Ensoniq ESQ-1 hidden inside the Breakaway Vocalizer toy?

[mpsf]

Hi all, my first post here.

TL;DR: Anyone dug into the MIDI Sysex capabilities of this thing? It's packed with amazing synthesis parameters!

I recently got a hold of the Breakaway Vocalizer 1000 from across the pond which is fun and does audio-to-MIDI conversion. It has a bunch of synth presets which your audio source can be translated into or you can use the device to output MIDI to control external gear. Its voice chip is known to be based on the brilliant Ensoniq ESQ-1 synth http://www.retrosynth.com/gear/vocalizer/info.html

When I was fishing around the MIDI implementation (as I do) I noticed there was a lot of cool extra functionality. Not only can you switch between a bunch of different scales but you can pretty much edit every synthesis parameter to go really deep into complex territory far beyond the cheesy factory presets e.g. you've got access to 255 waveforms!

Having access to all the deeper editing functionality like envelopes and LFOs would be insane. Anyone looked into this at all? It looks like you have to upload the Sysex patch dumps as opposed to being able to edit individually, unless I'm wrong.. But anyway, this is just too cool to ignore.

Here's the MIDI spec if anyone wants to see: https://encyclotronic.com/uploads/month ... 085503c544

Thoughts?

[calyx93]

Yes, it has the same engine - don't know about external editing - however, most importantly, there is no filter. As you know, the the ESQ-1/SQ-80 "sound" is three digital oscillators going through an analog, resonant filter.

[meatballfulton]

The Q chip powered a number of Ensoniq products, including the Mirage, ESQ-1/M, SQ-80 and their unsuccessful sampled piano.