The forgotten world of the Ensoniq SQ series 

The best review of this keyboard

Your channel is just a marvellous treasure ! Thank you for your work. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Angel patch - wowzer:)

My church has had one of these since the mid 1990s. Still in use as often as we have a synth player on hand :D

I got a SQ2 in 1991 as my first ‘workstation’. You could get some good distorted guitar tones using the effects and as you say the effects are pretty good. I always liked the piano on it too but the drums samples were quite limited but they could be pitch shifted so could be varied. What I did not like was the seemingly random crashes (eg ID=129) which meant you’d lost all your patches and sequencer data - still makes me shudder 29 years later! I eventually got fed with the SQ2’s bulk so got a SQR and ported my sounds across and still have it.

I have an SQ1 Plus. I love my synth!!!

Nice video!

Heard some sounds used by one of my favourite bands back in the day.

I never took much notice of Ensoniq gear as I just though the design and build quality was cheap. I've just got the Arturia version which can load all the Sysex sounds, and I LOVE IT! This video sounds amazing and is so informative. Teach me not to judge a synth by it's cover, lol! ;)

I love this thing. I feel like it is 1/2 the boards of canada sound... at least before they process everything

So many Simple Minds chord progressions ! :)

I've been using the excellent SQ8L VST soft synth of the Ensoniq SQ80 lately, and I'd like to be able to find some additional sound banks to load into it. I remember Ensoniq since the Mirage. It was the first affordable sampler. In the mid 80s I used my Amiga 1000 computer as my sampling keyboard at home, and I bought a program that could load Mirage disks directly on my Amiga's floppy drive, and then play them back live with any MIDI keyboard. In the late 80s I wanted a 16 bit sampling keyboard, 61 keys vs the 49 I had, and other features I was lacking in my pair of CZ-1000's. I visited my area's top music stores and Ensoniq was still a top name at that time. I remember playing the EQ-80, but the new Ensoniq VFX was the main keyboard I was interested in at the time. That is....until the Korg M1 came out. I saw Rick Wakeman in his Yes spin off band using the VFX keyboard at shows I attended. I still believe I made the right choice in buying the M1, but ever since I've always wondered what I had missed had I bought the VFX instead? The Korg's greater strength was in it's real life instrument sounds if you wanted a piano, sax, drums and many other instruments. Both had great 16 bit string patches. Both were capable of good atmospheric patches. The VFX's patches offered some unique sounding atmospheric patches I have not heard out of other synths, probably the thing I'd use one for the most if I had one. In the early 90s, a local band I saw frequently used both an M1 & an Ensoniq SD-1. I hear the SD-1 is basically an updated model of the VFX. Is the SD-1 fully compatible with VFX sounds? In the online demos I hear, I tend to still hear a lot more atmospheric patches coming from the VFX, and the selection seems different in the SD-1, trying to compete a bit more with real instrument sounds like the M1 (but falling short in that area). In the past 2 or 3 years I've had a bit more interest in rediscovering those VFX sounds I never had. The M1 ones are great, but the VFX ones are just plain different, and different than all my other keyboards and VST's like the Roland D-50 for example, available as a VST too. The prices on used Ensoniq's like the VFX and SD-1 pre-covid in the past 2 or 3 years were really incredibly cheap. These were once expensive keyboards. I saw a VFX or two in my area just 2-3 years ago for only $200, seemingly working in the ads (probably working with some issues). I played an SD-1 at a Guitar Center, and I really loved the on-board sounds on it. They wanted only $300. Wouldn't have surprised me if they took $250 or less. Not exactly a hot item for them I don't think. I had just recently bought my Yamaha MODX6, which I really love. The prices of used Ensoniq's pre-Covid was great, but I keep reading about a lot of problems they typically suffer from. Not as well made as some other keyboards of that era. For the money, I'd love to have had those sounds in my setup. But buying one could be a lot of headaches keeping them running, and taking up more space in my house I really don't have. What soft synth alternatives has anyone tried? I'd love to see a full "modeled" VST synth of the VFX, and SD-1. We seem to already have the excellent SQ-80 VST, but I think I'd be a lot more interested in a VFX, or SD-1 (if it's compatible with VFX sounds). The built-in effects processor makes for some good patches when programmers have it built-in to make patches for it. The SQ-80 might be capable of similar sounds when used with an effects processor (hardware or software based), but hitting just the right combination would be tougher than getting presets already made including the best settings. Has anyone used "sample based" DSX VST of the Ensoniq VFX, included in UVI's Digital Sensation & Vintage Vault collections? How does it compare to a real VFX? Are there any other good sample collections of the VFX or SD-1 out there?

Theme for great cities

I have a VFX, iirc it can be turned into a VFX-SD. But at this point I’m thinking of just using it as a midi controller. Amazing machine but was a little glitchy sound wise, and I kind of felt limited by the lack of outputs. Programming the strange envelopes was certainly a lesson in abstract sound design though! I remember trying to create a lap steel chord slide sound, didn’t quite get there but it was damn beautiful.

Thank you for your great sound demos! I love Ensoniq. My first sampler was a Mirage and later I bought an EPS. After watching your "Ensoniq SQ1/SQ2/SQ1 plus/ KS32 sound card HQ Demo" video, I decided to buy an SQ-R+. Do you remember by any chance on which ROM card is located the preset "Angel" starting at 0:52 in this video? It's amazing! I love the SQ series for their glassy/crystal pads.

aaaaaaaaaaaah i want this sysex man! lol!!!! you can share?

Do you have the sysex patches for these available? Thank you for the video and your time!

Got it topday, but I see other patches in mine and battery need to be changed. some body who has experiences in this matter. I replaced it from other synths. but from this one there seems to be less video's on this matter. I do not want to lose the sounds. and want to know if sysex works fine on it.

I have an SQ1 for many years, always found bad reviews on blogsites on it, while I found all the sounds so crisp and still full!!! Do you have the original fabric sounds as well on it? What is the name of the memory card? I am looking for some new sounds/patches!

I just got an Ensonic SQ2 from a buddy of mine for free. I've never used a digital keyboard/ synth before, but I have plenty of experience with electronics/ robotics. I just wanted to throw this out here and see if someone could help me figure this out. So, when I jack into the headphones port, I don't get any sound. The display works, but the LEDs above each button don't light up when you press whichever button you want. I tried giving the kayboard a factory reset, but the display didn't show anythinf other than "Button #_" when I did what was necessary to reset the keyboard. I honestly have no clue what to do about it. I assume the LEDs are possibly blown or aren't drawing any power. Bad battery? I dunno.

Im not hearing much bottom end in these sounds. But that 12db boost must be able to fix that :D

Thanks for the great video. New SQ-1 owner here. I tried to look for these patches in the Facebook group you mention, but can't find them in the files section. Could you send them to me (or tell the name of the zip file)? :) Thanks

Does anyone know of a Non Facebook source of this sysex? I am not going to resubmit to Lord Zuck just to get a few banks of sysex that must exist somewhere else, even though I can't find it...

Awesome demo! The SQ1+ is my first synth and it started to grow stale to me, but I'd love to try some new sounds. From some of those in this video I can almost hear how they're made, but I'd love to just download them as a SYX. Any chance they're online somewhere?

Hi, I'm having trouble with a memory card I just bought for my sq1+. I plug it in and get a battery low identifier. Do I have to replace the battery to access the sounds?

Are you selling cards? I giged this thing all over KC. I need to play with seq. It can get ugly with the big boost.

So what about to play the emu proteus 2 orchestral and the proteus 3 world instruments please? :)

Do they work in the ESQ1?

This is the only interesting review of this synth so far. The others feature the most boring music ever played with the most boring GM sounds. I used to have one before the keyboard went bad.