The ZR-76 is a 76-key, weighted action, stage and studio keyboard / workstation. The ZR-76 offers 64 voice polyphony and over 1200 digital ROM sounds, including the "Perfect Piano" by W. Coakley. There are also three expansion slots, an easy-to-use sequencer, interactive drum machine and a 24-bit effects processor. One of the best features is the sound finder: all you have to do is type the first few letters of the patch you want and the synth finds them for you, or you can browse through the sounds by categories. A big help when there are over 1200 sounds on-board.

While its sounds are very good, for ROM samples, it's the 16MB "Perfect Piano" expansion card that really stands out, providing one of the most realistic sounding pianos on the market, plus it gives you a couple of realistic electric pianos as well. This synth also has a ton of amazing retro-synth samples and some awesome guitar sounds. The available expansion cards (Urban Dance and World Beat, for example) are excellent as well. And the ZR even comes with a program that lets you edit and create your own sounds too.

The ZR-76 also features an idea/sketch pad performance recorder in which it remembers everything you have played, and it can play back what you just did or send it to your sequencer for editing or to add to an existing sequence. In addition, the exclusive Ensoniq Delta Quantize feature will adjust your performance to match your sequence tempo (in case your playing wasn't already perfect).

Yes, this is the synth featured in the HALO sound library, and it makes a worthy addition to any song writer's synth collection. It has been used by Baby Face and other rock, pop and R&B artists.

gridsleep

September 24, 2012 @ 3:56 pm

According to the manual, the ZR76 can send both channel and poly aftertouch, but it only has a channel keyboard. I have to repair mine (key springs and minor things), so I'm going to have a good look to see if a poly touch keyboard can be installed. No sense writing to creative (owners of E-Mu who were owners of Ensoniq) as they really don't know diddly squat about this legacy hardware they really don't care about any more. Creative don't even feel like posting support files any longer; it's all just legacy out of service.

Ed

November 7, 2011 @ 10:24 pm

ZR has a group of 10 or 12 favorite buttons (not sure which) for quickly finding sounds; MR doesn't. ZR has Perfect Piano card; MR doesn't. That's the only real difference.

Rob

October 4, 2011 @ 10:26 pm

Does anyone know the difference between the ZR-76 and the MR-76?

Thanks,

Rob

Digi Fan

May 6, 2011 @ 7:21 pm

I own, the Emu ZR-76 rom card, is installed in a Proteus 2000 board. Incredable selection of sounds to work with and has an overall unique warm character about the samples in relation to the Proteus architecture compared with the other pop style roms that good ol EMU released around the same time. Really have allot of fun with the ZR expansion ROM and ofcourse the included Coakely "perfect piano" samples are beuty.

DC 10

August 31, 2010 @ 1:00 am

This is an excellent keyboard - has some fantastic rhodes type of sounds, some really great acoustic sounds, the Piano is okay - The drum machine is both: a bit cheesy, yet at times can be very good, The software is a bit buggy, once you found out the method of sound finder then it makes a little bit better sense and lastly, the encoder knobs are horrible to say the least - I have the WORLD expansion board - which is a must have - All in All - its the type of keyboard that if you sold - you would buy it again - has a bunch of sounds - you can score a movie or TV show with this easy if you know how to use it.

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