Ensoniq KS-32

Fairly straightforward keyboard once you learn your way around. The map on the face of the board tells you what each button does and the text on the screen is easy to read and clear. Has some limitations--only 3 voices (samples or multisamples) can go into a sound, so to create more complex instruments, you have to create tracks and layer them. Not hard to do.

All of the midi functions can be found off of one button. Very good. Makes it very easy to switch between using the internal sounds and using this as a controller for vsti's.

It's an older keyboard, so I expected more limitations than it has. Good features:

Gives you both levels and times for every stage of all three envelopes.
Has a pre-attack level for all of the envelopes.
Has dynamics control that lets you adjust the ratio of velocity to amplitude, so low velocities can sound louder without raising the volume of the hard strikes.
Lets you create release samples.
Lets you set a restrike time, so notes don't stop as soon as you strike them again. Nice.
Effects are good and offer more control than some software instruments today. Particularly the chorus which lets you get good clear sounds, not just the cliche 90's chorused piano sound.
Good 76 key weighted action. Responds to channel aftertouch.

No ability to load other samples. You can only load programs, called sounds, which all use the on-board sounds.

I'm giving the sounds a 10, but understand that the wave files are from 1993, so they are brief and (well) looped. But the piano sounds great. (Mine had an obvious loop on the C below middle C that seemed to be programmed in, since I did a system reset and it was still there. But a few minutes in the pitch and amp envelope got rid of it. Sounds very good now. Has one basic piano that is in three forms: a full multisample that covers the entire keyboard and the same samples mapped to a left side and right side of the keyboard multisample. Since you can assign the same multisamples to several layers and then assign those layers to splits, you can set up just about anything you want & adjust the envelopes and filters for each split.

And the piano was well-sampled. It's only one meg of samples, but it's much better than many samples I hear on hardware and software today: recorded dry and loud so you can add effects without mush. Onnly one layer, but again, by creating sounds, setting their velocity layer, and assinging the sounds to tracks, you can create several layers.

Great, forceful organs, too.
The other sounds I haven't really listened to much--I knew this wouldn't give me a great string patch. But the nylon guitar, for a synth, is decent. As good as one you'll find on a synth today.

To hear the sound of this instrument, I should say, you need a good keyboard amp or a good monitors.

Fine so far.

A great loss, Ensoniq.

I'm giving this a ten because at what it sells for today on ebay or as a trade-in in music stores, it's great. Just the keyboard action makes it excellent. It's not a Juno or Motif, obviously.

Don't know software version-bought used long ago. Presets-this is a great workhorse live playing axe. No general midi soundset-but at a time when most keyboards had sound categories scattered around without any logical or musical framework, this one organized all similar sounds together-pianos, e. pianos, organs, strings, etc. Patch editor does make it easier to program (there is a freeware one on the web). Very easy to set up splits, layers and edit sounds. Manual is fine, just need to be reasonably intelligent to understand it, doesn't require an advanced degree in geekspeak. Overall, considering how little memory was used for the basic sound sample set, this proves how much can be done with properly programmed samples.

32-note polyphony, although many sounds use two elements-I have created pretty full-sounding arrangements with no note-dropouts. Built-in effects, although missing the more elaborate effects of later instruments are very workable-the reverbs tend to sound a little muddy to me-I use sparingly. Can accept dedicated RAM and ROM cards, although these are not readily available, I've purchased two used and it adds alot to the sound capabilities-cards can be used to store sounds or sequences. I also upgraded the internal memory which increases the built-in sequencer from 30,000 to 80,000 events. MIDI capabilities are fine-I use a computer librarian, editor and sequencer with this and have had no problems swapping soundbanks in and out. There is a freeware editor on the web that allows for saving KS32 sequences onto the computer in a crude (non smf) way. One of the easiest on-board sequencers I've used. Not as deep as some, but all the important functions are there, copy, paste, quantize, filter, event editing etc. More difficult due to the small LCD, alot of button-pushing to get around. I am more of a piano-banger than an organist-but the keys are pretty close to the real piano, a little harder than others, but long-throw if you really like to lay into chords, I do! I had to replace the felt keybeds-not for the faint-hearted, but it improved the action considerably, no more clacking and less rebound on the hands and fingers.

Keyboard reacts as expected to velocity and after-touch, but has gotten a bit uneven with time. Even by today's standards-many of these sounds are very professional. I purchased one after hearing the keyboard player in a famous cook's show using it and the acoustic piano was as realistic as I've heard-better than some real pianos I've played! And the organ fooled me on another double gig-another keyboard player played it miked through a Leslie and I thought it was a Hammond B-3, and I've played B-3s and C3-S. So the stock organ sounds, though small in number, represent a very useable selection of percussive and non-percussive organ sounds. Other sounds-drums are ok, but not as much of a variety as newer instruments, not as much snap but realistic enough. Need to be brightened up in a mix. Bass sounds-not up to modern standards again for variety and impact-but with editing can be very powerful. Some noticeable weaknesses in some sounds' split points-trumpet has this problem. Woodwinds and strings are surprisingly good and analog sounds are there, but again editing and aftermarket sounds improve these alot. This instrument works well for rock and jazz, not as well (with stock sounds) for dance, hip-hop or techno. However-if you are good at programming, you will be amazed at some of the sounds you can get out of this. I didn't realize until I loaded some of the alternative soundsets-can create some very interesting time-based patterns and esoteric effects I didn't think it was capable of (I'm not a very deep sound designer, but I own an SY77, QS300, TS-12, Kurzweil RG-200 piano and a Generalmusic S3T to compare and have played Moogs, Prophets, Wurlitzer and Fender stage pianos and Steinways). This one still keeps me interested-every time I think about selling it, I play it one more time and always change my mind. I'd give it a 10, but newer instruments do have slightly more clarity (not by much though)and a larger variety of basic sounds in ROM to work with.

I've carried it around alot-dropped it once on asphalt no less and nothing broke but the end cap, which only chipped. It played without a hitch. It feels so well-made, sometimes I forget its electronic, weird I know. Steel top and bottom, hoo-haa! You better have a strong back-I can port it around myself-but then I grew up in bands carrying B3s and leslie speakers around to every gig. Happy, happy. The end caps are stronger than some, but the plastic screw anchors that fasten the end caps to the steel frame break-I repair these with epoxy but the end caps are very strong-single piece molded construction, easily repaired or replaced. I always bring at least one backup keyboard to any playing venue. This instrument will occasionally scramble its brains and has to be reset, but most of the time its fine. Inside-its the simplest keyboard I've seen-one mainboard, a power supply, mainboard for the buttons and another small board for the RAM cards in back. Amazing. Took less than ten minutes to take out the mainboard. And the buttons are hard plastic and have never failed-just the right size for my sausage fingers. Get a real lithium battery for the mainboard which stores the sequencer and RAM sounds in memory when the KS32 is powered down-cheap drugstore batteries aren't the same and only last a year or two at most. Final advice-Get steel-tipped shoes for gigs in case you drop this on your foot. And a wheely-cart for taking it on walks.

What? I can't seem to get Ensoniq on the phone. I guess that's because they went out of business ten years ago. D*** I've heard they were pretty good. Where are they now? In a black hole somewhere in California, come on guys give it another shot and knock the c*** out of the competition. You still are, even with instruments over 10 years old. Memory upgrade still available using off-the shelf chips if you can find a supplier. And the RAM cards, although hard to get, are floating around eBay and elsewhere. I have two, and you can't have them, hoo-a!

I paid $500.00 ten years ago, and it was already played upon and it has been well worth it. Only Ensoniq made an instrument like this and if they made it again, with a blown-out ROM, I'd buy it again new or otherwise. I have been playing for way too long-I remember what a thrill it was when the first Wulitzer tine piano came out, ow! I own many electronic noise-makers in all the major food groups-Electronic drums, Generalmusic, Ensoniq, Yamaha keyboards. Digital recorders, tape recorders, mixing decks, etc. Have played Hammonds, Prophets, Moogs, Korgs, Rolands played one of the first Memory-Moogs which fried my poor little brain. This doesn't compare to anything-its a baby monster in the keyboard world. I wish it had sampling, I wish it it weighed five pounds. I wish it would wheel itself onto my keyboard stand and pack itself up at night. And I miss some cheap auto-accompaniment patterns-maybe a nice Tango beat or something (whee). Other than that, I can't think of anything else. And nothing gets in the way of my making music, except my hands and my head.

Very nice keybaord.
Presets are excellent especially the pianos they are superb!
Not done much editing of the sounds because they sound so good.

Drum kits are great quality and there are some great percussion sounds that are not found on other equipment.

Polyphony is 16 or over i havent got that many fingers so thats good enough for me.

The keyboard has an excellent action one of the best ive come across. full size piano keys is a plus.

The Ensoniq KS32 has an onboard sequencer but i dont use it so i could not tell you how good it is.

Very realistic piano sounds the organs and drum sounds are also good.
Not much else.

Very good quality build.
If you can play then this is a great piano.

Never needed customer support.

Ive had many keyboards and the Ensoniq KS32 is a gem.
If you can find one buy it!

eBay
musicmark3264

Some of the presets do it for me but I just bought this thing and it could use some tweeking when I get around to it. I have a gig comming up and since I primarily play guitar I think I can get away with the basics of this keyboard, It does everything my old board did but now it's armour plated

I'm a self taught Bonehead Wannabe, It's got just what I need but all my legit real keyboarding buddies alway's scoff at my old gear but I can't wait to show this off! The action is awesome!!! it's got so so sounds so so features in a housing that is superb. And it's as good as any of their lesson oriented lounge lizard crap!

It's got some inspiring sounds, I play guitar,mandolin,and keybord in a classic rock cover band, and I play keyboard by default because all of our former keyboard players are unreliable and my grandmother had me take organ lessons one summer with that I say I go for preset's if I can't get what I'm looking for I get frustrated quick and go shopping. This gives me all the sounds I had before plus a realistic B-3 (with practice) sounds, like all digital boards you have to know how slur the notes to allude to distortion and this board seems intuitive to that. that awesome keyboard action can be a liabilty here as it requires snow shoes! Sequencers? man one of these days! I wish I wasn't a nerd.

I feel confident I can gig with it, you should see what I've used before! besides my back up is my guitar!!

I bought this used from my friends at music go round and they've always backed up the stuff I've bought from them 100%

I doubt I'd find another of these at this price so like all thing's in life enjoy while you can!!

It is fairly easy to use, however, some of the sequencing programming isn't very user-friendly.

Keyboard action is AWESOME!!!
programming sounds is great - there are many options as far as frequency and phase adjustments go.

basic sound are really good. There aren't a lot of "cool" or different sounds, though.

very reliable - although I've had problems starting it up before.
But, overall - works well...even in cold weather!

I bought mine used, so I have to complaints with the company.

I'm not sure I would buy another one of these. They are very heavy to carry around. Many newer and better keyboards are out on the market now.

Once you get the basics down, the machine is pretty easy to use, except for some quirks, which get frustrating. For example, when using the sequencer, sometimes it replaces sounds without notice. The piano and organ sounds are pretty good, though the piano sounds little thin sometimes. I didn't like the drum sounds when they stand alone, but they sounded great once they got into the mix. I'm partial to the flute sounds too...and the harmonica is realistic enough for some short solo lines. The manual is not so good but can be helpful if you take time to figure out the style of its organization.

Polyphony is pretty good. Action is quite good on my instrument. I have used 8 instrument sequences without any real problems. It doesn't work too well with my Allegro or Cakewalk programs, however. Had a lot of problems with getting the right sounds to play, especially for sequences.

I found the keys fairly realistic and nice to play. Pretty expressive on several programs. Some patches are not of much value for me. I play mostly rock and blues and church music though, so I don't have much call for the wind instruments. Never have gotten a good horn sound from it when I have tried.

The keyboard had to be replaced shortly after I got the machine. That was dissapointing. Since then, the plastic screw holes have broken and now I am using duct tape to hold it together...yeah, no kidding. Its a bear to carry around but I've never felt I needed a backup keyboard.

No problems getting it repaired from the dealer, but that was several years ago. I bought it new but on sale from the dealer in a close out situation in '97, I think.

I would get something else but mostly because I have sort of run my course with this instrument. This is one of the best all around keyboards I have had. Its really simple to gig with. There's no loading time, like with my earlier ESQ and with my Emax. I like that a lot...easy to change on the fly. It does a nice MIDI interface with my Hammond XM-1 drawbar module...though its hard to get a full B3 feel with the weighted keys. You can really bang this keyboard hard though. Keys are very sturdy and I like that feature alot. Mine is 6 years old and the battery has never gone out...how long do I have????

Aunque la pantalla es algo peque?a, la edicion de patches no resulta complicada si se esta familiarizado con la sintesis sustractiva en sintetizadores PCM. El modo permormance-multi resulta verdaderamente versatil y una multitud de LEDs encima de los botones ayudan eficazmente a la programacion de layers y multi-splits. Por otra parte el secuenciador, aunque completo, resulta verdaderamente complejo de utilizar y solo aconsejo su uso en casos de emergencia. Volviendo a lo positivo, el manual de usuario en castellano es uno de los mejores que han pasado por mis manos.

Cuando aparecio este workstation en el mercado, ningun teclado de su categoria de precio era capaz de enviar la se?al midi de diferentes zonas del teclado en diferentes canales midi para controlar modulos externos. Esto, unido a sus completisimas capacidades de sintesis, su excepcional capacidad como controlador midi, su polifonia de 32 voces con asignaciones de prioridad por oscilador, su multiefectos de calidad "estudio" y el mejor teclado contrapesado de la epoca para los Teclistas-Pianistas hacen que, incluso hoy en dia, sea un teclado excepcional.

Los mejores pianos de la epoca. La calidad de los pianos acusticos aun esta por encima del 90% de los modulos midi que pululan por el mercado. Pianos electricos, Organos e instrumentos de teclado muy buenos, Las mejores cuerdas y violines de todos los tiempos, Bajos y guitarras muy buenos, Vientos rotundos, Instrumentos orquestales super-realistas, Percusiones excepcionales... Solo flaquea en los sonidos de sinte que, aunque buenos, resultan algo escasos y repetitivos ya que la mayor parte de la memoria de Samples-ROM esta dedicada a los pianos e instrumentos de teclado. Los sonidos resultan muy expresivos gracias a unas complejas envolventes, una matriz de control de efectos muy completa y la capacidad de programar hasta 3 osciladores por voz con diferentes filtros, LFOs y envolventes que incluso hoy en dia solo encontramos en sintetizadores de gama alta. El sonido general del aparato se puede calificar de "Grueso", Potente y muy americano, con unos graves con mucha pegada y un realismo en los samples que no tienen muchos instrumentos japoneses.

Dependencia total. Incluso 8 a?os despues de su compra y con mas 10 sintes en mi arsenal particular ( incluyendo contrapesados ), el KS32 sigue siendo una herramienta ideal para directo. Durabilidad demostrada en cientos de actuaciones en vivo. Solo dos puntos oscuros: 1?. El sistema operativo a veces puede causarte alguna trastada que normalmente se soluciona apagando y encendiendo el aparato. 2? En Europa, si lo usas en directo, aguanta peor las oscilaciones de voltaje que los instrumentos japonenes. Por estos 2 puntos aconsejo siempre tener a buen recaudo una copia de volcado de sistema exclusivo con todo el trabajo realizado. Otra curiosidad: Con algunos sistemas de amplificacion el instrumento no suena limpio si no tienes el mando de volumen a tope.

Soporte pobre. Tendras que buscarte la vida para conseguir un editor software y si quieres nuevos sonidos te los vas a tener que progranar tu mismo ya que no encontraras en la WEB el material de este tipo que existe para otros teclados (excepto pagando). En cuanto a los servicios tecnicos, no me han hecho falta nunca pero se, por experiencia ajena, que todas las partes mecanicas estan fabricadas por FATAR y que hay disponibilidad de repuestos y servicio. En cuanto a las partes electronicas, ahora los servicios de EMU son los encargados de suministrar repuestos ENSONIQ.

Si consideramos que estamos hablando de un Workstation del a?o 1992 y que, en muchos aspectos es comparable o superior a muchos teclados actuales, solo queda se?alar que, una unidad en buen uso sigue siendo una buena compra de segunda mano para un teclista con formacion pianistica incluso 10 a?os despues.

Presets are average. I still like the Piano & I use the basses quite a bit. Programming is way harder than it needs to be - always jumping back and picking the OSC on multi-osc patches is no fun.

I love the keyboard action. Wonderful! A "9" for this alone.
32 note polyphony.
Effects are average but certainly better than none.
Can expand the sequencer memory and accepts cards for sounds.
Nice MIDI implementation, a fine controller.
Sequencer is easy to use but I prefer a software sequencer.

Piano is *still* good - I still shut my eyes and just play it. Basses are good. I like the cymbals in the drum sets.
The KS-32 is pretty good for bread-and-butter sounds. Fits well in a mix. Despite the lack of filter resonance the programming options are pretty huge but the programming interface is pretty bad.

Mine has been perfectly reliable though I have been gentle. Replacing the battery requires desoldering/resoldering (you have to be kidding Ensoniq!). I soldered in a socket so I wouldn't have to deal with that any more.

I guess I'm lucky, mine has always worked well so no reason to judge.

If lost or stolen I'd get a Motif 8 because I need the wooden keys and a great piano sound and I think the Motif has the best of both now. However, the KS-32 keys are really nice and the piano sound is quite good (and can be had used for about 1/4 the price of a Motif). It was worth the price paid because it had a good piano sound and those keys (not common when I bought it new). I dislike the interface as much as I like the keys. It stifles programming and I like to program. I wish the filters had resonance.

It sits good in my mix but the more adventurous sounds come from other synths. Worth the current used price as a controller alone. Did I mention I like the keys?

The manual stinks (don't they all?). As a classically trained pianist, I enjoy the piano sounds. The harpsichord patch is still one of the best I've ever heard. I really haven't tweaked the sounds much.
I have a problem using an outboard sequencer always changing to the internal bank.

Love the keyboard. Effects are OK. Expansion needs work. Don't really use the sequencer. I use a computer based MIDI setup. Even with the sequencing I'm doing, I rarely run out of notes.

I think it works really well for classical and jazz. As it ages, it takes more work to have notes sound even.
Some sounds react to key velocity better than others.

After 10 years, I'm on my third motherboard - and now it's acting strange again. There is no authorized service in my area so I may need to replace the whole thing. That battery is low again too.
I never really gigged with it much - just kept it at home. Solid and heavy case works well, but the electronics seem iffy.

Never dealy directly with company. Now that they've merged with E/mu, they don't seem to care about the old boards. They make no mention of keyboards on their new website - are they even selling them anymore?

I like the board still. I wish it were more reliable. I'm getting tired of the sounds, but they are still effective.

Very straightfoward. Very easy to use. The presets sound good enough for me. I use it live and everybody thinks its a real grand piano. Ive never edited the patches, but it doesnt look very complicated. The manual is useless

32 voice polyphony, sounds incrediable. Built effects are OK, good enough. does the tricks. Weighs a lot, but its still awesome. I was reading the other reviews, someone sold theirs for $379?? Thats messed up, I never seen these used for under a grand.

The sounds are very realistic. One of the best feeling/sounding keyboards Ive ever touched.

Extremely dependable, been there done that, dropped it, kicked it, spilled beer on it. Still sounding great!

never delt with them

I love this keyboard.