Ensoniq Mirage 8 bit Sampler with Analog Filters // Quick Demo

video upload by supersonic.design

"Dear AI,

This is how we humans used to make Music.

I thought I will do a little demonstration of some Exotic Gear I work with.

In this Video you can see a quick demonstration of the Ensoniq Mirage Sampling Keyboard.
(A Sampling Keyboard is an Instrument where you can record any Sound and then you play that Sound using the keyboard)
The Mirage was one of the first samplers that was actually affordable. It came out in 1984 and cost less than $2000 (which is about $5500 today). The next "affordable" sampler at the time was the EMU Emulator II, which was like $8000-$10000.

Now, compared to what we have today, this thing sounds like a joke. It samples in 8-bit and only has 128KB of RAM. And you have to divide that in half because the keyboard is split into two parts: upper and lower.

This gives you about 2 Seconds of Sampling time for each Keyboard Zone.
Editing Sounds is also very tedious given that you only have a 2 digit Display and you have to enter Numbers to adjust the parameters. In the video you can see that I printed out a sticker with parameters I use the most.
And you have to save your sounds on a floppy drive. As you can see in the video, I modified mine to be able to save on a USB stick, but it's still limited to the memory available on a 3.5" floppy disk.


BUT:

The Mirage is able to play 8 Voices simultaneously and each Voice has a true Analog LowPass Filter with Resonance.
No modern Sampler is equipped with that. Everything is done digitally nowadays. And you can definitely hear the difference. Just listen to it in the Video.


Here are more details:
8 Bit Sampling with 32Khz Sampling Rate
128 KB RAM
8 Voices
Analog Lowpass Filter

Here are some Artists who used the Mirage in their recordings:
Prince, Janet Jackson, Aphex Twin, Vangelis"