Do u think I should buy it?

There is one for sale with a floppy emulator

I like old samplers

is there any good Kontakt libraries of the Mirage?

 

Unless you're after cheesy '80s presets for synthwave then Kontakt libraries of the Mirage won't do you any good, although Rhythmic Robot does have some.

In my opinion, if you buy a Mirage then use it to sample your own custom stuff. That's where the majority of the charm is. I don't really want to inflate the price, but it's not just a cool sampler for old-school grit. Using single-cycle waves with the Mirage's analog filters can give you a really cool synth with endless potential.

 

Frankly, I don't see the fascination for these old samplers. Had one back in the day. It was a PITA to use back then and would be today. It was finicky but it was all I could afford. I used to think the instruments and strings were great back then. Today I use Kontakt libraries and never look back. If you want grit etc their are many libraries for Kontakt that have those qualities baked in. Just my two pennies...

 

Don’t listen to them... If Janet Jackson’s first 4 albums, Most of Bobby Browns hits, All the early to mid Babyface songs produced, written or performed, Toni Toney Tone, Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton and countless other platinum selling artist featured Mirage samples what do you think? Dated yes, cheesy maybe but it’s definetly a classic. You should convert the factory library once you get it. I’d love to get a hold of the wind sample Jimmy Jam used on a few Janet Jackson tunes..

That wind sample I’m along about comes in at 18 seconds..

 

Make sure it has a MASOS diskette.
Wow !! makes me remember this : " This is a blank formatted diskette"
there is also a diskette that turns it into an analogue synth ( if we are lucky i'll find it and share)
As a controller, its darn too long to boot, so i'm not using it anymore, still cant separate myself from it.

For other, you can just try sampling at 8 bits depth ...

or try these free emutation
112dB Morgana ( emulation )
Siegfried Kullmann SQ8L ( not a sampler ) Based on the Mirage's wavetable synth
TAL-Bitcrusher ( use it to make your sound 8 bits )

Read the article :
Blast from the past: Ensoniq Mirage
http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/blast-from-the-past-ensoniq-mirage-622501

 

I´ve had a Mirage back in the days if you sampled your own sounds it sounded really awful. You HAD to use the filters to cutoff all the quantization noise right after the attack phase of the sound. It also only has 2*32 k of sampling RAM, editing is also a pain in the ass. The factory sounds were way better, probably sampled and converted from another sampler. If you like gritty sounds you are probably better of when you choose to buy an old Prophet 2000 or Emax.

 

If you end up picking it up, you should PM me.

 

Another vintage sampler emulation :
TAL-Sampler
https://tal-software.com/products/tal-sampler

 

Last edited: Jan 7, 2018

another one in Kontakt 5.

https://puremagnetik.com/products/refraktor

 

Think i'm gonna buy the GOTEK floppy emulator ...

 

You may already know this, but for those that don't:

An unmodified Gotek will not work with an Ensoniq Mirage (or most samplers, for that matter). It requires either a true HxC or custom firmware on the Gotek which upgrades it to be HxC compatible. But upgrading a Gotek to HxC requires soldering skills and a bit of tech savvy.

Or... buy a pre-flashed Gotek, if you value convenience over money.

 

Thanks for the infos, i wasn't sure about that, and it makes a huge difference in price ( $150 instead of $30 ).
Darn ... i'll pass for now
And, are you sure about that, cause i could put 1.44mb Double sided disk into my mirage , even if it was suppose to be single sided 720kb.(as i write this i remember that they were formated as 720kb)
But i just read ,yesterday, that it would fit with the Gotek since the Mirage is not too sensitive about disk drive, as oppose to most vintage harware ... ( still loking for this article) ...

 

Last edited: Jan 8, 2018

Sounds a lot like one D-50 pcm waveform!
Number 74, to be more precise.
So much for the Mirage samples

 

Last edited: Jan 8, 2018

Mirage….was fun some 30 years ago….I was blown away when I heard it. Same era was the Korg DSS-1….but time and technology passed by…

Nowadays you have 100 Mirages in one Kilo box, with unlimited memory, a ton of virtual knobs and for the sound : great choice of filters, FXs, modulations…plug-ins to insert before printing….but if you really want a keyboard with "Mirage" written on it, buy one !
ensoniq…think Asr or Eps…
Mirage was the first, I think ASR will have to be considered : great sound, very cool FXs. A very good mix between Vintage and great sound.

Have a nice day and Happy new Year.

Willona
sorry for my english…..

 

Saw one just yesterday for sale used and had no idea what it was all about..thanks for the lowdown on its capabilities.

 

The Mirage is not so picky about disk type, and it's pretty tolerant on drive specs, but the cheap 1.44MB Goteks still will not work. It's conceivable that the 720K SFRM72-FU-DL Gotek would work if setup properly, but the HxC/Gotek is the same price range and has much better support/features, so it's not worth experimenting with the 720K Gotek in the Mirage, in my opinion.

An HxC/Gotek will work in just about anything you could ever want, has much better disk management software, gets constant updates, has expansion options (display add-on), etc.

And just for the sake of technical correctness: 720K disks are double-sided. The Mirage actually uses single-sided disks that are about 400K. So the Mirage will take single-sided disks (360/440K), double-sided disks (720/880K), and (with the workaround you mentioned) high-density 1.44MB/1.76MB disks.

Basically, if you cover the HD hole on a 1.44MB it becomes 720K. Then the Mirage only reads from one side of that 720K disk, so it gets its proper 360K. It's actually formatted differently than that, but for people used to PC disk standards, that's essentially how it works.

 

Last edited: Jan 8, 2018

I love ensoniq, have or had all their synths and samplers and I tell you it is not worth the effort. I kept my mirage only a year and then sold it again. Not enough options to manipulate the samples, in particular compared to the EPS or ASR. There a good plugins around helping you to get the vintage sound you might be after like d16 decimort. Yes, a lot of hits were done with the Mirage and I respect the instrument, but nowadays it is just outdated.

 

I owned many samplers back in the day.
In my experience/opinion . . .

Mirage was a bundle of clock-noise and often froze-up. The Akai's and Rolands were solid, but Emu stuff had more character and interesting filters. Korg samplers were unpleasant sounding toys. For straight-up sampling I'd stick with plugins at this point or find some old Emulator.