The first low-cost MIDI sampler was the Ensoniq Mirage, introduced in 1984.

The 68EC000 was used as a controller in many audio applications, including Ensoniq musical instruments and sound cards where it was part of the MIDI synthesizer.

The technique was first developed by Wolfgang Palm of PPG in the late 1970s and published in 1979, and has since been used as the primary synthesis method in synthesizers built by PPG and Waldorf Music and as an auxiliary synthesis method by Sequential Circuits, Ensoniq, Korg, Access and Dave Smith Instruments among others.

The SID was devised by engineer Robert " Bob " Yannes, who later co-founded the Ensoniq digital synthesizer company.

It was also the first personal computer to come with a built-in " wavetable " sample-based synthesizer chip, utilizing technology from Ensoniq.

Audio was generated by a built-in sound and music synthesizer in the form of the Ensoniq Digital Oscillator Chip ( DOC ), which had its own dedicated RAM and 32 separate channels of sound.

The Apple IIGS ' sound was provided by an Ensoniq ES5503 DOC wavetable sound chip, the same chip used in Ensoniq Mirage and Ensoniq ESQ-1 professional-grade synthesizers.

However, it provided only mono sound through this jack, and a third-party adapter card was required to produce true two-channel stereo, despite the fact that the Ensoniq and virtually all native software produced stereo audio ( stereo audio was essentially built into the machine, but had to be de-multiplexed by third-party cards ).

Though the IIGS was allowed to keep the Ensoniq, Apple has not included dedicated hardware sound synthesizers in any of its Macintosh models since ( though of course, third-party products exist ).

In terms of hardware, the new motherboard was a cleaner design that drew less power and resolved audio noise issues that interfered with the Ensoniq synthesizer in the original motherboard.

The musical score in the original version was designed to exploit the unique 15-voice Ensoniq music synthesizer in the Apple II computer.

E-mu Emulator II ( 1984 ) was designed to bridge the gap between the Fairlight CMI and Synclavier and the Ensoniq Mirage.

This shortcoming was shared by other manufacturers at the time such as Alesis and Ensoniq.

The Mirage was Ensoniq Corporation's first product, introduced in 1984.

The Mirage was the brain child of Bob Yannes, the man responsible for the MOS Technology SID ( Sound Interface Device ) chip in the Commodore 64 and the Ensoniq Digital Oscillator Chip ( Ensoniq ES5503 DOC ) used in the Apple IIGS computer ( actually it is the same chip as used in the Mirage, ESQ-1, and SQ-80 ).

Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid 1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally samplers and synthesizers.

In January 1998, ENSONIQ Corp. was acquired by Creative Technology Ltd. for $ 77 million, and merged with E-mu Systems to form the E-Mu / Ensoniq division.

The fusion with E-mu sealed Ensoniq's fate: after releasing an entry-level E-mu MK6 / PK6 and Ensoniq Halo keyboards-essentially keyboard versions of the Proteus 2500 module-in 2002, the E-Mu / Ensoniq division was dissolved and support for legacy products was discontinued soon afterward.

Hardware samplers manufactured by Akai, Yamaha and Ensoniq were also popular for sample storage and manipulation.

* Ensoniq Soundscape, a soundcard produced by Ensoniq Corp.

* Ensoniq Soundscape OPUS This card was a Gateway 2000 OEM, and possibly was used by other OEMs, but was never sold to Ensoniq's customers directly.

Web Site " by Ensoniq Corp., Multimedia Division Product Information and Support Pages, 1998, retrieved December 25, 2005

* " Ensoniq FAQ " by Ensoniq Corp., Multimedia Division Product Information and Support Pages, 1997, retrieved December 27, 2005

* Ensoniq Mirage, a sampler made by Ensoniq

Ensoniq ESQ-1 is a hybrid digital-analog synthesizer released by Ensoniq in 1986.

This music workstation got rid of some previous classical Ensoniq features, such as polyphonic aftertouch ( replacing it by a mono version ) and full sound editability.

It was manufactured from 1988 to 1991 by Ensoniq in Malvern, Pennsylvania, USA.

The key limitations of the EPS were its proprietary disk format, and later a lack of support from Creative Technology, the current owner of Ensoniq.

Bob Yannes, creator of the SID synthesizer chip used in the Commodore 64, went on to design the Ensoniq 5503 DOC synthesizer used in the Apple IIGS.

The Apple IIGS used a digital sound chip designed for the Ensoniq Mirage synthesizer, and later models used a custom sound system and upgraded processors, which drove other companies to improve their own offerings.

Creative released many cards using the original AudioPCI chip, Ensoniq ES1370, and several boards using revised versions of this chip ( ES1371 and ES1373 ), and some with relabeled AudioPCI chips ( they say Creative on them.

Apple Records considered the inclusion of the Ensoniq chip in the IIGS as a violation of that agreement.

In 1986, after making an agreement with Apple Computer, the same Ensoniq 5503 chip utilized in the Mirage and ESQ-1 keyboard was incorporated into the Apple II personal computer.

It was a Soundscape-like board, using the Ensoniq " OPUS " multimedia sound chip, a chip that was only used on these OEM boards.

The chip was actually derived from the Ensoniq OTTO ( ES5506 ) chip, a next-generation version of the music-synthesizer chip found in the Ensoniq ESQ-1 and Mirage, as well as the Apple II.

In the United States, a new sampler company called Ensoniq introduced the Ensoniq Mirage in 1985, at a price that made sampling affordable to the average musician for the first time.

Ensoniq later made an alternative OS available called MASOS which traded off performance features for editing features, including the ability to copy an ' upper ' sound to a ' lower ' sound and vice-versa.

Ensoniq was known not only for their innovative musical instruments division, but also for their computer audio chips.

The Ensoniq ES5505 ( OTIS or OTISR2 ), ES5506 ( OTTO ) and ES5510 ( ESPR6, ESP stands for Ensoniq Signal Processor ) were used in various arcade games.

In fact Ensoniq was the first to come up with an ISA software audio emulation solution for their new PCI sound cards that was compatible with most DOS games.

According to one source, because of the wide range of patents Ensoniq had involving the PCI bus support for the sound cards, and the fact that Ensoniq wanted E-MU's technologies, the buyout of Ensoniq became the best of both worlds.

* Ensoniq SoundscapeDB The SSDB was a wavetable daughterboard upgrade for PCs with a sound card bearing a Waveblaster-compatible connector.

The newsletter was originally published as a means for owners of the Ensoniq Mirage to exchange ideas, but was eventually expanded to cover the to the entire line of Ensoniq synthesizers.

That was a first ( and last ) for Ensoniq products.

However, the Emulator III was considerably less popular than its predecessors, largely due to its price-at a time when manufacturers such as Akai, Ensoniq, and Casio offered samplers at less than $ 2, 000, the Emulator III's use of high-quality components drove the price up to $ 12, 695 for the 4 MB model, and $ 15, 195 for the 8 MB model.