Ensoniq EPS 16+ worth copping?

I know I'm going to kick myself but difficult is it to produce on it, is there a way to bypass the floppy disc as I hear you need it everytime which is a pain.

I was hoping to use it for the sound quality and as a master keyboard, so in theory can I run samples through the eps 16+ not sampling but say use it as an effect box to color my sounds before sampling in the mpc

acronym wrote:I know I'm going to kick myself but difficult is it to produce on it, is there a way to bypass the floppy disc as I hear you need it everytime which is a pain.

I was hoping to use it for the sound quality and as a master keyboard, so in theory can I run samples through the eps 16+ not sampling but say use it as an effect box to color my sounds before sampling in the mpc

Great piece of kit.It will do what u want with flying colours and tons more.Its big tho.Sound really sweet.Go for it or get the big brother ASR10.

cheers going to give this a miss, the asr 10 sound much better spec wise.

i'm not sure if you can just "run your samples through" these samplers to use them as an effects box to achieve the 12bit sound that way... i do believe you need to sample into them and then play them back from within in order to get the actual sound... at least i know that's the case with the AKAI S900/950, and E-MU SP12 samplers...

in the case of the sp-303 or whatever, aside from sampling in lower quality, people also use the built-in effects... since you can apply LO-FI effects in real time to any audio going into it...

Yeah almost positive you have to actually have to sample into the board to make use of it's effects and obviously the character/sound it imparts.

Same on on an ASR10, although Ensoniq did make a separate box that had the ASR10's FX section to be used in a pass through context.

Most of the EPS+ disks load on an ASR and the OS loading and other load from floppy operations are quicker.

I stand corrected on the ASR10 pass through.

My house averages 90-100F (with AC turned on ), so it's not like I can actually ever turn on my ASR10.

Actually my AC box just died completely as I typed this, so I guess I should be in "Grinds Your Gears" thread..."

cheers got a roland sp404 already but always wanted an ensoniq for the crunch and also as a master keyboard. As space is a premium already where I'am I going to wait and look for an asr, and also sounds better personally.

One question what is the scsi used for, to bypass the floppy discs because that be a huge advantage.

acronym wrote:One question what is the scsi used for, to bypass the floppy discs because that be a huge advantage.

[PDF] ASR-10 Musician's Manual

http://soundprogramming.net/manuals/samplers/Ensoniq_ASR-10_Manual.pdf

Pg 4

acronym wrote:One question what is the scsi used for, to bypass the floppy discs because that be a huge advantage.

You've answered your own question my friend.

An ASR with no SCSI is a PITA for sure.

If your memory is maxed you have 16MB and 8 instrument slots. It's a very capable sampler and the patches can do quite a bit in the limited memory space.

But when you want to save you max out at 1.2-1.5MB per floppy. With the SCSI board you can get an external SCSI CD you can at least have 700MB at a time, with a SCSI HD you can utilize 3-9GB on average.

You also need the SCSI interface installed to use the newer CF card solutions that people have crafted.

I'm not the biggest fan of the ASR sequencer although it is fairly easy to use, so my solution to no SCSI is to just sample in loops from other sources assign it to a key, play it back and re-sample it, lose everything on shutdown.

But at least that method lets me take advantage of the boards fantastic sound quality and good FX.

The keys on an ASR are really nice, superior to either of my Yamaha and Roland workstation boards and far superior to my M-Audio and Evolution USB keyboards.

dryad-66 wrote:

acronym wrote:I know I'm going to kick myself but difficult is it to produce on it, is there a way to bypass the floppy disc as I hear you need it everytime which is a pain.

I was hoping to use it for the sound quality and as a master keyboard, so in theory can I run samples through the eps 16+ not sampling but say use it as an effect box to color my sounds before sampling in the mpc

Great piece of kit.It WONT do what u want with flying colours and tons more.Its big tho.Sound really sweet.Go for it or get the big brother ASR10.

fixed

But you can pipe through it in record mode(no fx on input i do believe).Will give you some mojo.The asr10 is the best option generally.I got the rack version.Nothing sounds like it.

Metatron72 wrote:I stand corrected on the ASR10 pass through.

My house averages 90-100F (with AC turned on ), so it's not like I can actually ever turn on my ASR10.

Actually my AC box just died completely as I typed this, so I guess I should be in "Grinds Your Gears" thread..."

Blimey....hope you get your AC fixed Meta.Hard to do music stuff or anything in hot weather huh.

Actually it came back on like 10 minutes later. It's been 90-100F here lately, even 80F at 3AM

The motor just had to take a time out I think. Although the freon is nearly gone I can tell.

This time of year I hate to risk extra wear on the XL and the ASR with the heat issues they have (LCD of course on the XL)

Bro i have an eps classic (13 bit) yes 13 bit that is. It sounds nice more so on snares than on kicks IMHO. You need to sample in it. Samples sound different (better imo) when recorded (playback) rather than when just ran through the eps. You'll jave to sample in it. The reason mine is sitting on the side and going for sale very soon is because of its size and i have other samplers i prefere better

If you can fit it in your workflow its really nice tho

soundtech wrote:Bro i have an eps classic (13 bit) yes 13 bit that is. It sounds nice more so on snares than on kicks IMHO. You need to sample in it. Samples sound different (better imo) when recorded (playback) rather than when just ran through the eps. You'll jave to sample in it. The reason mine is sitting on the side and going for sale very soon is because of its size and i have other samplers i prefere better

If you can fit it in your workflow its really nice tho

Just before selling mine I realised the input can be very nicely overdriven and some lovely distortion added.Like real distortion and not this phoney stuff there using on recent products.