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Ensoniq
Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally Sampler (musical instrument), samplers and synthesizers. History In spring 1983, former MOS Technology engineers Robert Yannes, Robert "Bob" Yannes, Bruce Crockett, Charles Winterble, David Ziembicki, and Albert Charpentier formed Peripheral Visions. The team had designed the Commodore 64, and hoped to build another computer. To raise funds, Peripheral Visions agreed to build a computer keyboard for the Atari 2600, but the video game crash of 1983 canceled the project and Commodore sued the new company, claiming that it owned the keyboard project. Renaming itself as Ensoniq, the new company instead designed a music synthesizer. Ensoniq grew rapidly over the next few years with the success of the Mirage and the ESQ-1. The plant in Great Valley, Pennsylvania employed nearly 200 people and housed the manufacturing facility. A number of suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensoniq Mirage DSK
Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally samplers and synthesizers. History In spring 1983, former MOS Technology engineers Robert "Bob" Yannes, Bruce Crockett, Charles Winterble, David Ziembicki, and Albert Charpentier formed Peripheral Visions. The team had designed the Commodore 64, and hoped to build another computer. To raise funds, Peripheral Visions agreed to build a computer keyboard for the Atari 2600, but the video game crash of 1983 canceled the project and Commodore sued the new company, claiming that it owned the keyboard project. Renaming itself as Ensoniq, the new company instead designed a music synthesizer. Ensoniq grew rapidly over the next few years with the success of the Mirage and the ESQ-1. The plant in Great Valley, Pennsylvania employed nearly 200 people and housed the manufacturing facility. A number of successful products followed which all includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensoniq Logo
Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally Sampler (musical instrument), samplers and synthesizers. History In spring 1983, former MOS Technology engineers Robert Yannes, Robert "Bob" Yannes, Bruce Crockett, Charles Winterble, David Ziembicki, and Albert Charpentier formed Peripheral Visions. The team had designed the Commodore 64, and hoped to build another computer. To raise funds, Peripheral Visions agreed to build a computer keyboard for the Atari 2600, but the video game crash of 1983 canceled the project and Commodore sued the new company, claiming that it owned the keyboard project. Renaming itself as Ensoniq, the new company instead designed a music synthesizer. Ensoniq grew rapidly over the next few years with the success of the Mirage and the ESQ-1. The plant in Great Valley, Pennsylvania employed nearly 200 people and housed the manufacturing facility. A number of suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensoniq Mirage
The Ensoniq Mirage is one of the earliest affordable sampler-synths, introduced in 1984 as Ensoniq's first product. Introduced at a list price of $1,695 with features previously only found on more expensive samplers like the Fairlight CMI, the Mirage sold nearly 8,000 units in its first year - more than the combined unit sales of all other samplers at that time. The Mirage sold over 30,000 units during its availability. History The Mirage is the brainchild of Robert Yannes, the man responsible for the MOS Technology SID (Sound Interface Device) chip in the Commodore 64 and Albert Charpentier chip designer of several VIC20, 64 PET chips. The Ensoniq Digital Oscillator Chip (Ensoniq ES5503 DOC – referred to the "Q-chip" in Ensoniq advertisements) that he designed was used in the Mirage, ESQ-1, SDP-1, and SQ-80 and the Apple IIGS personal computer. The VLSI ES5503 allowed the Mirage to offer digital audio sampling technology at a dramatically lower price compared to existing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensoniq ESQ-1
Ensoniq ESQ-1 is a 61-key, velocity sensitive, eight-note polyphonic and multitimbral synthesizer released by Ensoniq in 1985. It was marketed as a "digital wave synthesizer" but was an early Music Workstation. Although its voice generation is typically subtractive in much the same fashion as most analog synthesizers that preceded it, its oscillators are neither voltage nor " digitally controlled", but true digital oscillators, provided by a custom Ensoniq wavetable chip. The signal path includes analog resonant low-pass filters and an analog amplifier. The synth also features a fully functional, 8-track MIDI sequencer that can run either its internal sounds, external MIDI equipment, or both, with a capacity of 2, 400 notes (expandable via cartridges). It provides quantization, step-editing, primitive forms of copy/paste editing, and can be synchronized with external MIDI or tape-in clock. The ESQ-1 had a particularly easy user interface, especially for a feature-filled digit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Yannes
Robert "Bob" Yannes (born 1957) is an American electronic engineer who designed the SID audio generator chip for the Commodore 64 and co-founded digital synthesizer company Ensoniq. He designed the Ensoniq 5503 Digital Oscillator Chip (DOC) which was used in both commercial synthesizers and the Apple IIGS home computer. Biography Robert Yannes graduated from Villanova University in 1978. He started out as an electronic music hobbyist before being hired as a chip designer at MOS Technology which had become a part of Commodore. Albert Charpentier recruited Yannes partly for his music synthesis knowledge. He has been infatuated by electronic music since the early 1970s. He claims the song '' Lucky Man'' by Emerson, Lake & Palmer influenced him more than any other single song, and also lists Kraftwerk and Mike Oldfield among his influences. He designed the ''MicroPET'' with help from Albert Charpentier which became an unintended prototype for the VIC-20 home computer. He designe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creative Technology
Creative Technology Ltd., or Creative Labs Pte Ltd., is a Singaporean multinational electronics company mainly dealing with Audio equipment, audio technologies and products such as speakers, headphones, sound cards and other digital media. Founded by Sim Wong Hoo, Creative was highly influential in the advancement of IBM PC–compatible, PC audio in the 1990s following the introduction of its Sound Blaster card and technologies; the company continues to develop Sound Blaster products including embedding them within partnered mainboard manufacturers and laptops. The company also has overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin and the Silicon Valley. Creative Technology has been listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) since 1994. History 1981–1996 Creative Technology was founded in 1981 by childhood friends and Ngee Ann Polytechnic schoolmates Sim Wong Hoo and Ng Kai Wa. Originally a computer repair shop in Pearl's Centre in Chinatown, Singapore, Chinatown, the company event ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sampler (musical Instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument that records and plays back samples (portions of sound recordings). Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sound effects or longer portions of music. The mid-20th century saw the introduction of keyboard instruments that played sounds recorded on tape, such as the Mellotron. As technology improved, cheaper standalone samplers with more memory emerged, such as the E-mu Emulator, Akai S950 and Akai MPC. Samples may be loaded or recorded by the user or by a manufacturer. The samples can be played back by means of the sampler program itself, a MIDI keyboard, sequencer or another triggering device (e.g., electronic drums). Because these samples are usually stored in digital memory, the information can be quickly accessed. A single sample may be pitch-shifted to different pitches to produce musical scales and chords. Often samplers offer filters, effects units, modulation via low frequency oscillation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
E-mu Systems
E-mu Systems was a software synthesizer, audio interface, MIDI interface, and MIDI keyboard manufacturer. Founded in 1971 as a synthesizer maker, E-mu was a pioneer in samplers, sample-based drum machines and low-cost digital sampling music workstations. After its acquisition in 1993, E-mu Systems was a wholly owned subsidiary of Creative Technology, Ltd. In 1998, E-mu was combined with Ensoniq, another synthesizer and sampler manufacturer previously acquired by Creative Technology. E-mu was last based in Scotts Valley, California, on the outskirts of Silicon Valley. History 120px, VCA chip by SSM's competitor, Curtis Electromusic Specialties (CEM) E-mu Systems was founded in Santa Cruz, California by Dave Rossum, a University of California, Santa Cruz, UCSC student and two of his friends from Caltech, Steve Gabriel and Jim Ketcham, with the goal to build their own modular synthesizers. Scott Wedge, who would ultimately become president, joined later that summer. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fairlight CMI
The Fairlight CMI (short for Computer Musical Instrument) is a digital synthesizer, music sampler, and digital audio workstation introduced in 1979 by Fairlight. — with links to some Fairlight history and photos It was based on a commercial licence of the Qasar M8 developed by Tony Furse of Creative Strategies in Sydney, Australia. It was one of the earliest electronic music workstations with an embedded sampler and is credited for coining the term sampling in music. It rose to prominence in the early 1980s and competed with the Synclavier from New England Digital. History : 1971–1979 In the 1970s, Kim Ryrie, then a teenager, had an idea to develop a build-it-yourself analogue synthesizer, the ETI 4600, for the magazine he founded, '' Electronics Today International'' (ETI). Ryrie was frustrated by the limited number of sounds that the synthesizer could make. After his classmate, Peter Vogel, graduated from high school and had a brief stint at university in 1975, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dixie Dregs
Dixie Dregs is an American rock band from Augusta, Georgia. Formed in 1970, the band is known for instrumental music that fuses elements of rock, classical music, country music, country, jazz and bluegrass music, bluegrass into an eclectic sound that is difficult to categorize. Recognized for their virtuoso playing, the Dixie Dregs were identified with the southern rock, progressive rock and jazz fusion scenes of the 1970s. In 1975, the band recorded their demo album ''The Great Spectacular'' and self-released it in the following year in a limited pressing. The demo soon garnered attention from record labels, including Capricorn Records, with whom the Dixie Dregs would sign in 1976, and three albums were released for the label: ''Free Fall (Dixie Dregs album), Free Fall'' (1977), ''What If (Dixie Dregs album), What If'' (1978) and ''Night of the Living Dregs'' (1979); the latter album, which was split between studio and live recordings, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Gram ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sample-based Synthesis
Sample-based synthesis is a form of audio synthesis that can be contrasted to either subtractive synthesis or additive synthesis. The principal difference with sample-based synthesis is that the seed waveforms are sampled sounds or instruments instead of fundamental waveforms such as sine and saw waves used in other types of synthesis.''Synthesizer Basics''. United States, H. Leonard Books, 1988. 72f. History Before digital recording became practical, instruments such as the Welte (1930s), phonogene (1950s) and the Mellotron (1960s) used analog optical disks or analog tape decks to play back sampled sounds. When sample-based synthesis was first developed, most affordable consumer synthesizers could not record arbitrary samples, but instead formed timbres by combining pre-recorded samples from ROM before routing the result through analog or digital filters. These synthesizers and their more complex descendants are often referred to as ROMplers. Sample-based instr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
