Ensoniq ASR-10

Infobox_Company
company_name = Ensoniq Corporation
company_
company_type = Corporation
company_slogan = Leading The World In Sound Innovation
foundation = 1982
location = Malvern, PA
key_people = Bruce Crockett, Al Charpentier, and Bob Yannes (founders)
industry = Musical Instruments and Technology
homepage = http://www.ensoniq.com (closed down)

The Ensoniq ASR-10 was a sampling keyboard produced by Ensoniq between 1992 and 1994. It is the keyboard model of the ASR-10m rackmount module. It was a follow up product to the very popular Ensoniq EPS and Ensoniq EPS 16+ performance samplers. At the time, the machine was one of the most powerful samplers available.

Features

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.

Effects Unit

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, including more esoteric effects such as a vocoder and distortion. The effects were all programmable, and flexible configurations were available for operating in multitimbral or performance modes.

Sequencer

The ASR-10 sequencer had an internal 96 parts per quarter 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 Architecture

The 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. Different layers could be triggered by any number of modulation sources, including velocity, polyphonic aftertouch, or combinations of the two layer keys on the left hand side of the keyboard.

Sampling

In its default format, the ASR-10 shipped with 2MiB of internal memory. This was expandable to 16MiB. The machine featured Sigma-Delta 64 times oversampling, and sampled at either 30 kHz or 44.1 kHz rates at 16 bit. The machine did, however, have the ability to record direct 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.

Interfaces

The ASR-10 was available with a SCSI interface for connecting to an external hard drive, and further upgrades were available with AES/EBU connectivity. The unit shipped as standard with a 3.5inch floppy drive internally.