Tinkering

Ahhh, surplus electronics. I found an Ensoniq Mirage - an ancient low-fi sampler from about 1985- at a local electronics graveyard for $15, dead. An easy fix and some internet-ordered OS disks later, and I soon had a charmingly grainy, wonderfully limited machine sitting atop my considerably more expensive but equally-ancient Synclavier (see previous post.) The Mirage worked as it should, but I decided to do a mod which would allow it to have multiple outputs, since it was originally a mono-out machine. Several hours, a trip to an electronics shop and a lot of solder connections later, it works; I now have fake stereo! This basically means that the machine's 8 voices will randomly appear on either of between two and eight outputs, depending on what kind of multi-pin connectors I feel like wiring up, which adds A LOT to its usefulness. So while I'm only using the two-output ("stereo") version at the moment, it's a vast improvement. An added bonus of this mod is that it bypasses the Mirage's noisy output summing and taps directly off its eight CEM filter chips, which dramatically reduces the hiss level.

Encouraging.
I'll probably do this mod next.

Photos: Mirage atop Synclavier, Mirage multi-output mod detail.