Ensoniq ASR-10

The main manual is over 400 pages, but once i read through it, i had a relatively easy time of getting around the machine and making it do what i want, which is really good considering i'm a guitarist and not a keyboardist. Did i mention this was my first keyboard?

One of my favorite things about this device is that you can play a sample w/ any one of the 50 effects and plug the main out into the input and sample it with the effect. This is esp. useful if the EQ needs some Tweaking... my biggest complaint is that it is so slow... it takes forever to load even relativelly small samples. What i ended up doing for is creating a bank of 8 instruments (note that an instrument can potentially have 8 times 61 samples, memory permitting) and only composing with those for live shows, 'cuz there'd be a good minute or 2 of dead air if you tried loading up between songs... Also, i question the validity of the audio tracks, 'cuz with a max of 16 megs, what's the use? btw, the sequencer is a breeze...

Well, if you want something with realistic instruments, save up for a Kurzweil, but as a sampler, it rocks... being into experimental/industrial music, i've made some really cool instrumetns, one of which is just plain evil sounding... 3 non-vocal noise type samples, yet when you use it, you can hear screaming in it... weird... the velocity is real good, and not being a keyboardist, i have trouble keeping it uniform... the inbox piano is really nice, but i don't use the orchestral strings... also nice rap sounds... the only flaw to the effects is that there is too much settings to adjust in some of them...

Well, due to its slow speed, i'd like to get another sampler so that one could loud while the other played, but otherwise i can't think of any problems...

Well, seeing how i got it used for half the list price, i am one happy camper, plus, musically, it's everything i could want... however, when it comes to live performance... if it was lost or stolen, i'd prolly kill myself... the only thing i wish it had was more inbox synth pads... there's some airy voices, and that's about it, and finding GOOD samples on the net for this thing is very time consuming, and you often wade through so much crap and rarely find anything good... i've found a really nice pipe organ, and a plain out awesome harpsichord, but those are the only 2 things i'd brag about... mainly, i make my own sounds w/ this thing...

The "In-Box" Sample sounds are few (less than 40, I think) and half of them are very amatuerish. It does have an impressive simulation of a steel strung acoustic (one of my favorites) and the strings and pianos are good. It has a very complicated (yet impresive) sound architecture. However, creating realistic instruments from samples is very very diffucult. Practically a nightmare. Im sure the unit will be long obsolete before I figure it out entirely. But the upside is you can buy (at anywhere from 100-300 per CD (!!!)) great sounds. The manual was very good.

32 note polyphony using 32 Khz effects. 23 note using 44 Khz effects. Great effects except for a noticeable hiss and crackling after a sound has finished playing. This will continue until the effect is changed. Very noticeable at high volume levels. Not very noticeable during playback. Sent it in for service, but all they did was replace a SIMM socket so I suppose that is the way it works, huh. Has options for a SCSI port and SPDIF. Also an output expander. Polyphonic aftertouch is very nice. It will take some practice to use it well however! MIDI I/O/T. Myriad int/ext MIDI Controllers. The sequencer is nice, and flexible. Allow sych with live audio input!

Some of the included sounds were very good. Other were very amatuer. However the sound quality is very high so I guess I have to rate amatuer on a curve. The worst sound makes most FM keyboard sound sick. The effects are ok, but noisy. The should have included an effects editor, cause you are stuck buying the effects, like the good sounds. 3 EPS chips would be nice for independent effects for each sample/instrument, or enough to share realstically. Im afraid the ASR organ just doesnt come alive sharing the Chorus effect on the Guitar, or being relegated to a plain reverb bus.

I find it to be a very erratic instrument. All kinds of very frusterating anomalies. This has to be the WORST aspect of this instrument. I can not even describe all of the anomalies there have been so many. Try to get a factory technician to take the time to diagnose these? HA! HA! HA! Your stuck with a 2300 dollar house of horrors. When it does work it works very nicely

I would buy a refined version of it, with an easier to use sample synth generator. But I do regret buying this unit. The sounds are very good though.

There are several large an comprehensive manuals for this model, which is necessary considering the myriad of built-in features. They are well-written with clear and simple tutorials. Most of the supplied sound disks are somewhat lacking, and there aren't many disks, which is a distinct disadvantage when put up against models featuring samplers and built-in ROM wavetables. Editing is straight-forward and most functions are very user-friendly and sensible, as Ensoniq has a reputation for. Multiple ports on the back make using everything a snap.

Despite the lack of a wavetable ROM, the ASR-10 is a feature-packed keyboard. With over sixty effects algorithms, it easily tramples over the competition. The built-in sampler and sequencer utilize 2mb of installed RAM (in 30-pin non-parity SIMMS, ala Macintosh) expandable to 16. Although other keyboards are expandable to 32, 64, or even 128 mb, most musicians will not need or be able to afford so much. Expansion options are extensive, including SCSI controller for connection to a 2X CD-ROM (including Akai and Roland format, like the floppy drive) and/or a hard drive for actual digital recording direct to hard disk, including two live inputs/channels from the sequencer utilizing the same 24-bit effects algorithms as the instrument sounds, making it an equivalent to and effects rack and digital recording studio as well. However, not all hard drives and removeable media drives are acceptible, so don't run out and buy a Zip drive. Also, you can't have more than a 2 Gigabyte hard drive installed. With the optional DAT I/O connector, you can output your digitally recorded music to DAT directly, preserving digital quality. The main expansion option this keyboard lacks is the possibility of adding a wavetable ROM, perhaps one from the TS-10 keyboard. If you want a lot of sounds built-in to play with and features more extensive than this, a Korg Trinity with the Prophecy card may be a better choice.

The keyboard, to me at least, was somewhat unreactive. Perhaps the keyboard on the ASR-88 is better. The standard array of effects are available and you can add more with third party software (check the net). The instrument sounds were not especially satisfying, but this is a sampler keyboard using disk-based sounds, so there were few out-of-the-box samples to play with. I'm sure there are great sounds available, they just don't come for free. The piano was good, but the guitar sounds came with extra cheese.

If I had the money, I'd get a Korg Trinity Pro X with the Prophecy card and all the options, but I don't have that kind of money yet, so this is a good deal. If you want to play with something right out of the box and sampling isn't as important to you, look at a Prophecy or a TS-10.