I have finally landed Mrs. Shadow's SD-1 in the Command Center to stay (I think).
This instrument has gigged and rehearsed and never malfunctioned once in 20 years. I bought her a new Korg Krome to go with her Gen 1 Motif. She was against having to learn a new keyboard, but The Krome's superior piano sounds won her over.
The Ensoniq SD-1 was the next to last wavetable synth before the ill fated Fizmo. It was part of a line that began with the ESQ-1 and continued through the SQ-80, VFX, SD, and finally the Fizmo. This is the later 32 voice model that we bought new in 1993 and it is in full working order.
I am the drummer in the photo above. The SD-1 was only keyboard until I convinced her to get the Motif in 2002. At that time I thought I would have the SD-1 for myself, but she thwarted my fiendish scheme by deciding on a two board rig. The Shakuhachi sound on the Ensoniq was exactly like the one on Sledgehammer and she wouldn't give it up. Dammit! We still cover Sledgehammer as a trio...
This instrument has gigged and rehearsed and never malfunctioned once in 20 years. I bought her a new Korg Krome to go with her Gen 1 Motif. She was against having to learn a new keyboard, but The Krome's superior piano sounds won her over.
The Ensoniq SD-1 was the next to last wavetable synth before the ill fated Fizmo. It was part of a line that began with the ESQ-1 and continued through the SQ-80, VFX, SD, and finally the Fizmo. This is the later 32 voice model that we bought new in 1993 and it is in full working order.
I am the drummer in the photo above. The SD-1 was only keyboard until I convinced her to get the Motif in 2002. At that time I thought I would have the SD-1 for myself, but she thwarted my fiendish scheme by deciding on a two board rig. The Shakuhachi sound on the Ensoniq was exactly like the one on Sledgehammer and she wouldn't give it up. Dammit! We still cover Sledgehammer as a trio...
Each patch on the SD-1 can use up to six oscillators, combining sounds from the 168 waveform, 35MB internal sample ROM.
There are three 11 stage envelopes, LFO, a multi mode digital filter and a 24 bit effects engine with chorus, delay, flange and reverb. If that isn't enough there are 15 modulations sources and a two very useful patch buttons that can be assigned to mute or solo oscillators or control other parameters. Like most keyboards of this era there are far too many DX-ish piano, bass and string sounds for my taste. But now that I have unsupervised access to this instrument I will be correcting that problem and I hope to make a demo video showing some of the presets.
All of the building blocks are there for sounds that move and morph over time. All I need is the time to learn it.
There are three 11 stage envelopes, LFO, a multi mode digital filter and a 24 bit effects engine with chorus, delay, flange and reverb. If that isn't enough there are 15 modulations sources and a two very useful patch buttons that can be assigned to mute or solo oscillators or control other parameters. Like most keyboards of this era there are far too many DX-ish piano, bass and string sounds for my taste. But now that I have unsupervised access to this instrument I will be correcting that problem and I hope to make a demo video showing some of the presets.
All of the building blocks are there for sounds that move and morph over time. All I need is the time to learn it.
My long range plan is to team this up with my E-MU Morpheus module for some interesting layered sounds. These are two synths from the same relative time period with some interesting features. I know that I will be learning new things to do with them well in to the next twenty years.
I had hoped that E-MU might revisit Transwave synthesis since they ended up owning Ensoniq at the very end. An updated, knobby, wavetable synth would be a great compliment to all of the modern analog synths out there in the world today.
I am planning to keep and use this unique instrument for the rest of my life. If you want unique results you need to start with unique tools.
I had hoped that E-MU might revisit Transwave synthesis since they ended up owning Ensoniq at the very end. An updated, knobby, wavetable synth would be a great compliment to all of the modern analog synths out there in the world today.
I am planning to keep and use this unique instrument for the rest of my life. If you want unique results you need to start with unique tools.
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