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Ensoniq Mirage

The Ensoniq Corporation's Mirage was an 8-bit sampler introduced in 1985. Priced below $2000 with features previously only found on more expensive samplers like the Fairlight CMI, it became a best seller.

The Mirage featured a 5-octave velocity sensitive keyboard, a two digit LED display, extensive MIDI implementation and a 333 note sequencer. It included a built-in 3.5 inch floppy drive, which was used to boot the operating system as well as store samples and sequences. Each disk had a copy of the operating system and could be used as a boot disk, obviating the need for a separate boot disk. Each disk stored three samples and up to eight sequences. The Mirage had 144 Kilobytes of internal RAM.

Using a feature called multi-sampling, the Mirage was capable of assigning multiple samples to different keys across its keyboard. Using this technique, the Mirage essentially turned into a polyphonic mult-timbral midi sound module complete with a velocity sensitive keyboard that could be used to drive other midi sound modules as well its own sound engine.

The Mirage sampler has become a minor sought-after item due to its low bitrate converters, being somewhat second place in the quest for Akai MPC60's and S900's due to its complex programming system which is based on HEX coding. In addition, as of 2005, a software-based sampling synthesizer such as Native Instrument's Kontakt or Tascam's Gigastudio can load a 1 gigabyte instrument on a properly configured new personal computer without placing too many demands on the hardware. Despite this, many industrial producers have championed the Mirage for its abrasive sound qualities.

The Mirage was the brain child of Bob Yannes, the man responsible for the MOS Technology SID (Sound Interface Device) chip in the Commodore 64 and the Ensoniq Digital Oscillator Chip (Ensoniq ES5503 DOC) used in the Apple IIGS computer (actually it is the same chip as used in the Mirage and ESQ-1).

There were three versions of the Mirage. The first had a spongy feeling keyboard and large square black buttons. The second had a better weighted feel keyboard and small calculator like buttons (see photo). The third was shorter and in a plastic case, had a non-weighted keyboard and sold for about $1300 USD. It is the version in the photo above. A 2U rack-mounted version was also produced.

In 1988, Ensoniq followed the Mirage up with the more advanced EPS (Ensoniq Performance Sampler), and later the EPS-16+.

• Photo, history and info on VintageSynth.com
• Encyclopedic Site Devoted to the Mirage
• MirageNet usergroup and Mirage information