T

teo_t's Reviews

2 reviews Back to teo_t's Equipboard

T

Quite good 303 replica, sequencer isn't the same though.

I've built this x0xb0x from this kit myself. Looks good and sound is nice. It's a bit tight fit with some additional mods.

I received two counterfeit rare parts with the kit and usb-chip was not working due to a missing trail on the pcb. Also the chip was bad. This was not a headache although I hadn't soldered smd before. Those two counterfeit rare parts were not so easy. Other was the amp chip and other a paired transistor. I spent quite a lot of time troubleshooting it. I replaced the paired 5-legged transistor with two balanced 3-legged transistors and it worked! The amplifier was not so easy. That one I had to order separately from somewhere else. Also I found the correct paired transistor but I decided that my balanced 2-transistor fix sounded a bit better. Because of these difficulties the building process it was a huge learning experience eventually.

I've added FM-section, bass boost and gate on modifications to it.

T

This is my home!

Had an Eps and an Eps 16+ turbo before ASR-10. This was the obvious update at the time when it came out. Stereo sampling and more effects compared to the earlier ones. Some might argue that this has a kind of dry sound, but in my opinion this depends very much on what you put in it.

I have two of these, because of spare parts. I have modded both with max ram, internal scsi2sd with usb cabling and other one with digital i/o and Gotek floppy adapter to which i transferred all my Eps and Eps16+ disks.

fast spec: 2 audio input tracks with effects, up to 8 instruments with 8 layers, up to 127 wavesamples in a layer. 2 affect busses + dry and aux. start point, end point and loop modulations, modulation matrix, 3 envelopes looping or not, 1 lfo, 4 pole filter, different legato modes, Pitch tables + no pitch, polyphonic aftertouch and patch selects.

Pros:

excellent workflow, easy menu diving with keypad, So many means to manipulate the sound, Many effects with cool variations that sound like ensoniq dp4, Transwaves, loads while playing, resamples while playing even while sequencer running and with or without effects.

What i really like, is that you can build or sculpt your own multisampled sounds with variety details and controls even so far that it starts to have its own instrument like characteristics.

Cons: no resonant filter, Its heavy, about 20kg, caps wear out in 30 yrs, timing sucks sometimes, keyboard calibration fails sometimes, there's no easy groove control, you'll have to have the groove in your playing, sometimes loops pop, but hey this was designed more than 30 yrs ago

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Transwaves, any of them. So lively, so unique! Like wavetables, but no length limitations.

Creative sample chopping: pitch table = no pitch + keyboard to modulate sample start. Now every key has its own starting point. Adjust the amount to taste.

Synhezised loop with coarse settings.

pkennethk
Moderator

Excellent write-up. I'm so glad to see all the renewed love and support around 80s and 90s samplers in these past several years. Re: Ensoniq, I always think of this quote from Autechre's Rob Brown via an old Sound on Sound interview:

"It's really only the American manufacturers, Ensoniq and Emu, that turn their gear into synths and not just sample playback machines."