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(More customer reviews)Ah... the ASR-10. This was a pivotal sampling synthesizer back in the 90's when it was made. The technology behind this sampler still has musicians, engineers and songwriters still looking for some version of the ASR series (they made an ASR-10, ASR-10m rackmount, ASR-88 and ASR-X). It was a fully blown workstation sampler that gave you the ability to actually record a full song (vocals, effects and all) right out of the box. This machine had it all.
First and foremost it is a sampler. A 16 bit 40kHz sampler to be exact. While sample rates are at 24 bit and 192kHz these days back then 40kHz was the best to be had in samplers, and it's still full CD quality. On top of that you get a whole host of sample editing parameters like looping, crossfading, volume smoothing, time comp, and more. While that's nice and everything the editing really doesn't stop there. Keep in mind this is a sampling SYNTHESIZER. That means you have also all the benefits of having that sample be a wave form that you can edit with a host of parameters including LFO, two digital filters, three envelope generators, and 15 other modulation sources. Want a layered sound? No problem. The ASR-10 can layer up to eight samples together into a single patch.
Each of those patches you create with the samples can have some added juice with an integrated 24 bit effects processor. How many effects? Try 62 effects you can edit fully. These aren't just cheap reverbs and delays. These are the same effects found in the world class DP/4 and DP/2 effects processors. People are still raving about how lush the signal processing is. Choruses, flanges, multi-tap delays, speaker effects, distortion, reverb, phasers... you have it all in one unit.
I did say this is a workstation so you get a 16 track sequencer and 31 voice multi-timbral capabilities on the ASR-10. The sequencer is really easy to use and you can even sample while playing the sequencer. I used to work at a music store back when this baby was out and it was a HUGE seller in the hip hop music genre. While the Akai MPC series was a superior sequencer many artists prefer the sampling and synthesis of Ensoniq for their mixes. Some hip hop artists that used the ASR-10 in their recordings were Kanye West, Alchemist and Pharell Williams.
Remember when I said you can pretty much make your entire song with this one machine? Well you can, but it's tricky with the stock model (having only 2 MB of memory). Some of the "tricks" include things like sampling your vocals in pieces that can be keyed to cut down on sample time. You can also use the tape mode which makes the ASR-10 pretty much a two track digital recorder and record straight to memory or an external SCSI hard drive.
The stock ASR-10 didn't come with a lot of memory, but it can be upgraded to 16MB (I forget the specific kind, but it's was an industry standard a long time ago... check eBay for ASR memory). The stock unit also didn't come with the SCSI interface used for plugging in an external hard drive or Zip drive (100 and 250 MB capacity). I strongly recommend looking for that option as it greatly increases the ASR's capabilities. Other options include an eight output breakout box and digital out.
There is quite a sizable library out for the ASR-10. Many of the samples from that library have ended up in the Proteus X and Emulator X libraries. Again just check out eBay and you should find a ton of samples ready to go. Also you don't have to just settle for editing from the sampler's onboard LCD display. One good editing tool out there is Ensoniq MIDI/Disk Tools by Rubber Chicken Software. It makes sample editing a lot easier.
Does it all sound good? Well it's not. Remember this is a vintage sampler synthesizer. The thing has no internal storage space; which means you have to load the operating system and samples and sequences every time you turn on the machine. Just keep that in mind. If you are looking for a sweet hardware sampler with a ready made library of killer sounds then this may be a nice addition to your collection.
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