for me it's been a luke warm experience with the unit until now. until i started digging into the unit. i was convinced of selling it the first night i got it. but the resampling feature is insane with the auto normalize function. it actually works. i'm flying through the machine like i've owned it for 10 years. very straightforward stuff if you're used to ensoniq kit.
Matt, no i don't have a single rom anymore. all 4 of my slots are empty. i have a friend that is making a PPG and Voyetra 8 and Arp 2600 rom for me with the real machines that he has. but he's very slow and it's gonna take a while for him to burn the rom. right now i am more than happy with the ESQ-M and Juno 1. i have no interest in the roms and i'm not gonna get on that wagon of chasing them down. the custom one is a different story. the effects on the CS totally suck and i think the machine sounds thin to my old ears. they sound like a rusty tin can. very groovebox sounding. the only groovebox all in one solution's effects that i have owned that actually sounds decent has been the ASR-X. it has a similar engine to the DP4. i say similar because it's lacking a ton of algos and configuration. it's not the same. but it's like a very stripped down version of the processor. but the meat and potatoes are kinda there. kinda. all i need is the wonderful EQ to carve new voices, and some of the reverbs are decent. and maybe the delays in a pinch. but it's sure is one handy machine compared to so many other failure samplers i've owned. i love the desktop footprint. i am replacing my LCD with a white on blue in a week or two. it's gonna look sick. did i meantion how sick the envelopes are? the LFO's aren't doing much for me at the moment, but give me some time.
i want to try that software for the ASR-X now. i think it's ASR-X tools by chicken systems. now that would be totally dangerous in the right hands.
to compare the ASR-X to the MPC-3000 back in the day was a total waste of time by magazines, etc. they're not even close. the MPC-3K has a real sequencer but can't touch the sampling engine of the ASR-X, and everyone knows the sequencer is a turd in the ASR-X. although some people have gotten it to work. i'm not gonna even bother unless i totally get bored and i'm shipwrecked on a desert island with headphones.
the ASR-X and it's ability to load .aif's and .waves is totally bonkers with no conversion software necessary. i have a 2gig compact flash on board my unit and i'm gonna go nuts on this thing. those slow attack envelopes are a sincere glass of fresh air compared to ableton, and the very vintage Emu samplers i recently nuked. they just didn't sound natural for that kind of thing. but this unit does. The ASR-X will sound different in the next guy's hands. i don't think anyone on the planet is using this unit for Ambient, but it works for me. the sound is very eyebrow raising.
i prefer the sequencer of the rs7000 in cunjunction with the asrx. i have a a second asrx pro(scsi) for sale here in berlin. interested?rs7000+asrx=dopeass beatscs+some mono synths=serious bas+arp heavenhgti have no idea about wu tang. yeah the ensoniq kit sounds good. i have an ESQ-M running into the ASR-X for chords and stabs and I am really set in that dept.
Matt you really don't need all that gear. all you need is the CS and Ableton or an ASR-X.
You can do everything that emu sampler and roland phrase sampler and mpc can do easy.
you have too much stuff if you ask me. i used to think having 26 boxes all synced together was the most tits thing in the world with the lights off and watching all these blinking lights. until a few years back watching all these Youtube videos with all these rich asses having every box in the world making the most wackest sh*t ever. You simply do not need all that stuff to make albums. It's better to have just a couple machines or the "right" machines and get the most out of them than keep on buying stuff. GAS sucks!
speaking of GAS, i want that Europa sequencer so bad. It's on my list for 2011On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Matt <somatt@...> wrote:
If only I can find one. Or maybe eps16+rack for cheap.
Right now I have set up px7 with mpc500, kaoss pad 3, esi-2000, and roland sh-32 mixed thru mackie recording with sp-808ex. Rig all fits on the kitchen table.
Usually when I play out ill bring the cs and a buddy. The sh-32 or the esi or the kp3.
Not really a fan of mpc500 sound, I have to turn it up all the way and turn the gain up super high on the mixer.
Sh-32 the arp is kind of glitchy and crashes when you press buttons. But it sounds awesome. And I kinda like that its all right there in front of you. But its hard to save patches because if you touch a knob it will change your patch drastically. But this makes every time you play with it super organic and keeps it fresh. Great lfo and arp.
I really like the esi sound it sounds real fat for drums and I got it for $100 on craigslist. No filters and no effects though. I can't figure out how to send it anything but mod. I can't find an adsr. And it hangs when you load samples. Baw.
Ensoniq sound is famously huge. wu tang is all ensoniq. Right? And I hear that you can load the samples while playing on an ensoniq?On Feb 25, 2011 4:33 PM, "James Ulibarri" <jamesulibarri@...> wrote:
Anyone else discovered this wonderful combo besides Tweedie?
Not too bad at all. You can override that turd ASR-X sequencer very easily with the Command Station
and just use the ASR-X as a desktop sampler/sound module. Great hardware sound in these units
when you just don't want to be around a laptop. Although, both I feel both are necessary as they
both have their strong points.
I have the compact flash mod done on my ASR-X and I highly recommend getting a zip drive if you
can get the scsi card.