Extend the Power of the Ensoniq Mirage With a New Programmer, More: Synth Journal
The best of the rest of this week’s synth news.
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Doctor Synth Devices Ensoniq Mirage Extended Programmer · Source: Nacho Marty Meyer / Doctor Synth Devices
Doctor Synth Devices’ Ensoniq Mirage Extended Programmer is here to revive the ancient sampler, new software from Audialab, NASA turns black holes into music, more.
Synth Journal
Doctor Synth Devices Ensoniq Mirage Extended Programmer
The Ensoniq Mirage was the first truly affordable sampler. Released in 1984, the 8-bit instrument put sampling in the hands of everyday musicians who couldn’t afford the more expensive samplers like the Fairlight CMI and E-mu Emulator. The Mirage stayed in production until 1988, with a number of keyboard and rackmount versions being available over its lifetime. With a reported 30,000 units moved in total, there are a lot of Mirages out there.
As with most other 1980s instruments, though, the Ensoniq Mirage is not the easiest beast to program, with editing done via the single data slider and buttons. Enter the Ensoniq Mirage Extended Programmer from Doctor Synth Devices. A tabletop unit, it can sit on the keyboard or above your rackmount unit, and give you access to what looks like all of the parameters. It has a value knob, screen and buttons for a number of parameters, including the wavesamples, envelopes, envelope modulation and sampling.
There’s very little information online about the Doctor Synth Devices Ensoniq Mirage Extended Programmer. The company does have a website (link below), but it doesn’t appear to be finished. A YouTube demo video (above) lists an email address plus a quoted price of $250. Follow the YouTube link for more.
Audialab Interloper
Audialab does interesting things with AI. I included the company’s Emergent Drums 2 in my list of drum machine plugins pushing the envelope. Now the company is back with Interloper, a new plugin that lets you blend specific frequency bands from two different audio sources in real time.
Although Interloper looks like it might be about resynthesis, that is, combining the sonic characteristics of two sounds, it’s actually meant to solve masking issues. According to an email that I got from the company, Interloper has two samplers, each with an ADSR, transient shaper, mid/side processor, compressor, and pitch controls. You then define the low and high crossover points and use the dedicated High, Mid and Low knobs to adjust frequencies.
There’s no website for it yet, but Audialab CEO Berkeley Malagon did post about it on LinkedIn. If it sounds exciting, you can pre-order it for $99, which is 50% off the eventual release price. You can order via PayPal or Stripe. Release is “coming soon.”
Rides In The Storm Stormnest
Eurorack company Rides In The Storm has a new portable case out. Called Stormnest (what a cool name!), the powered case is both lightweight and stylish with plenty of room for modules for live gigs and other outside-the-studio needs.
Stormnest features an aluminum desktop housing with two cavities for modules, each 68 HP wide with a depth of 33 mm. It offers an integrated bus board with 20 slots for modules, plus a USB-C port for powering external devices. It’s also lightweight at only 1.1 kg. As it’s meant to be taken on the go, it comes packaged with a table stand and padded bag.
And the best part: the price. You can get Stormnest at Thomann* for $257 / £230 / €269.
Aircraft Designs Processing System
If you’re heading out to play a Eurorack gig, along with a lightweight case, you’ll probably want some kind of processing to get your sound up to an impressive level of saturation and compression. Enter Aircraft Designs, a Ukrainian modular company with an impressive range of analog signal processing modules on the way.
The company released Ember, a saturation module, last year, and now it’s adding a clutch of new ones, including Horizon, an EQ based on the legendary Pultec EQP-1R; Cascade, a VCA compressor; DC, a power unit; and FL and LD, balanced input and output modules. Eagle-eyed readers will also have noticed the Test Prototype module in the image above. That looks to be for routing and monitoring.
Aircraft Designs envisions its Processing System being used in live situations, of course, but also by mastering engineers as an alternative to the 500 series. These should be out this fall.
Sonic Moves Player and Creator
Sonic Moves is a pair of apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac that combines body tracking and music creation. Using the camera on your iPhone or iPad, they track movement and then respond by changing the sound.
Sonic Moves Creator is an app for Mac or iPad that lets you arrange sounds, software instruments, effects, filters and more, and connect them to real-time body tracking input. The synthesis section includes audio file playback and granular synthesis, generators for waveforms and noise, a drum machine, customizable synths and a sampler. There is also a variety of effects. You then tell Creator how to alter the sound in response to various movements, either via the camera on an iPad or streaming from the Sonic Moves Player, a free playback app for iPhone and iPad.
Sonic Moves Creator is available as a subscription for $10 per month or $80 a year. There is also a lifetime license available for $99.
New NASA Black Hole Sonifications
NASA has an ongoing sonification project whereby the National Aeronautics and Space Administration turns data into sound, or sonifies it. The latest to come out of the organization’s collaboration with the Chandra X-ray Center and System Sounds is a trio of pieces based on data collected from black holes.
Gearnews.com is a gear site, not a science site, so I’m less interested in the data part than the music part. I tried to find out what specific music programs they use and couldn’t, but it looks like they translate data into frequencies and then notes in music pieces. The three here are all really nice. My only complaint is that they’re too short – I’d love to have much longer versions to listen to. You can hear all of NASA’s sonifications here.
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