Interesting video - brought back many memories. I worked at Ensoniq starting in 1984 - they were fun years. That first Mirage was a groundbreaking keyboard and it required a different skill set than synthesizers of that era. The hexadecimal display confounded many, but it wasn't too hard to learn. Mirage owners were eager to learn about the internal wavesample memory. Eventually, I published a technical article for Mirage owners. My wavesample segmentation article helped hundreds of Mirage owners better understand how to partition the internal wavesample memory to multiple keyboard zones.
It was slightly on the expensive side compared to my Juno-6, but it was a digital sampler that didn't cost as much as a house! You could actually get your hands on it, maybe buy one if you had a job. Like a first car, for some.
I remember the day I first heard the Mirage at my local music store. A guy was playing that piano sound and I was stunned at how full and real it sounded. Then he released the sustain pedal and the sound stopped so abruptly, reminding me that this wasn't acoustic, it was digital! I felt I'd just witnessed the future.
Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis used the Mirage on Janet Jackson's "Control" and "Rhythm Nation" albums! The clunky metallic bass sound on "Nasty" was "Rack Bells" from the Mirage Factory Library layered with an Oberheim OB-8 bass sound, and the horn blasts on "When I Think Of You" were also from the Mirage library. They also used the factory Snare Roll sound on the intro to New Edition's "If It Isn't Love" (as well as the Rack Bells bass and Kalimba).
Yes, I read that too. And then right after they wrapped up "Control" they went straight into production with the Human League. Ive always loved their work on "Human" and "Love is all that matters." I think thats what really got me into synth music.
I think the name Mirage was a perfect moniker for this instrument. Remember what a mirage is what you see but it's not really real. They applied this effect to sound..♥️♥️♥️
This keyboard was such a game changer when it first came out....the first digital sampler that was even remotely affordable for young struggling musicians back in the '80's. Synclavier, Fairlight, Kurzweil and Emulator were all way out of most people's price range, and then came the Mirage! (and the Casio SK-1 LOL)
LOVED the way you just played 'strings of life' like it was the vinyl playing, awesome mate !!! Then good life, too, wow, two of the tunes that had an impact on my life, and now I know where the sounds came from. Thank you.
This is the Inner City sampler, good life is such a great track. A lot of game developers must have also used it a lot back in the day, I recognize the bass sound from various SNES and amiga tunes. The Ensonique company was founded by the creator of the Commodore 64’s SID chip. That barbershop style reminds me a lot of the more contemporary Super Mario tunes from recent years.
One of my cousin's jobs [when working for a famous band who were daft enough in the 80's to drag an Emulator around the UK and the world when touring] was to remember to pack the lump hammer. Because when the Emulator crashed/hung up [as it frequently did] one sure fire way to get it to to reboot was to smack it on its metal legs with the lump hammer.
Love the mirage. I had the chance to play with one in a studio in Los Angeles and each sound I played was reminding me of songs from the 80/90’s. Such a distinct sound.
It's really hard to have an amazing sample from a real wind organ, it's even better than what i have on my nord electro, i wonder where can i get good pipe organ sample.
I love the loop points on the strings. Obviously back in the day, such looping clicks would be smoothed out and buried in the mix of whatever song is using them. Us old timers remember such limitations with great fondness I’m sure you’ll agree Paolo
Those loop imperfections basically spelled house music for me back in the day. I remember using modedit on my 486 and trying to get those mid-rangy, wonky looping strings, pads and choirs. Later got to do that with my Mirages, an ESI-32 and a W-30. Memories. :-D
I always enjoyed programming sounds in hexadecimal. I used to work at a music store that sold them. We sold a ton of them, and every one had to go back to the factory for repair. We had them stacked in the back room waiting to go back. Someone would bring one in and explain the problem. I'd say, "Boy I've never heard of that happening before." And I'd add it to the stack in the back room.
Nice demo, love seeing the Teac 3440 in the background. Recorded many synth tracks on it. Thought of the Mirage but wound up with a S50 and S550 in the early 90#s
17:28 Pretty sure THIS EXACT pipe organ sound was used in the original London cast recording of "The Phantom of the Opera". It is also almost definitely being used to this day since it's no secret that this track is prerecorded and on a click-track that the orchestra then joins.
Two of the creators of this synth is Albert Charpentier and Robert Yannes, and both worked as chip designers at Commodore before starting Ensoniq. While Charpentier was a graphics chip developer, Yannes was the creator of the famous SID chip for the Commodore 64 which still today is used by many hobby musicians looking for the old chip sound.
Hey there.. I bought an Mirage and went touring with a band in the south of France. Using the famed "floppy disk" lol. SO many great memories and forgot how good it sounds after all this time.
I had one back in the late 90's. Same model, build (and heavy) as a tank. It was a cheap way for me to play live with samples with my band. I used the acoustic and electric piano quite a lot. One of my favourite sounds was one I made from the string samples (soft attack) with filter and resonance. There was also a monophonic mode. Interesting because, when you played legato, the looped sample would play continuously, not restarting on each keypress.
The Mirage sounds amazing even today, almost 35 years after its release. I'm thinking of getting an Oberheim DPX-1, it's quite an underrated machine but very powerful as it can load Mirage, EII, S900 and P2000 samples
get both. they sound different. the DPX is cleaner sounding and the filter is less warm in a way. certain disks sound bad on one or the other but they always shine on one specifically if you know what i mean... and the DPX can play Emulator patches
@@captmcgravy2669 That's right lol. Those engineers are probably long gone or well into retirement. Bensoniq is a possibility but those "old engineers" probably aren't going to be coming up with anything new but colon polyps at this point (I hope they don't).
Love them too but my VFX SD2 had decided to die too early, it was really a problem on this model. The temperature was too high after few minutes in use.
Thanks for presenting an absolute buffet of musical styles! You also wrung out every last bit of polyphony and musicality that the Mirage had to offer!
Brilliant to see one of these again❤️ When i was studying HND music tech one of my friends had this. It weighed a frekin ton! At the time we scoffed because the college studios had just acquired some big Akai rack samplers. But clearly we were wrong to scoff. That sounds just great. Another superb video from you. Thank you so much😘 Jb xx
Oh man, that brings back memories. I had an EPS 16+ rack-mount. That thing cost $2000. I also talked an Ensoniq engineer into giving me beta software that allowed the unit to load sounds in the background while other sounds played.
wow, yeah 8 bit sounds so very real !! I just discovered that my Ensoniq ESQ-1 is 8 bit and along with an analog filter,,,thats about as real as it gets !! Super good video bro !!
Nice vid. I bought the rack version in '87. It was used for a couple of months and then put back in its box where it still remains along with its factory disks and 'easy' programming guide. Might give it another go after being inspired by this vid.
Wow how much i respect this dude in the space of one video when it's my first time on the channel, you can just tell the depth of his musical knowledge from what he chooses to play. I am sitting a few inches from my mirage and I have yet used it since checking it out when I bought it, So glad I watched this.
I'm so glad that I'm not the only one that's "giddy" about the Mirage. I bought a Mirage DSK back in the 80's for $1100.00 from Guitar Center. My farvorite diskette (Sound Disk 100) is the one with: 1.Acoustic Piano, 2.Ah Voices, and 3.Bowed Strings. That piano sound alone is my fave!! It reminds me of The Beatles at Abbey Road in the 60's. I'm not a fan of modern day "perfect" piano samples.This has a certain character that is so unique, like a piano recorded in the 60's. The piano sound punches through in a mix - perfect. My Mirage still works to this day, including the sustain pedal!! I believe the keybed is made by Fatar. So, it has a feel similar to a Hammond organ. I know, because I owned a Hammond M3 back in the 70's - 80's. Recently, my favorite diskette #100 died, and I searched the internet for a replacement. After about a year, I found "syntaur.com". I paid around $100 for a set of 10 disks. I only wanted the one disk. I called them and they said they can't sell me just 1 disk. So, I paid the full price just for the 1 disk. Well worth it!! I love it!!
What a great surprise this video was. I had no clue what to expect going in and didn't expect much, but had a big smile brought to my face, realizing it was going down oldskool road with all the classic house sounds we love, but had no history on. I am so glad to know I am going to bed less stupid tonight, yet again. Thanks Paolo!
Watching this in April 2020. The sound of the Organ patch was unbelievably realistic. I closed my eyes and I was in a cathedral. All those Dynamics with 8 bit resolution.
Agreed Ive recorded multiple ambient albums 2 in fact most ESQ-1! If you take the time to program and know the trick of that sequencer some interesting music can be made with one machine and a limited one too compared to todays mega GB romplers.
@@SoDope29 Hold on to them! I miss all my Ensoniq gear had to sell for $$ reasons but at the least I made recordings with the sweet sounding machines! The TS10 is an amazing piece of tech btw.
Still have my TS-10, though admittedly I use it more for poly-AT these days. Beautiful evolving pads and some of the freakiest sound effects out there. Tons of character :-)
Have had mine for 20+ years. Still one of my favourites. Especially the release velocity. It has some quirks.. loops can be made to shift and change playback points. The dual oscillator mode is best, one trick I've used is to have the same sample played by both oscillators with different loop lengths and slight detune for VERY slow phasing effects.
DUDE. I was just using program 27 on the Midiverb when i was recording today ! On a Drumtraks rimshot sample i have loaded onto my MPC. I love that preset...it sounds so great
I wanted this keyboard so badly. Ensoniq was such a great product. I had a KS32 that was so great to sequence on. They were great keyboards and the Mirage wade my mouth water because it had the drum loops on it that were so nice to work with.
My very first sampler. I loved the design and how it worked with yellow LED display. In order to save on manufacturing instead of three digits for 0 to 255 Ensoniq incorporated just two digits with a HEX display (00 to FF)
Such a great, physical, characterful, tangible sound. Certainly beats the shit out of any software sampler, including the ones that try to emulate DACs etc. The sound of those old hardware units is a different thing altogether, and for me, besides making a HUGE difference at the mixing stage, it has a different emotional impact. And that's more important than anything else.
Always liked Ensoniq.....great balance of features, quality, and price. Loved my SQ1 and EPS16+ ....and they had their own magazine "Transoniq Hacker"....how cool is that!!!!😁
I've heard of the term aliasing when used in the digital sound sense since I was a teenager. But now I know what it sounds like thanks to you. I thought it was just distortion of the speakers due to the powerful digital signal...
Back then I produced sample soiunds for Mirage and sold diskettes via small ads in Recording magazine. I simply sampled Prophets, Oberheims and added my own flavored sounds
This was really cool! Plus, the playing itself was excellent for each patch demonstration. I did a session on one of these back in the late 80s. We used it for brass and strings. Definitely a cool machine that obviously still sounds great. Thanks for this!
