Ensoniq Halo

Software V 1.0
Most presets sound fairly good. It has some great piano sounds. It also has 2 or 3 good organ sounds (out of the dozen or more it comes with). Bass sounds are excellent

Even after 3 years of poking at buttons, I have yet to creat a new sound on this beast. The owner's manual (which I believe was translated from Japanese to English via Martian) lays out step-by-step instructions - instructions which DO NOT function on the keyboard. This is predominantly applicable to the arpeggiator which works fine on factory patches but no amount of button pushing or knob turning changes the arp patterns.

64 Note polyphony. I'm not that strong of a player so I've never come close to using up all 64 notes. I like the feel of the keys; again, I'm not a super-strong player so just about any key action will do for me. It has good velocity and aftertouch.

The effects are another facet of the Halo which I'm less than enamored with. They are nearly impossible to find and they all sound like crud.

I haven't attempted any expansion or any tinkering under the covers.

No sequencer. The Halo is typically driven with an older ESQ1 which does have a sequencer

Pretty much all of the acoustic sounds are great: Piano, organ, strings, bass, brass and all percussion are great sounding and extremely realistic. The synth/pad/vox patches uniformly suck. I'm primarily a film score composer and do some prog stuff for fun. A Moog or ARP this ain't, and that's a fact. What symphonic sounds it comes with are useable, but severely limited (only one set of acoustic symphonic string sounds - the rest are thin reedy synth strings).

I don't gig at all - this unit is used in a recording studio only. I've been using it for 4 years and I've only had one glitch: once (and only once) I powered it up and got an OS NOT FOUND on my display. I shut it off and restarted it and everything worked as it did before.

I've not had any occasion to contact the mfgr - seeing as how they don't exist any more, I'd be over a barrel if I needed serious tech support.

If my Halo were lost or stolen, I'd probably not try and replace it with another one. With the impossible-to-comprehend owner's manual and cryptic data shown on the display, programming this board is about 8 steps more difficult than learning neurosurgery. I use the drum sounds and the bass sounds almost exclusively. I guess I could do as well with a $100 drum machine MIDI'd to the ESQ-1.

Pretty easy to use -- I wish the programs beyond the first 16 were accessible without using the data wheel -- makes it difficult to quickly call up a patch in performance :( If you need 16 or less sounds, no such problem though.

My only complaint here is the keyboard action. I use this board only in my studio now with an outboard controller. The feel is very casio-ish, but stiffer. I would gladly have paid extra for good keys!

Everything else, feature-wise, is great (except the issue mentioned in "ease of use").

The sounds!!! This board has the sounds!!! Mine has been expanded with the B3, Vintage, and Xtreme Lead ROMS. The Xtreme lead is my favorite, but there is a lead tone in the "Sounds of the ZR" (the stock ROM) that is just awesome!

Pianos are really good as well -- not my favorite, but definitely quite good.

For what I am using it for, it should be fine. However, I've seen many with broken bend and modulation wheels.

They're pretty much done! But that's why the Halo was so cheap!

If it were lost or stolen, I'd go with the rackmount or "7" series instead since I hate the keyboard action so much. That being said, it is easily worth what I paid. I own 10 other synths -- Roland, Korg, Yamaha, & Alesis, a studio, plus I'm an engineer at a major commercial recording studio.

I love the sounds, I hate the keys. I wish it had good keys and a better way to get beyond the first 16 sounds. In the studio, it is fine though -- the data wheel is great for that setting.

Overall, if you need a keyboard, get something that plays better and get the rack version of the Halo if you want its sounds.

I like the layout of the manual and the way the sounds are grouped together. I found my way around quite easily before even opening the manual and with the real-time editing features, was able to tweak many of the sounds to my liking. The manual will come in handy for deep editing and using the arpeggiater, etc.

Lots of features -- Three additional expansion slots! 64-voice, light-weight... Can change sounds and previous sound will sustain -- great feature and will eliminate the need to bring a second board in many situations. This is a performance synth, not a workstation -- no sequencer.

Pianos are great -- maybe not "perfect" but better than most -- definitely on par with Roland & Kurzweil. Far better than Alesis and Korg. Organs are okay -- like others have said, there are some great pipe organs... A few useful for rock/pop/r&b etc. Nice bass sounds. Really, I can't wait to expand this synth -- with the right combo of expansions it will be a 10! I got the Halo for its piano though and here it does its job exceptionally well.

As for its action, it's not the best feeling keyboard I've ever played on, but it certainly is not the worst. Its feel reminds me of a Roland D-70 but a bit stiffer and maybe a tiny bit flimsier at the same time. Some not-so-smooth edges on some keys too. All in all, a decent feeling board, but not great.

Don't know -- I have owned Ensoniq products before and never had problems, but I've heard otherwise. It is plastic, but I'm not an idiot -- I don't trash my gear!

For $399? Are you kidding? The expansion ROMs are quite inexpensive as well. A bargain at twice the price sums it up, I think!

I don't think they have a OS >1.0

A comparison for software-heads: The presets on this beastie are all decent meat-and-potatoes sounds. The pianos are a little better than MDA piano, but not as good as the Grand. B4 does a much better hammond. You get the idea. As a general purpose box for someone who likes to mess around with subtractive synthesis and LFOs, this thing is tres cool.

Weirdly, the General MIDI sounds are great for being GM sounds. I used a couple of the horn tones harmonizing in triads, and people thought I'd gotten a real good sample CD.

Editing patches is a breeze, once you comprehend Emu's organization, which is really quite sensible -- just different from other synths. Only thing I don't like is the multi-modal buttons. A "shift" function selects patch-editing or patch selection functions on the same set of keys, which has messed me up a couple of times.

The knobs make certain tweaks very immediate-gratification oriented.

As others have said, a touch thin at times, but if you put some care into programming, you can get it to do some really wacky-cool sounds.

Manual is solid. I read it far enough to get the hang of their organizational scheme and have used it only in reference since.

64-voice polyphony (32 or less, in practice, once you stack a layer or two).

Haven't touched the onboard effects. They seemed rudiementary at best. Haven't needed to use them either though. Sounds great without having to smother it.

Expansion options are good but expensive. I'm spoiled though, having been a sampler user most of my life. (Expansion? Sure I've got a tape deck right here). I'll pr'y get the Xtreme lead addon and the orchestral card if I have some cash some time and they're clearanced or at excellent price on Ebay.

The MIDI capabilities are on the one hand very cool and on the other hand a little disappointing. There are four knobs which with multi-modal buttons makes 12 easy-access programmable controllers. They can be assigned to just about any parameter internally. Externally they can be mapped to MIDI CCs 1-31 and 70-96 or something. That kinda frustrated when I had another synth I wanted to control off the Halo that used CC103 as the main parameter I wanted to tweak. Eh. Still continuous control is very nice.

Like the keys, especially in tandem with the velocity curve settings. Wish it didn't have velocity curves settable two different places (internal response and MIDI transmission) -- that's a little confusing.

Still very physically playable.

The beats and arpegiators seemed ill-conceived and implemented. There's one or two "wave-sequence" variety patches that I find myself coming back to, cuz with the editing, its pretty easy to make something entirely new out of it.

As I've mentioned, I like the horn sounds and a bunch of the pad sounds. Leads are pretty decent to pretty sucky.

Never managed to clip the filter on this thing, as opposed to a lot of Rolands and whatnot else which can be driven into digital distortion land pretty easily.

I'm using it as my main axe in a progressive rock electronic fusion act. I also use it as a sound source in my personal electronic compositions, which tend toward ambient and drum&bass. In the latter I use about 40% software synthesis, 30% Halo and 30% analog synthesis.

I've done about 20 gigs with it. Physically its held up well. One paint scratch, which isn't bad considering its been used on out-of-town bar-gigs with only a soft-shell case to protect it.

I've had a couple sore points with interface weirdnesses. I've had stuck notes when I hit too many keys on a very stacked patch (I think I was playing eight layers at once). Other thing is pr'y a feature, but I think of it as a bug -- if you accidentally hit two preset-select keys at once, it thinks you mean stack them from now one, and will bring up both of them if you select either. That's kind of an irritant as well. Hopefully that'll be fixed with an OS revision.

I've been used to to older gear that was made out of metal and wood, so the plastic case took a little getting used to. Still feels fairly solid, like it could bounce around a little without getting too bruised.

Haven't had to deal with any variety of customer support.

One thing I'd like to see is a patch-editor/librarian. Nothing seems to support it yet, which is a tad weird since its been out awhile. I haven't been able to get it to patch dump yet, which is a little worrisome. I think there is some hand-shake string I'm missing or something

This is a great value for the money. It can do some really silly weird things in a reasonable hurry, and it also has y'r everyday pianos and drums and utility stuff. Like the randomize patch function a lot. First thing I did was go through and randomize any patch that didn't strike me as immediately useful. That's made all the difference in my enjoying this synth.

I've been playing keys since '89. I've also owned SCI Prophet-600, Roland Juno, Ensoniq ASR-10, ESQ-1, Korg Wavestation and Kurzweil K2000. I like it better than I liked the K2000 and Juno, about as well as the ESQ and P600, and not quite as well as the ASR-10 and Wavestation, although its got a better pound/performance and performance/reliability ratio than either of those.

I picked it up cuz I was getting tired of playing on my very sad K2000, and I needed something that would cover the bases that did, which it does very nicely. (Kinda wish it had some FM options, though)

Obviously, one'd prefer to have a Moog or a Triton or a rack of old analog gear, but this is expensive stuff, and having somewhat limited means, this is a good all-arounder.

Especially for the price its an awesome deal.

The outputs are remarkably hiss-free and hum-free. Kinda wish it had digital outs, but that's why you buy the rack, I guess. I'm not complaining.

Its made me interested in Emu's samplers, but that's more money I don't have.

Software Version 1.0 ,the presets cover a broad spectrum of sounds .
It is almost like a best of Roland,Korg,Yamaha from there PCM files .
No group of presets stand out , but none are terrible either . Good
meat & potatoes . Editing patches is no harder than any other 2-line
display . The manual is very good and therefore makes up for any
potential shortcomings in the display you have to work with .

64 note polyphony , plenty for my meager multi-timbral talents .The
keyboard action is pretty good.aftertouch is pleasantly easy to
activate , much unlike most synths i've used in the past .The effects
are adequate but not inspiring ,at least the sounds don't rely on them
much unlike EVERY Roland product i have ever used . I'm really looking
forward to the Extreme ROM upgrade when i get the money .You have plenty
of expansion capabilities which i like ,although a little pricey . The
MIDI capabilities i'm sure are fine , i generally record only 1 or 2
keyboards at a time so this wouldn't concern me if it was bad . The beats
function of the keyboard is fun to mess around with if you're bored ,
but isn't very useful in a real world situation.The 16 arpegiators are
awesome to have though.

Once again , the sounds are very general in there sound and use .
With the expansion options you should have no problem finding exactly
what type of sounds you need . The effects are meager at best, but
that is what outboard effects are for.You have 4 knobs to use to manipulate
12 different aspects of the sound along with the 2 foot inputs and the
pitchwheel and modulation and aftertouch . This helps with programming
and live playing ,two thumbs up .It's not a JP8000 or MS2000 but what
is ?

I only have had it a short time , but i don't gig so i'm sure for home
studio use it will be just fine .

I haven't needed to contact Ensoniq/EMU . They do have a decent
website .

If it was taken out of my life i might replace with the same thing .
One big reason for buying this was the price ,you get a lot for your
money. I would love to have a Korg Karma or Triton or something
expensive like them ,but i can't spend that much .This is a great basis
for a beginning player , add a VA synth with knobs for freaky stuff and
you could have just about every sound you could want .I'm not a pro
musician ,I have been playing since the mid 80's .I have owned just about
every low cost synth made by the big three(Roland,Korg,Yamaha)and this
stands up very well .Here is a short list of synths owned in the last 10
years or so :
Roland : RS-09,SH-101,JUNO 106,JD-990,D-5,JV-1010
Korg : POLY 800,DW-6000,POLY 61M,M3R,WAVESTATION EX,X3
Yamaha : FB-01,DJX,DX-200
Oberheim : MATRIX 1000
Just my .02 worth , opinions are like well you know .I hope this helps
any potential buyers ,give the smaller keyboard companies a shot ,you
might be surprised!!!

OS is 1.0, or something very close to being the first version released, since this board was released in 2002, and there has yet to be an update posted on the E-MU. Despite the 'Ensoniq' name tag, the Halo is an E-MU PK/XK/MK-6 with a different color scheme(Red) and soundset. I don't consider this a 'bad' thing, but long-term ensoniq users might be concerned.

I think the presets sound acceptable, for the most part, if a bit thin in some cases. The problem with presets(and I believe most synths have this problem) is this: they weren't programmed for you, they were programmed to please a wide spectrum of people, which almost never works. You get 512 Ram slots to save your own, but I think it might've been a better move on E-MU's part if they let the users overwrite the preset banks themselves, so they wouldn't be stuck with the better part of 512 presets they didn't like.

My bigges complaint with the presets, is that this synth has 4-layer architecture(more on this below), and many of the sounds only have 1 or 2 layers. 2 is fine for many sounds, but 1??? I experimented by copying some of the 1-layer sounds to Ram, and by simply copying the 1 layer once or twice, the thickness of the sound increases a whole lot - a major improvement. I don't know why they couldn't be bothered to do this at the factory.

If you have ever owned an E-MU product, I don't think you'll have any problems navigating this synth. New users will experience a learning curve, but that's true with any synth, short of a Juno 106(or something in that vein).

A patch editor bundled with the synth would've been a nice bonus, but honestly - you can access 90% of the functions very quickly. There are 16 buttons for editing layers/fitlers/LFO's/'patch cords'(for specifying modulation sources & destinations)/arpegiators(16 of these!)/ and so on. There's also a 3x4 realtime controls matrix(i.e.: 4 knobs which can control up to 12 user-assignable functions), for some additional tweaking. The Halo's no Andromeda A6 or Juno, but it's no D50 either.

I like the manual, but then I prefer to read manuals, which has led to some people calling me a 'power user'(heh!). The manual is 200+, but is good for the most part, especially compared to a Yamaha/Korg/Roland manual, and E-Mu has filled with a good number of hands-on 'walk thru' type exercises to show you just what the Halo can do.

64-note polyphony. This 'should' work for most people, and it does the job for me. 2 built-in effects units; 1 is mostly reverb & chorus-type algorithms, the 2nd is distortion/delay/flanger, and some combinations of the 2. No rotary speaker emulation in the effects units here. Some people need lots of built-in effects units, I generally don't. If I ever did, I will use outboard gear. Keyboard action(semi-weighted) is the best I've ever felt on a synth of this price.

The Halo(as with all the current E-MU synths) ships with 32 MB of onboard sample ROM, plus there are 3 slots for you to add additional ROM chips according to your taste(techno, B-3, Orchestral, etc.). The Halo has fewer samples(called 'instruments' in E-MU jargon) than the PK/XK/MK-6 synths, but I believe this is due to the inclusion of the so-called 'perfect piano' samples, as well as 28 waveforms that have the initials 'XW' as part of their names, which would denote them being transwaves("Transwaves are wavetables (like
the Waldorf Wave, Korg's Wavestations, the
classic PPG, etc.) but what sets transwaves
appart from other wavetable designs is that
that each transwave has multipule loop
points rather than just one"), but nowhere in the manual does it bother to tell the user exactly what a transwave is. I think most people would just ignore these otherwise. There are also waaay too many drum samples for my taste, but I have this gripe with every synth I own, because I use a sampler for drums.

No on-board sequencer, but there are 16 simultaneously-syncable arepeggios(nice!). There's also a 'beat's mode, of which I'm not big on.

You also get 50 different kinds of resonant Z-plane filters, ranging from 2-pole all the way up to 12(lo/high/band pass/band reject to boot), with other different kinds of formant, flanging, and phasing filters to choose from. These filters really don't compare to a Moog/Arp/Oberheim filter, and they're not meant to. Experimentation will help you find what you're looking for. Sorry, TB 303-heads, no 3-pole filters here. Get the Yamaha CS6x if you're looking for that, it's got 'em.

Imho, what really scores the points here are the mega-possibilities of the 50-different filter types, combined with 16 simultaneous arpeggiators(along with their 200 factory/100 user patterns!), and the expansion options. You can do quite a bit here, if you're willing to put the time in. I've yet to see this in any board of this price.

I think the pianos, organs, and orchestral sounds are very good for a sample-based unit. I also think you'll have much better luck with delivring a fairly realistic sounding patch if you sequence your sounds. I mean, a cello played on a keyboard isn't going to sound the same, no way to get around the phrasing characteristics, among other things. The Rotary organ sounds pretty close, except you don't have any drawbar-type control. The 'perfect piano'(based on the Ensoniq ZR-76 piano) isn't really perfect, but I do like it alot. I would probably use my Roland XV-3080 for pianos on a project, but I wouldn't rule the Halo out. The basses and synths are usable, if you are ok with the sound of Halo's filters.

I see no reason why this board couldn't be used for rock/metal/jazz/classical/pop(get the 'pop collection' rom if you're doing a lot of that style)/and maybe some new-age/ambient type styles.

You 'can' use this for techno and trance, but there are better choices out there if you are strictly doing those styles. I don't think I need to mention any names here.

The effects sound good, but I'm not real big on drowning my sounds in effects, so take my opinion lightly here. I think the board reacts well to my playing(which isn't the best, by any means) & velocity. Aftertouch is questionable, but I'm not a big fan/user of that.

Plastic case - get a sturdy gig bag/case!!! The Halo scores major points for weighing less than 25 lbs/11.3 kg. I'll leave the Triton home, thank you(not that I have one). I would use this on a gig w/no backup, but so far I've not had the opportunity to do this. I've yet to hear about any problems on reliability, unlike the underrated Fizmo, which sadly is plagued by QC problems(what a shame - great synth).

I've heard some bad things, but I've never had to contact them so far. They did ship the free ROM chip and bundled software('lite' versions of Wavelab, Cubasis, and some other programs) within the standard 6-8 timeframe, as advertised. For that, they score some points.

The best place to head for patches, tips, questions, etc. is at the users' group on Yahoo: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pk6/

I would definitely get one of these again if lost or stolen. It's extremely useful for the money, and this can now be had for $600.00 USD(down from 900.00)!!! Actually, if you shop around, you could probably get a barely used unit for $500.00 or less.

I own, or have owned, the following:

Yamaha: DX-7/11/100/9, SY-35, TG-500, CS6X
Roland: Alpha Juno-1, XV-3080
Korg: X5, Wavestation EX, DW-8000

I've pretty much summed up what I like about the Halo. I have only a few complaints: no external storage(smart media would've been nice), more realtime controls(like a ribbon controller, and even some more knobs) would've been nice, and an OEM version of soundiver bundled would also be a plus - BUT there's nothing about the Halo that makes me not want to play it. That's a bonus, right there.

Just bear in mind, this is not a Triton/Fantom/Motif, a VA, or a workstation: it's a Halo, and it's good at what it can do, which is quite a bit.