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From: dan@rna.UUCP (Dan Ts'o)
Newsgroups: net.music.synth
Subject: Re: Ensoniq Mirage
Message-ID: <458@rna.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Dec-85 01:54:58 EST
Article-I.D.: rna.458
Posted: Sat Dec 14 01:54:58 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Dec-85 04:37:20 EST
References: <1550@vax3.fluke.UUCP>
Reply-To: dan@rna.UUCP (Dan Ts'o)
Distribution: net
Organization: Rockefeller Neurobiology
Lines: 50
Summary: 

In article <1550@vax3.fluke.UUCP> nelsonc@fluke.UUCP (Curtis A. Nelson) writes:
>I am considering buying the Mirage by Ensoniq.

	Sorry I don't have a owner's point of view, but a potential customer's.
From what I have learned from sales pitches, articles, ads, etc., it
looks to me like the Mirage IS the thing to get for its type and price class.
Namely, it is the most reasonable, low priced sampler/keyboard. For $300 less
($1395 list), you can get the Mirage in a box (the Multisampler) if you don't
need the keyboard.

	There are three alternatives I know of for a lower price, a Korg
delay/sampler box SDD-2000, the Akai S612 and a sampling program for a
personal computer. The Korg IS cheap ($695 list) but not a serious sampler,
good for occasional monophonic sampling. The Akai is not much cheaper than the
Mirage Multisampler when the Akai is purchased with its disk drive ($995+295).
I don't think it is reasonable without its disk drive. Neither would have a
keyboard. The screw on the Akai is that only one sample can be held and played
back at one time. This means louse keyboard emulations of most acoustic
instruments including piano, since several (ideally 88, or 2*88, or...) samples
spread across the keyboard are required to obtain a decent emulation for
several octaves.

	For a little more money, the Mirage offers alot more. Eight voices,
16 stored samples, velocity cross fade, a small sequencer, a large user
community, etc. The only pluses I see for the Akai are the 12-bit vs 8-bit
sampling and larger memory (8 secs vs 4secs max). But I hear the 8-bit does
quite well (the Emulator II is only 8-bit) and from actually hearing a
Mirage it sounds great.

	At $1000 more, the Sequential Prophet 2000 also has 12-bit sampling
and more analog synth features. I'm not convinced its worth the extra $$ and
other opinions concur. Everything else is alot more expensive.

	My remaining questions on the Mirage are: does it have sample split
point crossfade (the Emulator II does), i.e. cross smoothly between various
samples of one emulated instrument across the keyboard. If not, it must be
difficult to match sample sounds at the split points. And does the Mirage
respond (reasonably) to keyboard notes outside the 5 octave range, otherwise,
for example, playing a Mirage or a Multisampler from, say, a 88 key KX88
would yet much wasted keyboard space.

					Cheers,
					Dan Ts'o
					Dept. Neurobiology
					Rockefeller Univ.
					1230 York Ave.
					NY, NY 10021
					212-570-7671
					...cmcl2!rna!dan
					rna!dan@cmcl2.arpa