Ensoniq ASR-10

The Lounge Other Gear
1

Spotted one in a cash converters here in Sydney for $300. I know they were a bit legendary. Looks cheap, but don’t really need it.

2

OIf it is the asr10 not asrx get it now
$300 is a bargain - as the value is around $800
Get it $300 and I’ll buy it off you for $300

3

[quote=“” buzz""]
Spotted one in a cash converters here in Sydney for $300. I know they were a bit legendary. Looks cheap, but don’t really need it.
[/quote]

Does it have a working SCSI interface: I find that’s very important.

4

Realistically I’d say you could buy it and flip it for $500 in AU. I’d buy it, try sampling some loops for starters, then use it as an FX module, then see if you still want to sell it :slight_smile:

5

it has the SCSI interface but not sure how much memory

6

This whole record was done on an ASR-10:

http://www.discogs.com/Jan-Jelinek-Loop-finding-jazz-records/master/11367

I would snatch it up for that price, myself.

7

I never knew that that Scape album was just ASR! One of my favorite albums - I owned it on reel to reel lol.

8

I guess Jan still uses it. All his releases as Farben on Klang Elektronik and as Gramm on Source Rec. were made on ASR10 too

2 Likes
9

Hello! Resurrecting the thread as I recently got ASR-10R and would love to connect with users / owners… is there anyone out there still using one today? I got the manual, managed to sort out basics and I’m getting ready to move OS to fresh zip drive today. Currently using SCSI hdd from 1995 that’s working fine but it’s so old it might die any minute.

4 Likes
10

I borrowed one for a little while. It fortunately had a microSD reader installed, although I found the cards prone to corruption (and not all of them work!). The software to manage samples (Chickensys Translator) is also a bit of a nightmare to use, but very useful if you can find old sample CD-ROMs (there are many in certain dark corners of the internet - you may have to learn to use a bunch of command line tools to mount them correctly). The FX of course are amazing. Sadly, the handling of MIDI notes (either from its internal sequencer or from an external source) is very sloppy.

2 Likes
11

Heya, Herman.

A friend of mine is still using his ASR-10. He also had a ZIP-100 for ages and recently bought a ZuluSCSI RP2040 Mini . Since he’s not very tech-savvy he said he had quite a learning curve to get it running, because the documentation is “spread all over the internet” (GitHub ;)), but then he managed it after all.

Previously, he bought one of those USB drive emulators which can fit into the Floppy Drive. But he was like “Man, what was I thinking…? It’s the same speed as floppy , large files are spread over different virtual floppies and it even makes a sound like a floppy.”

Speed with the SCSI seems to be comfortably fast.

A nice feature in the 90s I think was that you can - as far I can recall - use it for Sample Synthesis as well without having any external samples.

  • Create Instrument
  • Create Empty Layer
  • Create Sample → this should make a short square wave
  • Edit Sample and loop it and you’re good to go with filters and LFOs.

Maybe I forgot exactly how it worked, but it should be in the manual somewhere :slight_smile:

Anyhow - hope you’ll enjoy the ASR. I think it’s quite a nice sampler with layering capabilities and all those FX.

1 Like
12

I will try this - thank you! Today I’ve learned that 250mb zip disk has to be formatted on PC with software first as ASR-10 won’t be able to do it. Should work fine with 100 mb disk. I also tried the 4x speed CD ROM that was with my unit but it does not work. HDD works fine for now and I will probably get second one as backup + some 100mb’s zip disks. I will also try to get USB cable to connect zip drive to my laptop and try Total Commander for formatting. The unit itself is in top condition - bought in 1996 and used for 6 years - then back to the box until now.

1 Like
13

Wow, that’s sweet!

Oh, I didn’t know the ASR had trouble with ZIP 250, but I also heard that Total Commander is a great tool. As far as I can remember, my friend used it for the USB-Floppy thing, too.

Sorry to hear about the CD-ROM, but good to hear the rest works fine.

One thing I forgot to tell is that he mentioned a few disadvantages of the Zulu SCSI Mini (just in case you should ever get one someday):

  • The device is meant to use as a dongle and he wouldn’t trust it or rather was afraid plugging it directly into his SCSI port. Like what would happen if someone accidentally bumped it (would the dongle break or the pins on the SCSI port?). So he connected it with a cable.
  • The “screwholes” one can see on the picture are simply holes and don’t have any threads or nuts inside firmly attach a cable.
  • No on/off switch. One has to remember to power it up first before one can boot from it, but that’s the same with all SCSI-devices with OS on to boot from, I think.

Have a nice weekend!

1 Like