Ensoniq Mirage

chuckjaywalk · Post by **chuckjaywalk** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:19 am

I just scored this neat old sampler and a few floppies with samples from a coworker. I was curious if anyone on here had any experience with them. I think I need to get a floppy drive and some disks so I can reinstall the OS, as it isn't running great. Mostly, I just want to sample voices on it like on old industrial songs, but I'm sure there are other uses.

lordgalvar · Post by **lordgalvar** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:23 am

midimark is (was, haven't dealt with him in a long time) a good dude if he is still around (was on ebay, but still might have a site somewhere too). Yea, he is still around: http://www.ebay.com/usr/mmp217

If you ever want to flip it, keep me in mind! haha.

I don't know if you can convert it to the new floppy emulators, but it is worth a shot to look around and see.

chuckjaywalk · Post by **chuckjaywalk** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:30 am

lordgalvar wrote:midimark is (was, haven't dealt with him in a long time) a good dude if he is still around (was on ebay, but still might have a site somewhere too). Yea, he is still around: http://www.ebay.com/usr/mmp217

If you ever want to flip it, keep me in mind! haha.

I don't know if you can convert it to the new floppy emulators, but it is worth a shot to look around and see.

I totally will but be warned THIS THING IS HEAVY AS FUCK!!! It is like the Peavey amp of synths.

lordgalvar · Post by **lordgalvar** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:43 am

I almost bought one way back in the 1990s from my hip hop producer friend (I lost touch with him 13 years ago after he got kinda known and moved away). He talked me out of it and was trying to talk me into getting ADAT all set up because it was a better investment. Should've listened to him but I got a ring mod and fuzz instead...haha. But I don't remember it being over 20lbs...(don't really remember honestly).

I didn't see any mirage stuff up on midimark's listings (didn't look too hard), but message him, he'll probably send you in the right direction.

Have fun with it man!

gordian knot · Post by **gordian knot** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 1:50 am

There used to be a whole cult around them. IIRC the newsletter for hardware hacks, etc was the "transoniq Hacker"

sonidero · Post by **sonidero** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 2:05 am

Mirage is good but it ain't no ASR-10...

Yeah, Floppies... I've heard full albums made off them if you can figure it out...

spacelordmother · Post by **spacelordmother** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 6:31 am

Sweet score! I have an Esq-1 that I adore (also heavy as fuck!) and I have been contemplating getting my hands on one of their sampler keyboards. Ensoniq is cool shit.

The Buchty site has the a complete (?) archive of the Transoniq Hacker:

http://www.buchty.net/~buchty/ensoniq/transoniq_hacker

Issue 1 has lots of good info on the Mirage.

trace · Post by **trace** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 8:28 am

I scored mine a few years ago for $20 at guitar center with no disks, manual, etc. So I got this starter kit from syntaur and it got me up and running. https://syntaur.com/mirage_starter.html But I have since lost the formatting disk.

Keep in mind if you are going to get blank floppies for it, you need the older DS/DD type, not the most recent type (2HD i think).

It's a cool sampler but it is a pain in the ass to program (hexidecimal wtf) and I have since moved on to a newer, more powerful, sampler, the Akai s01!

Lordgalvar, I would totally sell you mine cheap but it does have one dead key and it's a big heavy bastard so shipping might be up there.

rustywire · Post by **rustywire** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 9:49 am

sonidero wrote:Mirage is good but it ain't no ASR-10...

Yeah, Floppies... I've heard full albums made off them if you can figure it out...

Yeah it aint an ASR-10...or EPS...but it's still a great piece of kit to make beautiful noise. Nice score

Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D. · Fri Jul 10, 2015 9:57 am

dude Mirage's are great!
and it is listed on the HxC Floppy Emulator site
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/

def recommend if u plan on using it a bunch as it will make your life a lot easier w/ the floppies. and probably also up the resale value if u don't plan on using it a bunch.

they are heavy as a mofo. i sold one of these awhile ago, and it was gunna cost me $200 to ship it internationally. i remember i had a hard time explaining it to the buyer because of the language barrier…fun times.

gordian knot · Post by **gordian knot** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:42 am

Here is a link to, at least, a partial archive of the Transoniq Hacker

http://memi.de/~buchty/ensoniq/transoniq_hacker/

lordgalvar · Post by **lordgalvar** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 2:11 pm

Ah, in my head I was thinking about the rack

. Don't know if I need keys sitting around, haha. Sorry!

Yea, EPS is awesome! The standard until the Kurzwiel came out.

Ummm, yea, def. look into getting the emulator. It will make things a ton easier (plus you don't have to worry about those old type disks going bad like they always do...well my roland ones).

gordian knot · Post by **gordian knot** » Fri Jul 10, 2015 5:33 pm

oh, I haven't played with an EPS in probably 16-17 years.
As I remember the floppies were single density (720k).

Just something to be aware of when getting replacements

chuckjaywalk · Post by **chuckjaywalk** » Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:09 am

Looks like I need to find an OS disk. Arrrggh!

antennafarm · Post by **antennafarm** » Sat Jul 11, 2015 3:36 am

my first sampler, a truly limited but amazing sounding beast.

comparing it to anything else is the wrong mindset. the mirage is a mirage, who cares about anything else.

ilovefuzz.com

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