Ensoniq ESQ-1

A great mid-80's synth with digital waveforms & an analog filter. Was one of my favorite toys for a variety of sounds, and served as my main MIDI controller until recently, when the motherboard died. Apparently this is a relatively common occurrence (according to several folks I've talked to about it). Don't quote me on this, but one of the people I spoke to said it was less common in the rackmount version (the ESQ-m).

In any case, I got several great years of use out of it, and it was already about 10 yrs old when I got it, so I can't complain too much I guess. I do plan to get another someday, since I really liked the keyboard action (even more than the K2000 I replaced it with), and the sounds it can make with the "hidden waves" function are pretty awesome. For everything else, the software version does the trick for me (see the Ensoniq Heaven link below).

Note that there were two versions of the ESQ-1 keyboard, mine is (was) the metal-case version, the photo above shows the plastic one. There were apparently minor internal differences, but as far as the synth itself goes they are the same. There were some differences among software versions, see the Ensoniq Heaven link below for more info.

Patches for the ESQ-1:
note: you will need the editor/librarian ESQ1 to use these patches- click here to download it.

sq-esqbnk1.zip
Contains a bank of 40 patches- 30 miscellaneous sounds, and 10 patches that make use of the "hidden waves". See the Ensoniq Heaven site (link below) for more info on these waves.

sq-esqbnk2.zip
Contains a bank of 40 patches- same structure as the first bank.


ESQ-1 links:

ESQ-1 @ Vintage synth Explorer
ESQ-1 @ Synth Site
Ensoniq Heaven
Transoniq Hacker Archive