… an Ensoniq Mirage with 20 factory disks, the sequencer cartridge, single owner, perfect condition? It’s local to me, so no shipping. US dollars. I want this thing bad but don’t want to overpay.
Feel free to post “How much would you pay?” questions for other gear in this thread too, it’s not just for the Mirage!
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Audiofanzine says around 250€ in the past 10 years, 500€ lately.
But it seems extremely convoluted from what I can read from previous owners, not sure you’ll get anything from it that you can’t from software.
I wouldn’t buy it, personally.
With all that and in perfect condition, I’d go $300-$400 if it has the MASOS disks and is in the later “ESQ-1-style” chassis. I do love the Mirage. I’d put a Gotek adapter in there and ditch the floppy drive - which is almost certainly due to fail any day now.
If I was going to have to do any work on it, it would have to be much cheaper. You can still get many parts from Syntaur.com and other places.
Thanks Scot & LD, I appreciate it! It sounds really cool in everything I’ve watched, maybe I should just save the $$ & run my Roland S-10 through the AH instead though. Wouldn’t be poly filters but would still sound rad.
I love the sound of the Mirage. That’s the sound of my 20s, when my favorite bands (Skinny Puppy, Legendary Pink Dots) squeezed every last microsecond of sample time out of them by cranking the sample rates down to the murkiest depths.
However, be aware (as I am sure you are) that programming that thing is a nightmare. There is zero enjoyment in tuning samples and loops, never mind creating key maps (such as they are). But oh, that sound!
Also, if you get it, let me know. If you’re missing anything you need (like the MASOS disks), I’ll send you a copy. You can use it without the MASOS disks, but if you’re going to want to do any proper sampling and editing, you’ll need it.
Ditto.
I’d pay $500 to $1000 (AUD) if I was happy with the samples it has on disc. I wasted too much time dicking around with it in the late 90’s. Wish I’d not been so “experimental” and just enjoyed it.
I had Digidesign’s Turbosynth running on an old Mac Plus and used it to edit or create samples for the Mirage (and later the FZ-1). Samples were transferred via MIDI Sample dump, which was excruciatingly slow. Nevertheless, Turbosynth was neat and some of those samples still sound pretty neat today. (I still keep a G3 iMac for Turbosynth and Jupiter Systems’ Infinity).
I have one in the garage in my electronics lab area. I don’t know if I have it in me to keep fixing it. I got it for free long ago because it was seriously mangled and I eventually brought it back to life but did I do the smart thing and baby this pseudo-Victorian mechanical oddity in the studio? Nope, I used it at gigs in bars and clubs and it went through a constant cycle of breaking down and being repaired.
This is evidence that it was cool enough for me to keep fixing it though. It sounds really good! No other sampler sounds quite like it. Much like Scott mentioned, I was always a huge fan of what skinny puppy and lpd did with it. The problem was that every moving part would fail over and over, the electronics were about 50/50. Worth nothing it has one of the worst keybeds I’ve ever played, worse than any child’s toy keyboard.
It has some good parts inside so it’ll probably end up living on as a different instrument eventually.
I know this doesn’t help with your question op, I just can’t help occasionally waxing about my love/ hate relationship with this beautiful pita.
I would pay $800 to $1000.00AUD to own one in perfect working order. BUT would definitely swap out the floppy. Mine was starting to fail even back then which is why i moved it on…
I love my Mirage, but I’m reviving this thread to fill in the blank:
How much would you pay for a “complete in box,” possibly “new in box” / “new old stock” Analog Keys?
I just stopped in at a store about two hours from where I live, and they have one. It’s wrapped in the smoke-colored plastic, has the power cable, USB cable, three guides, and a price tag that must be the original price (!).
They’re willing to knock $100 off it. They’ll also let me boot it up. I have an A4, and know what can happen to the screens over time … I would definitely see what kind of use the screen seems to have, and check which OS version it’s on.
