[sdiy] MIDI DCOs

[Glen]

At 06:10 PM 1/8/04 , WeAreAs1 at aol.com wrote:

>BTW, a Sequential Prophet 2000 or 2002 could be a good starting point for 
>such a module, since it has 8 *hardware* voices.  Very easy to tap the 8 
>signals into 8 separate outputs.

The Ensoniq Mirage has separate hardware voices as you describe, and this
is one keyboard / rack module that can be bought cheaply these days. I know
that the unit is a very limited sampler, but I'm thinking of using it more
as "programmable waveform" polyphonic oscillator bank in this case. The
wavforms are only 8-bit, but that isn't too bad if you fill that 8-bit
dynamic range with a basic waveform, instead of a "finished note" with
attack, decay, and other attributes. I think the sample rate can go up to
48kHz. With a waveform normalized to make the most of the dynamic range, it
should sound fairly clean. The unit also has real analog filters, of the
CEM3328 variety. You could probably tap the CV going into the filter chips,
and do some interesting things with those signals. Generating gates
shouldn't be too difficult.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with hacking the Mirage is the lack of
good, detailed technical information. Ensoniq were completely paranoid
about someone stealing their technology, and proper service manuals were
never distributed for the Mirage.

later,
Glen