Ensoniq EPS-M rack - Midi troubles

The Lounge Other Gear
1

I’ve just fired up my Ensoniq EPS-M rack (after 10 years of mothballing) and I cannot get the loaded sounds on the various 8 “instruments” to trigger. And after recording a sample it cannot assign the root key to the assigned “instrument” either (so the EPS-M times out and gives an error code eventually - ERROR 144).

I assumed it was the midi cable or the EPS-M midi port, but oddly enough an external midi-keyboard will trigger the whichever stock sounds (are loaded from the OS disk) onto “instrument 1” only. But the same sounds “instrument 1” sounds play no matter which instrument is selected…

The stock sequence/song can play the sounds loaded onto the various instruments and all buttons seem to function, but I cannot trigger the sounds (that I hear) on “instrument 1” into a new song sequence. The sequence plays-back blank as if the keys/sounds weren’t triggered during the recording process.

It’s been a long time since I was on this machine… I am jogging my memory still, but this is starting to feel more like a hardware or software issue than user-error. It’s like the midi will trigger sounds, but not actually the triggering them in the instruments themselves.

Anyone still play with this 13-bit fun factory? What am I doing wrong? I have tried triggering with 2 different midi cords and 2 midi keyboards (Roland keyboard and an E-MU Mp7)

PS I had to order a new OS disk (OS 2.49) for the unit, so this isn’t the exact OS that used to know (from 10 years ago).

thanks in advance…

2

This might not be helpful or apply but just a thought. I assume the eps-m has an internal battery for memory and you said you haven’t used it in ten years, maybe it needs to be changed. I got my esq-m from someone who was throwing it away because it was acting mysteriously erratic, after some fruitless troubleshooting I changed the battery and it worked like new.
I don’t have any experience with the eps but the takeaway is that the internal battery being bad had a much different effect on my old ensoniq than I would have expected. If that’s the problem it’s a cheap and fairly easy fix and should probably be done either way. Again, just a thought.

3

I don’t think the EPS does have a similar battery (after researching). But thanks for the idea.

4

Yeah, no battery in the EPS. What have you got your midi channels set to? Depending on the settings a midi keyboard sending on channel 1 will always trigger instrument 1, no matter which is selected on the EPS.

5

Hey, Stone

I believe the midi on the keyboard is set to channel 1, as when I turn midi1 off within instrument1 the sounds can no longer be triggered at all. It appears that each instrument has midi 1-8 settings. Turning on midi 1 for the other instruments doesn’t allow the triggering of those sounds though.

I used to trigger the EPS with this EMU MP-7 drum machine, but I really don’t know much about midi, so maybe this is user error (fingers crossed).