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Vintage Ensoniq ASR-10R Rack with SCSI and GOTEK USB SSD FLOPPY DRIVE EMULATOR

Estimated price for orientation: 550 $

Category: Samplers and Sequencers
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Description
Condition: Used: An item that has been used previously. The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended. This item may be a floor model or store return that has been used. See the seller’s listing for full details and description of any imperfections. See all condition definitions- opens in a new window or tab ... Read moreabout the condition Brand: Ensoniq


I'm selling my ASR 10 Rack (only) Great condition for its age. (Other items in pictures are not included) The ASR 10 Rack comes with built in SCSI and built in GOTEK USB Floppy Emulator with USB stick, 16mb of ram (standard) and power cable. The included 256MB USB stick has the operating system on it and a few library disks images as well. The floppy emulator provides access to 1000 disk images per USB stick that you can copy from your original floppy disks. Google "GOTEK for ASR10" for more info and details regarding how to copy disk images to the USB sticks.
This thing is a beast. Nothing warms it up like the ASR10!!!!
I will include the original floppy drive which works perfectly as well.Winning bidder or buy it now must pay within 48 hours. Thank you.The ASR-10 (Advanced Sampling Recorder) was a true performance orientated sampling workstation, and did not require a computer or additional equipment in order to create a complete song. It included a powerful and flexible effects unit, polyphonic aftertouch, an advanced MIDI sequencer, load-while-playing abilities, and a powerful multi-layered synthesis engine. The supplied "Musician's Manual" lived up to Ensoniq's documentation practice, with a highly readable, very hands-on and quite complete description of the device. There was even an included tutorial that covered many features of the machine, including sampling and sequencing.
Effects unit
Ensoniq DP/4 Multi Effects Processor (display)
Ensoniq DP/2 (2in/2out version)The ASR-10 offered a powerful and flexible internal effects unit (later offered as a standalone device in the Ensoniq DP/4), offering the capability to resample an existing sound with an effect, and to process external signals through it live. Up to 62 effects were available to be used, also including a vocoder and distortion. The effects were all programmable, and flexible configurations were available for operating in multitimbral or performance modes.
SequencerThe ASR-10 sequencer had an internal 96 pulse-per-quarter-note 16 track sequencer. A 'song' was a collection of 'sequences' joined together, and users were able to jump to sequences live during a performance, in much the same way as software such as Ableton Live allows today. Songs were constructed in either a step time (note by note basis), or through live recording of the MIDI information played in.
Synthesis architectureThe ASR-10 had a powerful 31 voice synthesis architecture that resembled a synthesizer rather than a sampler. After selecting a sample, the sound could further be modified by up to 3 envelopes (hardwired to pitch, filter, and amplitude), 2 filters in series, one LFO, and 15 modulation sources. Up to 8 layers of different samples could be stacked together to form an 'instrument', and up to 127 different samples available up at any one time. Each sample could be modulated by any number of modulation sources, including velocity, polyphonic aftertouch, LFOs, envelopes, footpedals, or combinations of the two patch-select buttons on the left hand side of the keyboard. These patch-select buttons(an Ensoniq trademark) allowed the player to instantly recall during performance any one of four pre-programmed combinations of the eight layers to be sounded.
SamplingIn its default format, the ASR-10 shipped with 2MB of internal memory. This was expandable to 16MB. The machine featured Sigma-Delta 64 times oversampling, and sampled at either 30 kHz or 44.1 kHz rates at 16 bit.The machine also has the ability to record directly to hard disk with only disk space limiting the file size. This allowed it to function as an early digital two track hard disk recorder. The recording could be made through the internal effect filter and could also record its own sequencer playing.
InterfacesThe ASR-10 was available with a SCSI interface for connecting to an external hard drive, and CD-ROMs. It was noticeably more versatile than the EPS samplers, supporting a wider variety of hard drives, both fixed and removable, including Zip and SyQuest drives. The unit shipped as standard with a HD 3.5inch floppy drive internally.Further upgrades were available with S/PDIF connectivity. There were not many S/PDIF boards made, however, and they are currently extremely rare.
SCSI compatibilityUsers purchasing SCSI devices for the ASR-10 should take care to verify compatibility; Ensoniq's SCSI implementation, while technically conformant, depends on the device supporting the low-level DISK FORMAT command, whereas many SCSI devices targeted at the IBM-PC market only supported the TRACK format commands, and such SCSI drives will not be usable by the ASR-10. The Syquest EZ-FLYER 230MB drive, for example, does work on the ASR-10, whereas the contemporary and more popular Iomega ZIP 100MB drives (save for some specially-flashed versions available by special request from the company during the 1990s) do not.
Disk driveThe ASR-10 featured a 3.5 inch floppy disk drive used with proprietary formatted disks capable of holding up to 1640K. (The decision to go with a proprietary format was to get around the then-limitation of DOS filenames which were limited to 8 characters.) There are many computer programs that allow reading, writing, and formatting Ensoniq's disk and file system, among those made by Chicken Systems (Translator and Disk Tools), and a German programmer named Thoralt who created ensoniqfs, a filesystem plugin for Total Commander. Ensoniq's architecture allowed a sound to be loaded from floppy while the keyboard was operational.
Sound libraryEnsoniq had made sure that their samplers were immediately useful by providing a sound library with every device. These library disks gave musicians a taste of what was possible with the sample-engine and also the sequencer, acting as usable sounds right out-of-the-box, demonstration pieces for selling more, and tastes of what the extensive library could provide. The ASR-10 was also fully backwards compatible with the earlier Ensoniq EPS and EPS-16+ sound libraries. Ensoniq continued their practice of creating and commissioning sound libraries that real musicians used. Even today, new libraries continue to be made by third parties.
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