG.  It's 8-bit with playback rates as low as 8kHz, which should be
> charaterful, and the filters are CEM chips, but still, it's awfully
> hobbled and I would have liked more...like perhaps an SQ80 voice engine
> where you supply your own waves.
>=20
> It seems though that with sampler/synths you have to choose:  You can
> have a nice voice architecture, but digital filters, or you can have
> analog filters and a very crude voice engine.  The Korg DSS-1 is the
> only exception I've seen, and frankly I haven't been impressed by the
> actual sound of most of what I'm hearing in YouTube demos of it.  (This
> could very well just be the demos.  I've found you have to really
> actually have a piece of gear for at least six months to really find out
> anything, and I've never had a DSS-1.)  But there definitely seems to be
> a real vacuum out there when it comes to samplers with deep voice
> engines and real analog filters.
>=20
> I've heard about an alternative third-party OS for the Mirage called
> Sound Process that's supposed to hack in all sorts of things Ensoniq
> never thought of, including 4-oscillator/sample per voice (sounds
> promising), multitimbral/multitrack operation, etc...basically, some
> keen soul with a lot of machine language coding expertise on the Mirage
> has hacked it silly and created a whole new environment for it.  The OS
> disk is about $90 from Syntaur, so I think I'll want to check that out.
>=20
> If DSI or some other manufacturer today wanted to fill a void in the
> market that's really never been fully addressed though, not even in the
> previous analog era in the 80's, they should make something with a
> really good polyphonic voice engine with matrix type routing that has
> some good analog hardware filters, but have the oscillators be sample
> playback...preferably very low resolution sample playback, and you
> supply the samples.  To me, the problem with PPG/SQ80 style wavetable
> has always been that they already chose the waves for me before I had a
> chance to do anything.  I want to have lots of EG's and LFO's, and have
> analog filters, and supply my own waveforms...basically a Korg DSS-1
> with great tone that can interface well with modern computers over USB.
>=20
> --=20
> - Brent Busby    + =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
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=3D=3D
>        +    With the rise of social networking
> --  Studio   --    +    sites, computers are making people
> --  Amadeus  --    +    easier to use every day.
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