The Story of Ensoniq
Posted by vcfed@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 4 comments
What did Albert Charpentier do after he left Commodore? He co-founded Ensoniq. Come listen to the story of Ensoniq at VCF East 2025 on April 5 at 1PM. He will be joined by Bill Mauchly a programmer at Ensoniq and Joe Friel a developer of Ensonic PC audio. Get your tickets here: https://vcfed.org/2025/03/16/non-member-ticket-pricing-vcf-east/
blakespot@reddit
This might be what gets me to finally attend VCFEast.
Back in the '90s I had a 486 66 PC and one day I added a Gravis UItrasound to it. That was a transformative day. It's Forte GF-1 audio chip contains an Ensoniq ES5504 "DOC II," successor to the ES5503 DOC famously used in the Mirage synthesizer. What it did for scenedemos, MOD/S3M/XM/IT tracks, and games was amazing. I fully expanded the GUS to 1MB onboard RAM and it just sang.
About 10 years ago I rebuilt the same PC around that very same GUS (the PC was long gone, but I kept the GUS, of course) and even to this day, almost nightly, I let the GUS with its Ensoniq heart sing for my enjoyment.
Incidentally, I had previously (and still do have) an Apple IIgs with the Esoniq ES5503 DOC, giving it amazing sound, but being hamstrung by the unexpandable, mere 64K of sound RAM on board. (As such, despite the superior audio hardware in the GS, the Amiga always was more of a go-to in those earlier days for tracker tunes, for me.) It's a joy to fire it up and listen to some of the recent player work that's been done on the platform, I must say.
rainforestriver@reddit
Ensoniq, the only MIDI Sound Card that out of the box didn’t sound like absolute shit
friskevision@reddit
Would love to go if I lived there! Was a fan of Ensoniq early on. I’m pretty sure I had the first EPS with SCSI option in Texas. Had to order from a place in Jersey.
I’ve owned many of their products, ESQ-1, VFX, SQ-80, ASR-10, ASR-X, Fizmo (bought it for $499 blowout from Guitar Center when they weren’t selling, dunno why I sold it). They were a great company.
etherdesign@reddit
Wow.. Ensoniq and E-mu did some incredible things in the 80's and 90's, some real DSP and electronic voodoo in their synthesizers, samplers and effects, should be an amazing panel wish I could go.