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+--- Thread: Retro midi machine! (/showthread.php?tid=138)
RE: Retro midi machine! - Samulis - 01-23-2020
It looks like they go for between $300-500 on Ebay here in the States. Note that I don't believe it has any built-in sounds, so you will want it to come with sounds or at the very least hunt down some blank floppy disks you can use to make your own. If it comes with all of his disks and stuff, it's probably a fantastic deal, assuming it is still working.
Often the first thing that goes on these is the floppy drive. However, it is not too difficult to source a replacement from sites like Syntaur. In addition Syntaur may even offer floppy disk samples for it, as they do for the Mirage (I have a modern repro set of original Mirage library diskettes made and sold by Syntaur, as the disks my Mirage came with were all too old to be readable reliably).
According to the web databases I've seen, it is a very good sampler in that it has stuff like a built-in looper, normalizer, etc. However, it is limited to 2 MB so very small, even for the standards of late-90's units like the ESI-4000 (which can go up to 128 MB). However, this can be a good thing as it forces economy of choice in the way you use the sampler space. On the plus side, it has a very substantial set of built-in effects, especially for 1990! They probably aren't great (again, it's a mono sampler), but certainly very interesting I would assume. In addition, it also has highly variable sample rates like the Mirage, down to 11 kHz, so you can get all sorts of super gritty, 'lo-fi' sounds. This 'dirty' sound was a cornerstone of 80's and 90's sampler-based music during the time before RAM was feasibly large for decent 44.1 kHz sampling. As the first affordable ADAT units did not appear until 1991, it is likely that most people using this and earlier samplers recorded first to analog tape, then played back the tape outputting to the sampler, for a potentially even more colorful sound. So, if you wanted the full experience of sampling in 1990 on the eve of DAT, plop a tape emulator plugin on your samples before you play them back into the input of the machine.
(aside: the 'How to Become a Computer Musician' book I have from the mid-90's discusses recording directly on hard drives as a sort of 'new fangled' technology and a constant struggle of running out of space, constantly shuffling old takes to DAT. How the times have changed!)
I find Ensoniq often has the best documentation for their units. The Ensoniq Mirage's Sampling manual is one of the most well-written and fascinating pieces of documentation I've ever laid eyes on, and I hope the EPS-16+ is the same!
That being said, if there is anything else the guy has that is more interesting to you, consider that. For one, the EPS-16+ doesn't appear to be a ROMpler (at least in the sense of I don't think it has a ROM chip inside with sounds built in?) and doesn't have a GM soundset, so it would be more difficult to use,
RE: Retro midi machine! - Mattias Westlund - 01-23-2020
I should have mentioned that it does come with a large number of disks. Orchestral samples, ethnic samples, drums etc, plus a whole slew of disks that a previous owner sampled from his collection of analog synths in the early nineties. I agree that 2MB of RAM seems very little, but as you say the variable sample rate should allow you to squeeze more than a single instrument out of it. I'm not expecting it to normally run things at 44.1 anyway.
It is fully functional according to the seller. But I'm thinking maybe I should ask to borrow it for a few days, just to ascertain whether it's something for me, before sinking money into it. I'm aware that it doesn't have built in sounds and isn't GM compatible but that's fine, I already have three GM/GS/XG romplers and I'm not in the market for a fourth one. The only thing I find potentially troubling is that you mention the floppy drive being something that has a tendency to break. Without it, the unit is basically a very large paperweight.
Anyway, thanks for your response Sam! I think I'm going to have to do some more digging before making up my mind.
RE: Retro midi machine! - Paul Battersby - 01-23-2020
(01-23-2020, 06:27 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: The only thing I find potentially troubling is that you mention the floppy drive being something that has a tendency to break. Without it, the unit is basically a very large paperweight.
Can the synth perform a sysex dump through a MIDI port and later load it back? If so, assuming the floppy drive works now, perhaps you can load each floppy, perform a sysex dump to you computer and be independent of the floppy drive.
I've taken this precaution for both my DX7IIFD and my Korg M1 (which has no drive and resets to a sine wave generator when the battery dies every decade or so!)
RE: Retro midi machine! - Mattias Westlund - 01-23-2020
(01-23-2020, 11:48 AM)Paul Battersby Wrote: Can the synth perform a sysex dump through a MIDI port and later load it back? If so, assuming the floppy drive works now, perhaps you can load each floppy, perform a sysex dump to you computer and be independent of the floppy drive.
I've taken this precaution for both my DX7IIFD and my Korg M1 (which has no drive and resets to a sine wave generator when the battery dies every decade or so!)
It's not a synth, it's a sampler. Meaning, it has no built-in waveforms or oscillators or anything, and without samples loaded from floppy it doesn't do squat. I don't think you can load samples via MIDI, the protocol is too slow and bandwidth-limited for stuff like that.
RE: Retro midi machine! - Samulis - 01-29-2020
I think you can load samples via MIDI via sysex, but it's excruciatingly slow. Never tried it, but I've seen references to the process in a few manuals I've read for certain samplers.
Mattias, I think trying it out is a fantastic idea!
RE: Retro midi machine! - Mattias Westlund - 01-30-2020
(01-29-2020, 10:39 AM)Samulis Wrote: I think you can load samples via MIDI via sysex, but it's excruciatingly slow. Never tried it, but I've seen references to the process in a few manuals I've read for certain samplers.
Really? Wow, I didn't know that. According to Wikipedia the MIDI protocol operates at 31.25 kbit/s, roughly 4kB/s. So unless I've completely gotten the math wrong, loading 2MB of samples (2048kB) would take around... 4+ minutes I think? That's assuming the MIDI standard can use its entire bandwidth for file transfers, which is of course by no means a given.
RE: Retro midi machine! - Terry93D - 01-30-2020
This is going to be double retro what with MIDI 2.0.
RE: Retro midi machine! - Mattias Westlund - 01-31-2020
(01-30-2020, 08:17 PM)Terry93D Wrote: This is going to be double retro what with MIDI 2.0.
Yup! If it takes off, which remains to be seen. Impressive though that a standard from the early 1980's has survived for so long without any major updates. Goes to show that they really thought things through when inventing it.
RE: Retro midi machine! - Mattias Westlund - 03-26-2020
![[Image: IMG_20200326_082226.jpg]](http://mattiaswestlund.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_20200326_082226.jpg)
I overhauled my retrocomputing corner recently (not completely done yet though) and the RMM is now up and running again. I've been working on this tune the past days, again using the Yamaha TG100.
RE: Retro midi machine! - Chris Spyratos - 03-26-2020
(03-26-2020, 07:31 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: I've been working on this tune the past days, again using the Yamaha TG100.
Very nice! One could put aside the fact that he is listening to some old hardware and focus on the tasteful writing and harmonic richness of the track.