Vintage Synth Explorer

Ensoniq • ESQ-1

Similar to the Mirage synth/sampler, the ESQ-1 was Ensoniq's highly affordable and impressive digital synthesizer. Although the waveforms are digital in nature, the filters are all analog as on the Mirage. In fact, for a digital synth the ESQ-1 has many good old analog-synth features such as a ring modulator, sequencer, and oscillator-sync. The envelopes and LFOs are can be freely routed to each DCO, VCA and or VCF. There are 40 preset sounds which are the usual not-so-great sounds. Luckily the VFD display screen is large enough to make editing the sounds somewhat pleasant.

What really sets the ESQ-1 apart from other similar synths is the voice architecture. Choose from analog, digital, or samples or any combo since there are three independent oscillators per voice! Once you start editing on the ESQ-1 you will come up with interesting and unique results. Using dynamic voice allocation it can seemlesly switch from 8-voices of analog to 8-voices of digital or sampled voices! This gives you a wide array of different sonic elements at your fingertips!

Then there's its built-in sequencer. It can store up to 24,000 notes in 30 sequences and 10 songs via battery back-up. Anyone in search of an alternative synthesizer should consider the ESQ-1. More analog than a DX-7 or D-50 and also much cheaper, the ESQ-1 is a tasty option that is worth a try. A rack-mount version, the ESQ-M (pictured above) was also made which is identical to the ESQ-1 except that it excludes the on-board sequencer option. It has been used by Anything Box, Skinny Puppy, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Steve Roach.

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Tim-o

Posted 20 hours ago

great post radiowaves!

radiowaves

Posted 3 days ago

Many criticize the ESQ on various sonic and technical grounds, committing two fatal errors when judging a machine of this age: expecting of a synth what it was never crafted to do, and rating its features by modern standards. The ESQ-1 is a bridge in synth history between old and new. Of course it comes up short when compared to newer gear! If you are looking for realistic *anything* do not look here!
Don’t let the thinner digital oscillators fool you: when the filters on this guy have their say, the sound is unbearably fat. Plus, the Saw wave on this baby is immaculate. But the aesthetic of the machine is for me its strongest point. It is unmistakably strange and vintage gear, and the LED lights on this thing make it emanate a green nostalgic glow of 1986 synth heaven. You can coax some wicked and organic sounds out of an ESQ. For those of us with the patience and intellect to manipulate this enigmatic beast, it never fails to amaze.

Tim-o

Posted 7 days ago

advtjoe@sbcglobal.net

for sound carts.

Tim-o

Posted 7 days ago

if you have any sound carts you want to sell for the ESQ-1. i will buy them.

MDSys

Posted 64 days ago

The ESQ-1 must have been one of my favourite synths. Although being mainly digital, you could get some truely amazing sounds out of it.I found this patch, called Jarre, I think, and tweaked it a bit to make this super smooth swelling string pad sound. I used that sound most of all and layered it with a piano sound from my U110 module. At a certain point I wanted change and sold it for a silly price to a guy that looked more like a chick and puchased a Yamaha SY99 which is a super synth, but I lost that lovely ESQ1 sound forever. Like most synths of that era, there were no knobs t tweak with, but I used it alot on stage with no problem at all. Together with a Master keyboard like the M-Audio Keystation PRO 88, you would have a lot knobs to play with in a live situation.

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