ER-301 vs Ensoniq Mirage for sound

Hey, I’m a big fan of the Ensoniq mirage and am maybe looking to move to the ER-301 for its smaller size and as well for the vast array of mouthwatering features available. What I like especially about the Ensoniq mirage is the anti aliasing sound of the 8bit 32khz converters. Also, it has a Curtis chip filter in there which is tasty.

I’m wondering if there the ER-301’s variable sample rate/bit depth functionality could sound similar to a Mirage. For the filter, well something else could be added to outboard/modular chain.

Thoughts?

I think you would find difficulty in the polyphony department. Also sample rate reduction is actually fairly difficult to get to sound like those old devices, aliasing happens very quickly if things aren’t timed exactly. bit depth reduction is easier, but I don’t know how faithful to old machines it is.

@sherwoord the er301 sounds very hi fi. i’ve heard the mirage and i have an sp1200 and had multiple old samplers, and can honestly say you won’t get a sound like this out of the 301. its just not old circuitry, no curtis filter, etc.

you can put a quantizer and filter on your audio and it will sound “lofi” but only as lofi as ableton, and honestly even less so atm, yet this could change soon with brian making the 301 open source.

what the 301 can do and does well is mangling audio. looping audio. complex oscillators. single cycle waveforms, drum rompers, sample chain surfers, weird delays you’ve never heard before. you can sculpt 32 sine waves to dance along with you using sample and holds. you can quantize crazy things and make the full voices to support an orchestra. you can write code via monome crow or teletype and script your way to la la land and speak secretly to other i2c supported modules (monome, disting ex, disting mk4, etc.)

what the 301 is not good at is being other modules. but it’s good at clouds :slight_smile: and tape warbles.

good luck deciding!

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yo @jonsimon @warpigs330
thank you the advice. yeah, i think I’ll stick to the mirage for a while and reach for the ER-301 in a bit as an additional tool. just can’t get enough of the mirage’s three dimensionality 7 years going strong.

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