I bought one of these on pre-order back in the day. Dropped the whole pile on it the day pre-orders opened up. Sadly, some thieves had the idea that it should belong to them. Was an amazing synth.
Ensoniq was such a cool company, started by the developers of the SID chip on the Commodore 64. It was hard to see them fall so hard after their early classics. Same with E-mu. Creative was where cool companies went to die.
@@RCAvhstape too bad fender isn’t anywhere near as bad as Gibson. Fender = Roland of guitars Survive purely off success of like 4 popular models that blew up over 30 years ago. Check, shitty solid state amps that harken back to the good ol days check. Shit at one point they both specialized in 2 speaker combo amplifiers known for a built in effect.
I've always enjoyed Ensoniq's designs the most I think. It's such a pure expression of that "high class 80's" design aesthetic. The logo on the EPS 16 has that weird art deco revival thing that Sonic The Hedgehog games had going on too, I love it.
That paint job is a time machine. I feel like those types of patterns were on everything in the 90s. However, I was really little, so my memory probably isn't awesome. I do love aesthetic of Ensoniq synths.
I was so lucky to grab my Fizmo back in the very early 2000s, when the cringe factor of the colour scheme, tiny display and rumors of hardware unreliability still kept the price down. A very poor choice for a first synth for a beginner but considering where I live any synth at all was a rarity back then and I was desperate to get my hands on a "real" synth. Never regretted my purchase and it is a very prized member of my synth menagerie.
I *LOVE* the color scheme and always have. Given the time in which it was made, the fact that it used bright colors (which I have always liked for just about anything) is pretty remarkable.
Screams to me, product that came out at the completely wrong time. 10 years earlier, it would have been a classic among the early digital wavetable synths. If it was released in the ‘10’s, it would have been a hit with the vaporwave crowd (and not just for the color scheme). Instead it hit in the middle of VA mania and 80’s nostalgia hadn’t hit yet.
I used to work at Ensoniq in Tech Support. I admit that I was confused by Fizmo's sound and its looks. And yet, that may have been part of its appeal. It is a "out of left field" piece that people are still trying to understand. While not being much a fan, I did make a long lost set of synth pads, basses and leads sound pack that Ensoniq offered. Having read some of the comments, I agree that Fizmo was simultaneously born 20 years too late and too early. I also think that the synth would have benefitted from a less provocative sound set. Had we offered the factory sounds and some Nord Lead-ish "meat and potatoes" synth sounds, I think Fizmo would have done well. I would also add that I approached some individuals from Ensoniq to resurrect some of the synths in software. Got a nibble, but no bites. I only feel slightly vindicated in that others have found the value in our synths and done just that. Thanks Arturia for the SQ-80 and UVI for DZmo. I like this guys vieos and I appreciate the Fizmo video.
You just can't sell digital synth for a price of Moog unless it's a Roland FA or something. There's nothing wrong with the synth itself. Actually is pretty good and still sounds unique.
Thanks for including mention of Fauxmo! Though I really thought you of all people would have gone nuts with its randomization features to get even more whacked out sounds from the Fizmo... 🙂 One other point that you touched on briefly - the effects in this unit ARE incredible - essentially the same ones as in the Ensoniq DP4 series. And you're right - the lack of control from the front panel sucks big time. But again - Fauxmo to the rescue! You can fully edit all of the effects there, and honestly the effects PLUS the transwaves are what make the synth what it is....
I want to have a Dawless jam set up! 💪 🤔 wait a minute, I need a third party computer program to get my hardware to work right. 🥺 oh the irony. Ah computers, the necessary evil. 😔 Could be a meme with the Hells Choppers guys
Couldn't be happier you got an Ensoniq on the show. I've only owned an EPS, but the machine was so WEIRD. I'm still sad I sold it as it's to this day the only instrument I've ever had that kind of did it's own thing... Almost like it would suggest a better sound or workflow than what I was trying to do. I've owned an MPC, Electribe 2s, and now a Digitakt and none have been able to compare to the weird easter eggs the Ensoniq had. It's clear the Fizmo also goes above and beyond on the weird... We need more designers and engineers willing to make something like this, and less companies that cut them off before they can finish these masterpieces ;)
Awww, they made the perfect 2020’s John Carpenter-esque nostalgia-wave synth but managed to be both 20 years too late AND 20 years too soon to be trendy. Even the paint job would look perfect in a bi-lighting RUclips synthfluencer set with some Greco-Roman statues and neon palm tree desk lamps :(
most ensoniq gear is not bad gear at all - they made spectacular machines for the money, most of which had poly aftertouch which is still a rarity. my SQ-80 is a go to synth. I dont really get the high prices for this one, though. Its neat but we have all kinds of insanely exotic synths in 2022
@@JustinEdwords I spent very little time with the sq-80 unfortunately. ASR-10 and ESQ-1 were the units I spent the most time with in the 90s (along with the roland sp-808 as my primary drum machine- another unit people would often say is Bad Gear). Aside from how heavy it is and the limited sample space, the ASR-10 I think holds up
@@saneneweyes6189 the sq 80 is identical to the esq1 with some more waveforms, a disk drive and most importantly polyphonic aftertouch. Which makes it much more expressive. The ESQ1 is still one of the best budget synths you can get
I totally dig the design and the black and puple colour sceme of the Fizmo! Gothic approved colour scene: check! Makes Darkwave sounds: check! 128 shades of midi: check! C64 SID chip designer involved: maybe? It was made by the company that he once founded.
Nice to see an Ensoniq. I have the ASR-10 which implemented a rudimentary version of the Fizmo’s transwaves, except you could load your own and do unexpectedly wild sound mangling to any poor unsuspecting sample.
@@2ndattention 🤣yeah I gave up on that one. Still love the ASR for what it is. That damn "synthesize loop" feature sounds so good. You can basically sample any strange sound with a hardly workable loop and make it sound like something good.
@@ryanjay6241 synthesize loop is great. regarding tranwaves, I have a little waveboy booklet that came with my ASR-10 that goes into detail on how to make proper transwaves. you do need a way of loading the waveforms via SCSI (I use a SCSI to SD card that allows me to transfer sounds directly) and Serum to create a wavetable composed of 128 discrete waveforms. once you have the method down you can make some pretty amazing patches..... or you can just freeform mangle any random sample and get some very very glitchy results. I love it. that and my UDO Super 6 are irreplaceable.
My first synth was an Ensoniq TS-12, and I loved it. It had transwaves, and the ability to make wavesequences, if you were patient enough. When the Fizmo came out, I thought it looked like a badly-packaged sliver of what my 12 could do, with more hands-on control (and a resonant filter), but also a *lot* of 'hands on a mouse only' control. I knew Ensoniq was going to no longer be 'Ensoniq.' This is the late '90s. They had one of these in the very store I bought that first TS-12. The Fizmo was priced at $400. I still don't regret not buying it, and I don't see why it's so sought after. Sorry for the rant; Ensoniq is close to my heart, but the Fizmo was born of really bad corporate circumstances, and I see it now (like I did in the late '90s) as the death-knell of a company I really liked.
@@Michael_Smith-Red_No.5 The Fizmo is the full evolution of Ensoniq's transwave technology...offering up to 8 oscillator layers per sound. It also has the same effects as the DP2/4....which can except and external signal. The sounds demostrated in this video are the presets....which don't come close to doing the synth justice. In fact I'd go as far as say they are some of the worst presets on any digital synth.
I think we've all been waiting for this one. And you titling it "The Unicorn," in the thumbnail hits it on the head. It's a rare one we don't see often. Nice work!
I have one of these and I adore it. It sits alongside a Waldorf XTk and honestly, if there was a fire, I think I would grab the Fizmo. It has a glassy gooeyness that I have never heard anywhere else, and it just sends shivers down my spine every time.
ooh, that would be a hard choice for me! I don't have a Fizmo, but I adore my XTk... I suppose only haveing the one spares me from having to make that choice!
I always felt like the BloFeld was the 'true successor' to the Fizmo. As well, it's worth noting that the Transwave stuff was also present on the TS-10, the 'rompler cousin' to the ASR (though it could load samples from the ASR as well, it just didn't have any sampling capabilities on board). You could only use the special 'xwave' voices for it, if I recall (it's been decades since I used the TS), but you COULD also chain internal waveforms to make almost like custom sequences that play with one key using the same menu. It had a couple of these as demo sounds. Anyway, RIP Ensoniq. They were cool, they were neat, they will not be forgotten...at least until this generation dies out. :)
I have a Fizmo (owned since 1998), and bought a Blofeld when they first came out. At that time I used a Virus ti snow and Ultranova as well. They Blofeld did not do it for me, and neither the Ti. The Fizmo has way more in it as far as DSP and arp features to my ears, and is like the spice in any recipe; put it on your meat and potatoes to taste.
I can stare at that paint-job whole day. And those pads. Lovely!! Also glad that the country I'm from (Singapore) got a mention (indirectly). Thank you creative labs!
I also feel that way about the Akai AX-73. It looks like a module with a long keyed sticking out either side. In fact, you can actually chop off the sides and it still works.
@@huntergalloway3944 Well yes the Blofeld was a module and then added keyboard later. Kudos to waldorf though because the keyboard on it is really good.
nice one, I love my Fizmo - took me many years to find one I could afford then they suddenly doubled in price 😛 Fauxmo is a great app to control the FIzmo, and it's much needed since the unit is very deep like the E-mu Proteus 200o and Command Stations needing the Prodatum app to reveal the complex patch cords system inside (yes a software modular inside the unit) - no control surface would be big enough unless you made a Deltronics DT-7 type box for it like the DX-7 can use 🙂 There are many other Ensoniq transwave synths but the tables in the Fizmo are unique but fixed. The TS-10/TS-12 can load custom transwaves made with Tranzilon and you can do cool things like mapping the wavetable sweep to the mod wheel. 🙂
I actually got to play with one of these glittering aubergine-tinted beauties at the turn of the millenium, and loved it. For DnB it was weird and wooshy enough to cover a multitude of badly sampled sins. I never bought one because I'd seen so many Ensoniq synths fall to pieces mid-show in the previous 15 years. Love the sounds, hate the build quality. I bought a Virus B instead for general soundmangling duties, and I don't regret it. For people who can't afford 10 gigabeans for a restored fizzikle Fizmo, UVI have parked a decent sampled emulation inside their Digital Synsations 2 soundbank, along with a Kawai K5000 clone and a JD800-alike. The layering possibilities, even in UVI's free Workstation are pretty splendid, but if you own or rent Falcon, it can wig out and tweak for days, just like the original Fizmo hardware. So you can safely spend your gigabeans on Volcas and Boogs.
We had one unit at Mars Music around 2000 that basically was unsellable. After I left it sat for another two years and was repaired once. They ended up being blown out for like $400. If someone was smart enough to buy up the stock they would have basically set up their retirement.
@@22z83 he did do an Alesis compressor long ago, and I think a vocoder, he's more of a aynth head but doing effects would allow him to easily keep adding content this is a show, as he says, "about the world's most hated audio tools"
I miss mine. It was just wildly different than anything I'd ever used. Certainly not a jack of all trades, but it was very good at the very unique things it did.
I bought what I guess was the Benelux' last shop display unit when they went out of sale in the early 2000s, with a good discount 😁 Weird machine, but I'll never sell. It's indeed very, very easy to get lost in those unmixable weird nonsense sounds you hear on many demo's. One technique to avoid that is indeed focusing on 1-key atmospheric pads, I made a few good ones of those. But another, underreported technique is to use the more regular sounding waveforms to make classic lead sounds, and then add a layer of those ultraweird fizmo Transwaves, not too loud, possible 1 or 2 octaves higher. It's far from just an atmospheric pad machine... ☝️👍
EXACTLY! I was offered to buy one new for $800.00... I played with it briefly, considered its strange uncool color scheme - it wasn't BLACK! and easily passed on it. WTF was I thinking? I had been blinded by the whole techno sound and scene. Now I do ambient and want a FIZMO so bad... but more than that somebody like Arturia needs to make a proper emulation - model not sampled version of this awesome synth. The prices on these things along with the age and a dead manufacturer make it a NO GO!
Well, that is one of the most interesting synths I'd never heard of. I can see why you have been on the hunt. PS - Your compositional chops peeked out in places in this one.
I remember these being in the clearance pages of Musicians Friend catalog, for $500, for quite some time. Makes it all the funnier now that they’re collectors items
Wow! Now I am impressed that you got your hands on one of these😳. Thanks so much for covering this- best overview I’ve seen 👍. Ensoniq were such an amazing & innovative company minor tragedy that it was allowed to disappear. I always had impression Fizmo was bit a concept synth released before it was not quite finished; could have further developed into genuine digital super synth. ( also bit surprised this has never been modelled in a vst).
As usual you managed to squeeze some awesome music out of the gear reviewed. I agree that it wouldn't be my first choice either! Next you should do the Radikal Technologies Spectralis 😃
Interesting. I spent the whole episode thinking, "That sounds awesome," but also, "It looks like it might be approximately as frustrating to program as my Korg Trinity, which also sounds awesome... hmm". And then in the back of my mind were more modern beasts like the Hyrasynth, Blofeld, and Iridium, which could all achieve similar results and probably without driving me up the wall with exasperation to do it.
@@AudioPilz Yeah. I mean, I've still got some saving to do. But yeah. In the meantime I'll continue to annoy myself with the Trinity. Gotta love those 90s interfaces.
I'd love a behringer line of micro recreations of famous and infamouse instruments. Like little Casio SA-1 sized versions. Talk about great stocking stuffers for synth nerds!
Transwaves have sort of died off as a technical approach, I think the preference is single cycle wavetable instead of the transwave approach. There is a thread on MW about how to emulate it somewhere
it would be cool to see a video on how you learn a new synth every week and create the jams you make to show off the qualities of the gear. you seem to have a very streamlined workflow to be able to cover obscure equipment every week, I'd love a look into that process.
Very fitting you’d mention Hydrasynth as an alternative. That’s what I immediately thought of - unabashedly digital sounding and capable of very similar experimental/left-field sounds. I think hydra’s interface will stand the test of time though - such a logical layout that doesn’t get in the way of sound design creativity.
This was actually the first hardware synth I owned. It was indeed made for creating evolving and layered sounds, which it did really well. Problem for me was at the time I mostly wanted more meat and potatoes sounds and in order to make them I actually had to work at it, since it wasn’t really suited for them. I ended up selling it a few years later for a couple hundred bucks, and now I’m absolutely gob smacked by how much they go for on the used market. Like the one that got away, I guess I just didn’t appreciate it for what it was at the time. Live and learn. 😆
Never understood the Fizmo hate - everything I've heard from it I absolutely love. There again, I'm a bit of an Ensoniq obsessive and own four of their other keyboards. They always had their own quirky take on things, from the ESQ1 that did the Korg M1 and Roland D-50 sample based thing so much better, to the EPS and ASR samplers that were true workstations with great interfaces.
This synth will stay my favorite eternally. It’s a drug trip in itself. Maybe that’s why I bought two of them. Playing both together will send you out of this world.
I got this in 1998, then when I graduated school and the bills came in during 1999 my mom had forced me to sell all my gear, I had 3 ensoniq samplers and the fizmo and an original novation bass station, but then they were no more lol I was stuck with only a crappy laptop and sony acid.
Ohh you managed to get a hold on a FIZMO! Really great synth for bizzare and ambient sounds! I love it! :D A suggestion for another piece of gear would be the Boss Jam Station 5 (JS5). I've seen them go dirt cheap. Don't know if they have enough stuff in them for a whole video but perhaps having a couple of similar machines in the same video would suffice. Also the current Roland MC-101 would be a good contender for this show. While it is definetly a powerfull machine it is crippled in some really bizare ways, such as having linear envelopes on drum samples aswell as having alot of its deeper editing capabillities locked away behind the roland cloud paywall.
MC-101 is an "MC-707 demo/trial", or Roland "sound module". I picked up the 707 from the start as the 101's controls put me off, and 707 has double the tracks to further sweeten the deal, and more. It's a badass sampler and FX processor, too.
@@Jason75913 Yeah the 707 is definetly better in many regards. It still requires the roland cloud thingy if you want to edit it from PC though. But the 101 has a lot of hardware differencies, which IMO is more than cripling enough for it to be a cheaper version than the 707. No need for them to also having crippled it on the software side. Also I do wonder if the 707 has the same envelope issues on drumsamples (I would not be surprised if it does) The 101 can also sample but reqires you to stream the audio to it via USB. A couple reasons I chose the 101 over the 707 is the compact size, abillity to run it on batteries (both important for portabillity) and the lower price (and I bought mine second hand at half price).
@@Jason75913 Yes that is correct, although PC editing can be faster with a better overwiev of everything. But the editor provided by roland sadly requires their cloud thingy.
Great video 😎👍. I wouldn't say no to one of these but I suspect your skills flatter this instrument. I do have a soft spot for Ensoniq and I'm surprised that Akai took so long to get round to releasing a sampling keyboard - not that I need one.
@@ConstantLittleGhost I mean, it literally will speak…and those keys sounds are incredible. 16 possible operators????? TONS of some of the best 90’s fx (that still hold up btw). No brainer. Only thing that sucks is the interface and that’s where gold ol sound diver comes in lolz!!!
Oooh. Another instrument that I probably would enjoy programming. Although I agree that it does seem to have trouble sitting well in the mix. Thanks for showing off such a rarity. I really love my VFXSD keybed with the poly aftertouch... Really a joy to play until it triggers a system error and I have to reload the OS... lol.
@@AudioPilz DHL/UK post lost 3 of about 7 packages to the US. And unrelatedly, my last used synth purchase was torqued / damaged in transit... So I'm would be a bit hesitant about shipping it, although I'd absolutely love to see what you did with it... A shame, because similar (but to a lesser degree) as with the Emax SE, the VFX can make some musical artifacts when pushing one of the low res wave samples to the edge.
I tried one when it came out. "Shrill" as hell, and in many ways a one-trick-pony. I was so sad as an Ensoniq fan - The VFX that came before it, sounds awesome.
I've always wanted to try one. It's ironic that so many of the patches you played remind me of the Emu Morpheus. I guess the guys over at Emu were preemptively preparing for the merger five years early. :)
@@AudioPilz Yeah, Emu gear is cool, great sounds, amazing what little boxes like the proteus line could make, with so little sample ROM, and at a great price. Very cool company 👍
@@AudioPilz I remember E-MU's Orbit the Dance Planet being pretty bad. But now a bunch of people are probably going to jump on me and say it was actually great.
One shop alone that I worked at in Cleveland had half a dozen 80s era boot from floppy disk ensoniq chassis in the junk pile. Every techs nightmare....
Thanks for pour vidéo, Florian. The Fizmo is an incredible sound design gear, but not versatile. I don't know why many musicians prefer obsolet synths like Korg wavestation or Waldorf microwave : these synths are really unprogrammables. The waves of an Waldorf clicks affully, even with recently "M".
FIZMO is epically overpriced these days. Like so many great synth companies, Ensoniq was pivotal in the late 80s and early 90s; shame they got bought by an empire without vision. Great vid, AudioPilz. Now do the Technics SX-WSA1.... another overpriced synth with massive limitations for the price.
"empire without vision" an empire bankrupt in imagination altogether, lol, and probably run by Chinese execs as their products all reek of "chinese junk" quality
UVI Digital Synsations 2 has Fizmo samples. Certainly more limited than owning the hardware would be, but a lot cheaper, and with some unique sounds for sure.
Very interesting video! I'm amazed that you got your hands on a Fizmo! And hands down, this is the best demonstration of this synth, i've seen so far. In most demos, i've seen, the Fizmo sounded just fizzy and thin. Not so in your video! Well done! But still... The Fizmo is in my opinion the prime example to show someone what is often meant when a synth is described as sounding "digital". I really can't believe, Creative Labs f***ed up two of the best makers of digital synths. Ensoniq and E-MU have such a great legacy. I'm wondering what digital synths we'd enjoy by now, if those two companies would've survived?
All these synths were great bargains, as in, they can do some really cool stuff, but they've been superceded. I wanted one of these for 10 years... but the Wavestate give me the sounds I'd want from Fizmo, and I think I prefer Wavestate's sound. For most people, modwave or Hydrasynth would supercede Fizmo. Waldorf M supercedes Microwave. 3rd Wave supercedes the PPG. By "supercedes", I mean they're still fine synths, but it doesn't make sense to pay more for the old synth than the price of its newer version. It was weirdos buying this type of synth back then, just like now. Wedding singers aren't buying Iridium Keyboard unless they're secretly (or not) a weirdo. Which is good! Though, I AM a little worried about how popular wavetable synthesis is getting. Can there be too many weirdos? San Francisco seems to manage. I say bring it on.
Yes, almost all old synth with ridiculous prices, you buy not to make music, but to collect.. Exceptions are, for example, the old V Synth and the Korg Radias.
Hey Pilz, I had 2 of these at the same time. I had them for years. I bought the first one for 300, and the second for 600, and I think I sold them for around the same. sometimes I miss it, but then I think about the thousands of hours I spent with them, and think, "no, I don't miss them" because after a while, you start realizing they are a one dimensional instrument, and you will find the end of it's abilities eventually. I made a lot of great jams with them, but moved on for more versatile gear. Also, the midi implementation sucks really bad. I could never get sound diver to work on either of the two, and was weird midi problems at any time. the power supply that came with them was trash, they could explode ,one of mine started to fry, but I caught it before it ruined the synth. I see the prices and just laugh . yes, they are super fun, but again, after a while, you just get tired of them.
you could get something like the korg wavestate these days for 700 bucks or so. . seems way more versatile. . i do love ensoniq as a company though, my favorite synth is the SQ-80. . they put poly aftertouch in most of their offerings
@@JustinEdwords I've had a lot of synths, and I had the SQ-80 , and it was another one of those that at the time I felt was just way to difficult to program. and mine was mint! I sold if for a few hundred, like the rest of them at the time in the early 2000 that no one wanted them. Im hoping that Behringer will make something like the ensoniqs .. I had a VFX and loved that synth. amazing. a very unique sound out of all of their synths for sure. If I had a ton of cash, I would buy the rights to Ensoniq and have some engineers make a modern classic .. tons of knobs, tons of memory, and do like korg, and make software that is the same as the synth, so you can easily build patches. Korg is the king now as far as I'm concerned with synth building.
@@AudioPilz oh crap! well it took me months to get a replacement back in the late 90's. tell your bros and fans that if they have one, better get non factory spares, because they are the shit dangerous ones
I'm really curious if there are any good free/cheap VSTs that cover this kind of ground? I have one a VST with some of the sounds from one of the Ensoniq synths but the palette is a bit limited. i've always heard wobbly things about the Fizmo but if someone recreated it 100% as a VST that would be incredibly cool.
Yeah, this is actual bad gear. Lifeless, bland and boring, and also ridiculously overpriced. No idea what do people like on it - most, if not all, of what it does can be done on other, way cheaper synths just as well, if not better. It just seems like yet another pointless cult/circlejerk.
Gut gemacht AP! Ich hab etwas gelernt. I snagged a FIZMO for $500 (half the normal price, if I remember correctly) when it was announced it was discontinued. I was pretty frustrated it had a fair number of parameters that were hidden without a software editor, and I was never blown away with the core sound of the Transwaves. IMO, they just didn't sound that great without effects, and adding too much filter resonance fairly easily distorted the effects. Sold it about a decade ago for a bit more than I paid for it, not long after I picked up a used Access Virus C, which I thought was MUCH easier to navigate and use. And I still think the Virus C sounds better (at least for what I like in a synth). Had I been into long drone-y, ambient music, I might have kept it, but it didn't fit what I wanted at the time. Now I only wish I'd kept the FIZMO to let it appreciate in value a bit more.
My week sucks, I had a headache and the world felt coming to an end - and then YOU came along this friday and changed all that, thanks! Never heard of the Fizmo, but after a few of your experiments with it I slowly changed to "I want one, gib me now!" - And then you went ahead and mention it was produced in limited numbers, and sells for more than most peoples used cars are worth and yeah, maybe not so much. (PS: Still want one, but those prices...urgh).
Awesome video! Had one of these back in their time, paid 150 dollars for it (in 2000) and never really got into it, also back then I remember seeing ESQ-1's at almost every pawn shop often at under 100 bucks (I had like 4), those were the days, long gone now. RIP Ensoniq, one of the coolest synth, sampler, FX companies EVER!
Fizmo is one of those models I spotted as a teenager, being 18 years old when it hit the market, that was something of a shocker to me. I’d let myself become conditioned to think no new synthesizer would have the complement of real time controllers this one has; I had probably put a mental block on the existence of the AN1x, JP-8000, Bass Station and first 2 Nord Lead models, not to mention the Waldorf and Access models. The idea of having an instrument you could (sort of) control the same way you could control the Minimoog seemed too good to be true. It might have been a good thing I didn’t try getting one, but that had more to do with the idea that my father always attempted to tell me I already had a synthesizer (the Alesis QS6) and should spend more time learning how to get better sounds out of it. If this were my channel, AP, I frankly would have produced my first upload to be about the QS6. That model is one that I ended up choosing because my grandfather was paying for it and I did not want to spend too much of his money, but it ultimately led me to feeling deep buyer’s remorse. After I became accustomed to its sound engine, I discovered it only possess any value as a MIDI controller; its sound set really is that lo fidelity, even if you load external samples through its data card port. I wish I had soaked my grandfather for the amount of money it would’ve sent me back to get the Korg 01W Pro X.
The 1 key strategy thing with this unit is the trick that seems to work. I must say that this channel is on another level. The playing skills to milk great sounds out of these bad gears is only rivaled by the skills and time required to put together the background video clips. I do not know how you do it so well, Mr. Bad Gear. Thanks again. May there be unlimited bad gear in our future for you to review!
Worth mentioning that while the fizmo has multi stage looping envelopes, if you tweak the envelope knobs the envelopes switch to an adsr mode. I sat down and figured it out once, with the addition of one knob and two switches, all the parameters (except the fx section) would've been fully editable from the front panel. The poor man's fizmo is an mr-61 or an mr-rack and the expansion cards. The only thing that gets lost is the resonant filter and what is gained is an actual multi mode rather than a 4 voice split. Someone makes a repro of the expansion cards. An asr-x works too and you get an equally bad digital resonant filter, but the asr-x is the one synth/sampler I've owned that I would actually consider bad.
Hey Florian! It's always a treat on a friday afternoon after I come home from work, to watch a new episode of Bad gear before the weekend starts. Love the memes, the demo songs you make, and generally learning about new (bad) gear. Loving your new video as always! I've seen the Ensoniq Fizmo before, and I don't think the inflated price is worth it, but it has an interesting look and sound, so good to learn more about it. I was wondering if/when you are going to make an episode featuring the Arturia Polybrute. It's one of the few hardware synths I own (Alongside the Moog Subsequent 37, Yamaha MODX6 and Arturia Drumbrute Impact and some old arranger keyboards that don't count as synths). The Polybrute is my favourite synthesizer, but many people don't share my enthusiasm. They Say "It sounds like a VST", it has "bad oscillators", "can't do decent brass or string sounds", "The morphé is gimmicky", "the design is ugly" with 'too many knobs and buttons". I can see if i can collect screenshots of some of these comments if you like. I don't understand these points of criticism. Maybe people are using it wrong, don't understand how it works or whatever. I'd like a more objective point of view to find out what people mean and how to deal with any potential shortcomings of my synth. So, could you feature the Polybrute at some point?
Also some guy on the internet who says he's a sound engineer himself and builds his own oscillators claims the Polybrute can't do a proper saw wave "just some hairy thing". Judge for yourself. The Polybrute says it can do a saw wave though. If you play it it sounds like you expect a saw to sound. If you look at it through an oscilloscope or other visualizer, it looks perfectly normal. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing spectacular. Just you versatile bread and butter saw wave. No "hairs", nothing. Either that guy has a faulty model, he's doing something wrong, or I just don't know what a proper saw wave is supposed to sound and look like.
Idea for an episode: - get a Moog One; - do the regular "ticks all the boxes" round and the first two jams; - then reveal that all sounds so far were made with NI Monark; - play the final jam with the One; - finish by saying that maybe the final jam was played on the One, or maybe it was the single jam of the episode played on the Monark and the rest were the One... NOBODY WILL EVER KNOW! Boom, most controversial Bad Gear episode done!
Whoah, when I got mine in the ‘00s for about $350, I had a few opportunities to get rack versions for the ‘ungodly’ price of $600-$700. Jeez, if I only knew.
Okay... Whew! I thought you were wrapping up without going through the Fizmo's vocoder, and I was getting upset. LOL! I've been waiting to see you get your hands on one of these ever since you started doing the vocoder shoutouts. It did not disappoint.
First time viewer. I love your content, especially when watching your keyboards as you play. I'm a beginner in music and it really helps to watch a master at work. Thanks very very much!
Oh my goodness I was doing a deep dive on romplers and old samplers and rediscovered this synth this week, was gonna suggest it in the comments and here it is!
¡¡Ensoniq might have actually stayed in business if only they just threw that FIZMO’s reverb into a rack unit, and just saved the product development costs!! I really think Ensoniq gave The Kurzweil K2000 a run for its money with their top notch weighted key KS32. For 20th century tech, the KS32 keys easily take the prize with that Keybed. Thanks again, Mr. Pilz!
Audiopilz: *slaps roof of YT channel*
Full Tracks, Extended Jams, Sample Packs: www.patreon.com/audiopilz
If you put an album up on Bandcamp with your jams I'd gladly put some money down to buy it.
That ending demo definitely slaps!
I bought one of these on pre-order back in the day. Dropped the whole pile on it the day pre-orders opened up.
Sadly, some thieves had the idea that it should belong to them. Was an amazing synth.
I love the fact that Creative Labs managed to fuck up two great synth makers - Ensoniq and EMU. Well done guys!
Hey, at least we got sound cards;)
@@AudioPilz don't forget double pc/midi keyboard too!
@@micindir4213 I have the usb version, The wheel I think were pitch blend for good effect, but is is a octave switch.
@@AudioPilz Ensoniq and E-Mu both made cool sound cards that withered away and were forgotten after the Creative acquisitions. :(
@@AudioPilz Using Yamaha's FM chips ;)
Ensoniq was such a cool company, started by the developers of the SID chip on the Commodore 64. It was hard to see them fall so hard after their early classics. Same with E-mu. Creative was where cool companies went to die.
It's so sad!
Same with Gibson... what ever they touched turned to 💀💩
Kind of like Fender when it comes to guitar and amp companies. Buy them and kill them.
@@RCAvhstape too bad fender isn’t anywhere near as bad as Gibson.
Fender = Roland of guitars
Survive purely off success of like 4 popular models that blew up over 30 years ago. Check, shitty solid state amps that harken back to the good ol days check. Shit at one point they both specialized in 2 speaker combo amplifiers known for a built in effect.
This is really interesting......it's synths history as it is written. But listen to this dream machine. Even presets are hyper expressive.
That gradient splatter paint job puts the Fizmo firmly above any Moog, Prophet, or Roland.
It's peak synth. It's untouchable.
Word!
Yes!!
I've always enjoyed Ensoniq's designs the most I think. It's such a pure expression of that "high class 80's" design aesthetic. The logo on the EPS 16 has that weird art deco revival thing that Sonic The Hedgehog games had going on too, I love it.
@@jabelsjabels the ASR-X had a striking 80s logo too
That paint job is a time machine. I feel like those types of patterns were on everything in the 90s. However, I was really little, so my memory probably isn't awesome. I do love aesthetic of Ensoniq synths.
I was so lucky to grab my Fizmo back in the very early 2000s, when the cringe factor of the colour scheme, tiny display and rumors of hardware unreliability still kept the price down. A very poor choice for a first synth for a beginner but considering where I live any synth at all was a rarity back then and I was desperate to get my hands on a "real" synth. Never regretted my purchase and it is a very prized member of my synth menagerie.
That turned out to be quite a good investment;)
Hold on to it, it's like a Faberge egg I tell thee.
I *LOVE* the color scheme and always have. Given the time in which it was made, the fact that it used bright colors (which I have always liked for just about anything) is pretty remarkable.
Yesterday's "cringe" is today's "cool!"
I passed one up in like 2004 for $400, big mistake. I regretted it a month later but never found an affordable one again!
Screams to me, product that came out at the completely wrong time. 10 years earlier, it would have been a classic among the early digital wavetable synths. If it was released in the ‘10’s, it would have been a hit with the vaporwave crowd (and not just for the color scheme). Instead it hit in the middle of VA mania and 80’s nostalgia hadn’t hit yet.
There's some truth to that!!!
Timing is everything.
I used to work at Ensoniq in Tech Support. I admit that I was confused by Fizmo's sound and its looks. And yet, that may have been part of its appeal. It is a "out of left field" piece that people are still trying to understand. While not being much a fan, I did make a long lost set of synth pads, basses and leads sound pack that Ensoniq offered. Having read some of the comments, I agree that Fizmo was simultaneously born 20 years too late and too early. I also think that the synth would have benefitted from a less provocative sound set. Had we offered the factory sounds and some Nord Lead-ish "meat and potatoes" synth sounds, I think Fizmo would have done well. I would also add that I approached some individuals from Ensoniq to resurrect some of the synths in software. Got a nibble, but no bites. I only feel slightly vindicated in that others have found the value in our synths and done just that. Thanks Arturia for the SQ-80 and UVI for DZmo. I like this guys vieos and I appreciate the Fizmo video.
Thank you so much!!!
You just can't sell digital synth for a price of Moog unless it's a Roland FA or something. There's nothing wrong with the synth itself. Actually is pretty good and still sounds unique.
Can you help fix my EPS scsi to mother board?
Thanks for including mention of Fauxmo! Though I really thought you of all people would have gone nuts with its randomization features to get even more whacked out sounds from the Fizmo... 🙂
One other point that you touched on briefly - the effects in this unit ARE incredible - essentially the same ones as in the Ensoniq DP4 series. And you're right - the lack of control from the front panel sucks big time. But again - Fauxmo to the rescue! You can fully edit all of the effects there, and honestly the effects PLUS the transwaves are what make the synth what it is....
Thank *you* for developing Fauxmo!
@@edouardmusic My pleasure!!
Hey Dan, great to have you around!!!
@@AudioPilz Wouldn’t have dared to miss this one! Great job and a very accurate and fair assessment. 👍
I want to have a Dawless jam set up! 💪
🤔 wait a minute, I need a third party computer program to get my hardware to work right. 🥺 oh the irony.
Ah computers, the necessary evil. 😔
Could be a meme with the Hells Choppers guys
My theory: this keyboard was purposefully designed to be made for the 2020 nostalgic Internet =D
I think you're onto something;)
But how?!?! How did they KNOW??!?!?!?!
If I find one of these at a yard sale and I put it up on Reverb, and it sells, I can probably buy an Arturia matrixbrute and a Moog One, right?
@@mrz80 =D =D =D
It was ahead of it's time for sure... either visionary or proof that time travel is real.
Couldn't be happier you got an Ensoniq on the show. I've only owned an EPS, but the machine was so WEIRD. I'm still sad I sold it as it's to this day the only instrument I've ever had that kind of did it's own thing... Almost like it would suggest a better sound or workflow than what I was trying to do. I've owned an MPC, Electribe 2s, and now a Digitakt and none have been able to compare to the weird easter eggs the Ensoniq had. It's clear the Fizmo also goes above and beyond on the weird... We need more designers and engineers willing to make something like this, and less companies that cut them off before they can finish these masterpieces ;)
That was actually the first Ensoniq instrument I used;)
I had one for about 10yrs and found it was best used for Christmas sounds
Great use case!!!
Awww, they made the perfect 2020’s John Carpenter-esque nostalgia-wave synth but managed to be both 20 years too late AND 20 years too soon to be trendy. Even the paint job would look perfect in a bi-lighting RUclips synthfluencer set with some Greco-Roman statues and neon palm tree desk lamps :(
So true!
FINALLY featured an Ensoniq Unit! Bravo! ... and what a way to start - one of their rarest specimens.
Yeah, that was quite a challenge. Thanks!
@@AudioPilz I had literally never heard of or seen a picture of this one. A true unicorn. Well done you.
most ensoniq gear is not bad gear at all - they made spectacular machines for the money, most of which had poly aftertouch which is still a rarity. my SQ-80 is a go to synth. I dont really get the high prices for this one, though. Its neat but we have all kinds of insanely exotic synths in 2022
@@JustinEdwords I spent very little time with the sq-80 unfortunately. ASR-10 and ESQ-1 were the units I spent the most time with in the 90s (along with the roland sp-808 as my primary drum machine- another unit people would often say is Bad Gear). Aside from how heavy it is and the limited sample space, the ASR-10 I think holds up
@@saneneweyes6189 the sq 80 is identical to the esq1 with some more waveforms, a disk drive and most importantly polyphonic aftertouch. Which makes it much more expressive. The ESQ1 is still one of the best budget synths you can get
I totally dig the design and the black and puple colour sceme of the Fizmo!
Gothic approved colour scene: check!
Makes Darkwave sounds: check!
128 shades of midi: check!
C64 SID chip designer involved: maybe? It was made by the company that he once founded.
It was synthwave before there was synthwave;)
Nice to see an Ensoniq. I have the ASR-10 which implemented a rudimentary version of the Fizmo’s transwaves, except you could load your own and do unexpectedly wild sound mangling to any poor unsuspecting sample.
Sounds like fun;)
Same applies to EPS16+ sampler - transwaves implementation is the same. I am seeing Fizmo as MR series + resonant filter + more real-time controls.
@@AudioPilz indeed. not fun to program unfortunately....
@@2ndattention 🤣yeah I gave up on that one. Still love the ASR for what it is. That damn "synthesize loop" feature sounds so good. You can basically sample any strange sound with a hardly workable loop and make it sound like something good.
@@ryanjay6241 synthesize loop is great. regarding tranwaves, I have a little waveboy booklet that came with my ASR-10 that goes into detail on how to make proper transwaves. you do need a way of loading the waveforms via SCSI (I use a SCSI to SD card that allows me to transfer sounds directly) and Serum to create a wavetable composed of 128 discrete waveforms. once you have the method down you can make some pretty amazing patches..... or you can just freeform mangle any random sample and get some very very glitchy results. I love it. that and my UDO Super 6 are irreplaceable.
This is the most 90s sounding thing you've ever had on here. That last jam reminded me of playing OG Unreal Tournament
Thanks! Love UT99!!!
@@AudioPilz M-M-M-M-M-Monster Kill
Whoa! This one is so rare that I never really thought you’d cover it. This is one of a handful that I very strongly want to own one day.
Yeah, it took me a while!!!
I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild, and only occasionally ran into references to it in magazines or online.
I have one!
My first synth was an Ensoniq TS-12, and I loved it. It had transwaves, and the ability to make wavesequences, if you were patient enough. When the Fizmo came out, I thought it looked like a badly-packaged sliver of what my 12 could do, with more hands-on control (and a resonant filter), but also a *lot* of 'hands on a mouse only' control. I knew Ensoniq was going to no longer be 'Ensoniq.' This is the late '90s. They had one of these in the very store I bought that first TS-12. The Fizmo was priced at $400. I still don't regret not buying it, and I don't see why it's so sought after. Sorry for the rant; Ensoniq is close to my heart, but the Fizmo was born of really bad corporate circumstances, and I see it now (like I did in the late '90s) as the death-knell of a company I really liked.
Yeah, let's blame it on Creative...
The Fizmo's sounds design capabilities blow away anything the TS-12 is capable of.
@@Abruzzo333 Nah, not so much.
@@Michael_Smith-Red_No.5 The Fizmo is the full evolution of Ensoniq's transwave technology...offering up to 8 oscillator layers per sound. It also has the same effects as the DP2/4....which can except and external signal. The sounds demostrated in this video are the presets....which don't come close to doing the synth justice. In fact I'd go as far as say they are some of the worst presets on any digital synth.
I think we've all been waiting for this one. And you titling it "The Unicorn," in the thumbnail hits it on the head. It's a rare one we don't see often. Nice work!
Thank you so much!!!
I have one of these and I adore it. It sits alongside a Waldorf XTk and honestly, if there was a fire, I think I would grab the Fizmo. It has a glassy gooeyness that I have never heard anywhere else, and it just sends shivers down my spine every time.
It has nice company;)
ooh, that would be a hard choice for me! I don't have a Fizmo, but I adore my XTk... I suppose only haveing the one spares me from having to make that choice!
One of the best sounding intros and finales in my opinion.
Also, James Bond time bomb display haha, good one
Thanks!!!
I always felt like the BloFeld was the 'true successor' to the Fizmo. As well, it's worth noting that the Transwave stuff was also present on the TS-10, the 'rompler cousin' to the ASR (though it could load samples from the ASR as well, it just didn't have any sampling capabilities on board). You could only use the special 'xwave' voices for it, if I recall (it's been decades since I used the TS), but you COULD also chain internal waveforms to make almost like custom sequences that play with one key using the same menu. It had a couple of these as demo sounds.
Anyway, RIP Ensoniq. They were cool, they were neat, they will not be forgotten...at least until this generation dies out. :)
Could not put it better myself. Perfection.
Maybe it will rise from the grave...
I have a Fizmo (owned since 1998), and bought a Blofeld when they first came out. At that time I used a Virus ti snow and Ultranova as well. They Blofeld did not do it for me, and neither the Ti. The Fizmo has way more in it as far as DSP and arp features to my ears, and is like the spice in any recipe; put it on your meat and potatoes to taste.
You did a great job at showing off the potential that this instrument has. Loved all the jams, especially the second one
Thank you!!!!
@@AudioPilz Yes, second jam was one of your best!
I can stare at that paint-job whole day. And those pads. Lovely!!
Also glad that the country I'm from (Singapore) got a mention (indirectly). Thank you creative labs!
Another mention: you got the best food in the world!!!
Yknow, a couple rattlecans of metallic purple, a Launchkey 61, and a desktop Blofeld and you're pretty much there. :D
If ever a synth looked like it was designed as a module but they thought 'hey! we should do a keyboard version!' then this is it.
Try to find the rack version...;)
I also feel that way about the Akai AX-73. It looks like a module with a long keyed sticking out either side. In fact, you can actually chop off the sides and it still works.
Waldorf Blofeld to me looks like the made the module first, and then decided to slap a keyboard to it.
@@huntergalloway3944 Yep, was just gonna say that's another Fizmo Blofeld parallel :D
@@huntergalloway3944 Well yes the Blofeld was a module and then added keyboard later. Kudos to waldorf though because the keyboard on it is really good.
nice one, I love my Fizmo - took me many years to find one I could afford then they suddenly doubled in price 😛
Fauxmo is a great app to control the FIzmo, and it's much needed since the unit is very deep like the E-mu Proteus 200o and Command Stations needing the Prodatum app to reveal the complex patch cords system inside (yes a software modular inside the unit) - no control surface would be big enough unless you made a Deltronics DT-7 type box for it like the DX-7 can use 🙂
There are many other Ensoniq transwave synths but the tables in the Fizmo are unique but fixed.
The TS-10/TS-12 can load custom transwaves made with Tranzilon and you can do cool things like mapping the wavetable sweep to the mod wheel. 🙂
Fauxmo is really great!
Getting a coffee and muffin from speedway and watching bad gear on my break. Makes the day that much better 🔥🔥🔥
Cheers!!!
I actually got to play with one of these glittering aubergine-tinted beauties at the turn of the millenium, and loved it. For DnB it was weird and wooshy enough to cover a multitude of badly sampled sins.
I never bought one because I'd seen so many Ensoniq synths fall to pieces mid-show in the previous 15 years. Love the sounds, hate the build quality.
I bought a Virus B instead for general soundmangling duties, and I don't regret it.
For people who can't afford 10 gigabeans for a restored fizzikle Fizmo, UVI have parked a decent sampled emulation inside their Digital Synsations 2 soundbank, along with a Kawai K5000 clone and a JD800-alike.
The layering possibilities, even in UVI's free Workstation are pretty splendid, but if you own or rent Falcon, it can wig out and tweak for days, just like the original Fizmo hardware. So you can safely spend your gigabeans on Volcas and Boogs.
"cover a multitude of badly sampled sins" - good one;)
We had one unit at Mars Music around 2000 that basically was unsellable. After I left it sat for another two years and was repaired once. They ended up being blown out for like $400. If someone was smart enough to buy up the stock they would have basically set up their retirement.
True that!
Oh man! Mars music🤯 what a flashback! I haven't thought of that name in forever
Mars Music. When liquidation was going on, a fellow employee bought a rack case for 20 dollars. Of course there was $15,000 dollars of gear in it. Lol
If you run out of synths, you should do Bad Gear Effects series for pedals, rackmounts and such!
He's not gonna run out of bad gear until Roland goes bankrupt XD
@@BellXllebMusic True. Is still want bad gear for effects tho
@@BellXllebMusic ja hahaa suomalainen spotattu. mistäpäin oot?
@@22z83 he did do an Alesis compressor long ago, and I think a vocoder, he's more of a aynth head but doing effects would allow him to easily keep adding content
this is a show, as he says, "about the world's most hated audio tools"
That's what this channel mostly started with but the synths took over rather quickly
I miss mine. It was just wildly different than anything I'd ever used. Certainly not a jack of all trades, but it was very good at the very unique things it did.
Agreed!
I bought what I guess was the Benelux' last shop display unit when they went out of sale in the early 2000s, with a good discount 😁
Weird machine, but I'll never sell. It's indeed very, very easy to get lost in those unmixable weird nonsense sounds you hear on many demo's.
One technique to avoid that is indeed focusing on 1-key atmospheric pads, I made a few good ones of those.
But another, underreported technique is to use the more regular sounding waveforms to make classic lead sounds, and then add a layer of those ultraweird fizmo Transwaves, not too loud, possible 1 or 2 octaves higher. It's far from just an atmospheric pad machine... ☝️👍
Nice technique! If only the filter was a bit smoother
Pretty crazy soundscapes, but it feels like it was trying to go places people weren't exactly comfortable with yet. Great episode as usual.
Thank you!!!
EXACTLY! I was offered to buy one new for $800.00... I played with it briefly, considered its strange uncool color scheme - it wasn't BLACK! and easily passed on it. WTF was I thinking? I had been blinded by the whole techno sound and scene. Now I do ambient and want a FIZMO so bad... but more than that somebody like Arturia needs to make a proper emulation - model not sampled version of this awesome synth. The prices on these things along with the age and a dead manufacturer make it a NO GO!
Well, that is one of the most interesting synths I'd never heard of. I can see why you have been on the hunt. PS - Your compositional chops peeked out in places in this one.
Thank you!!!
I remember these being in the clearance pages of Musicians Friend catalog, for $500, for quite some time. Makes it all the funnier now that they’re collectors items
Lol same! I deliberated over that clearance page for a good two weeks damn
Time machines NOW!!!
@@AudioPilz “How did I make my fortune? Re-selling Fizmos.”
How have I never heard of this synth? It looks so gorgeously retrowavy synthpoppish
It's a rare beast...
Really like the sounds of the fizmo and the tracks you did. It somehow reminds me of the microfreak soundwise.
Thanks!!! Yeah, there are some similarities
Wow! Now I am impressed that you got your hands on one of these😳. Thanks so much for covering this- best overview I’ve seen 👍. Ensoniq were such an amazing & innovative company minor tragedy that it was allowed to disappear. I always had impression Fizmo was bit a concept synth released before it was not quite finished; could have further developed into genuine digital super synth. ( also bit surprised this has never been modelled in a vst).
Thank you!!! Yeah, we would need a brand like Ensoniq now...
As usual you managed to squeeze some awesome music out of the gear reviewed. I agree that it wouldn't be my first choice either! Next you should do the Radikal Technologies Spectralis 😃
Thank you so much!!! Let's see if Jörg Schaaf sends me one;)
Interesting. I spent the whole episode thinking, "That sounds awesome," but also, "It looks like it might be approximately as frustrating to program as my Korg Trinity, which also sounds awesome... hmm". And then in the back of my mind were more modern beasts like the Hyrasynth, Blofeld, and Iridium, which could all achieve similar results and probably without driving me up the wall with exasperation to do it.
We live in blessed times;)
@@AudioPilz Yeah. I mean, I've still got some saving to do. But yeah. In the meantime I'll continue to annoy myself with the Trinity. Gotta love those 90s interfaces.
Berhinger need to recreate this. Even if it's one of their new mini-synths.
I'm not sure if they can. Old code and digital chips can be tricky
Barringer needs to release ANY of their Mini synths, period.
I'd love a behringer line of micro recreations of famous and infamouse instruments. Like little Casio SA-1 sized versions. Talk about great stocking stuffers for synth nerds!
Transwaves have sort of died off as a technical approach, I think the preference is single cycle wavetable instead of the transwave approach. There is a thread on MW about how to emulate it somewhere
it would be cool to see a video on how you learn a new synth every week and create the jams you make to show off the qualities of the gear. you seem to have a very streamlined workflow to be able to cover obscure equipment every week, I'd love a look into that process.
Seriously! I too am astounded at how you get these videos done!
Great idea, thanks! I'll try to squeeze that in...
...Imagine a Fizmo VST. I'd buy it, come on Arturia!
check out Arturia's Pigments 3
I like the Fizzer's sound more!
I'd buy that for a dollar;)
@@AudioPilz I think you paid a lot more for the hardware, unless you borrowed the Fizmo!
The Fizmo was expensive 17/18 years ago when I was thinking about getting one. No surprise they're even more ridiculous now!
They were pretty affordable in between;)
Very fitting you’d mention Hydrasynth as an alternative. That’s what I immediately thought of - unabashedly digital sounding and capable of very similar experimental/left-field sounds. I think hydra’s interface will stand the test of time though - such a logical layout that doesn’t get in the way of sound design creativity.
Hydra is so advanced!!!
This was actually the first hardware synth I owned. It was indeed made for creating evolving and layered sounds, which it did really well. Problem for me was at the time I mostly wanted more meat and potatoes sounds and in order to make them I actually had to work at it, since it wasn’t really suited for them. I ended up selling it a few years later for a couple hundred bucks, and now I’m absolutely gob smacked by how much they go for on the used market. Like the one that got away, I guess I just didn’t appreciate it for what it was at the time. Live and learn. 😆
No one could anticipate that back then...
Never understood the Fizmo hate - everything I've heard from it I absolutely love. There again, I'm a bit of an Ensoniq obsessive and own four of their other keyboards. They always had their own quirky take on things, from the ESQ1 that did the Korg M1 and Roland D-50 sample based thing so much better, to the EPS and ASR samplers that were true workstations with great interfaces.
Nice collection!!!
Gotta love Ensoniq. We're still rockin' our 20yo SQ2 at church, tho honestly, the samples are starting to sound a bit dated. :)
I had an ESQ-1 it had a magnificent filter.
You hit the nail on the head - the Hydrasynth Explorer beats the Fizmo in pretty much all areas. Except as an investment opportunity!
Love the Hydra engine!!!
You sure about the investment part?
this isn’t really a fair comparison. Hydrasynth isn’t focused on wavetables. Modwave is probably the most Fizmoey modern synth
Screw Hydrasynth. It's full of meh. I'd take the Fizmo over that any day.
This synth will stay my favorite eternally. It’s a drug trip in itself. Maybe that’s why I bought two of them. Playing both together will send you out of this world.
Nice! Two are the bare minimum;)
Why is my boss not comprehending "Bad Gear joy and hearing my name through a Fizmo!!" as a perfectly valid reason to call out?? 🤷♂️
Should I talk to him (with or without vocoder)?
@@AudioPilz 😂🙏 Always WITH!
I owned an ESQ-1 and a Mirage (at the same time!!) and I loved them dearly. Didn't know about this one.
Nice ones!!!
HOLY HECK HE'S DOING THE FIZZMO!
It was about time!!!
That's it. Shows over, we've reached the Apex of Bad gear.
That one is indeed quite unique;)
Agreed! Horrible instrument I would say.
I got this in 1998, then when I graduated school and the bills came in during 1999 my mom had forced me to sell all my gear, I had 3 ensoniq samplers and the fizmo and an original novation bass station, but then they were no more lol I was stuck with only a crappy laptop and sony acid.
Sony Acid wasn't so bad...;)
ouch
Ohh you managed to get a hold on a FIZMO! Really great synth for bizzare and ambient sounds! I love it! :D
A suggestion for another piece of gear would be the Boss Jam Station 5 (JS5). I've seen them go dirt cheap. Don't know if they have enough stuff in them for a whole video but perhaps having a couple of similar machines in the same video would suffice.
Also the current Roland MC-101 would be a good contender for this show. While it is definetly a powerfull machine it is crippled in some really bizare ways, such as having linear envelopes on drum samples aswell as having alot of its deeper editing capabillities locked away behind the roland cloud paywall.
Great suggestion, thanks!
MC-101 is an "MC-707 demo/trial", or Roland "sound module". I picked up the 707 from the start as the 101's controls put me off, and 707 has double the tracks to further sweeten the deal, and more. It's a badass sampler and FX processor, too.
@@Jason75913 Yeah the 707 is definetly better in many regards. It still requires the roland cloud thingy if you want to edit it from PC though.
But the 101 has a lot of hardware differencies, which IMO is more than cripling enough for it to be a cheaper version than the 707. No need for them to also having crippled it on the software side.
Also I do wonder if the 707 has the same envelope issues on drumsamples (I would not be surprised if it does)
The 101 can also sample but reqires you to stream the audio to it via USB.
A couple reasons I chose the 101 over the 707 is the compact size, abillity to run it on batteries (both important for portabillity) and the lower price (and I bought mine second hand at half price).
@@Gin-toki 707 is fully editable on its own, a PC is purely optional
@@Jason75913 Yes that is correct, although PC editing can be faster with a better overwiev of everything.
But the editor provided by roland sadly requires their cloud thingy.
Great video 😎👍. I wouldn't say no to one of these but I suspect your skills flatter this instrument. I do have a soft spot for Ensoniq and I'm surprised that Akai took so long to get round to releasing a sampling keyboard - not that I need one.
Thank you!!!
cool! I find this is one of the lushest sounding synths you ever reviewed.
Interesting!!!
Oh Fizmo, You had a name that sounds like it could have been the most hated 90's movie sidekick or cartoon character.
True that!
I always feel nostalgic but depressed by Ensoniq and Commodore. Both were based a few miles from me, but met a early and untimely demise.
Simpler times...
Ensoniq was based in Malvern, Pennsylvania.
Yaaaaaas! I love the fizmo🤘almost bought one back in the day but I went with the Yamaha FS1r….
FX1r is nice!!!
Have an Fs1r here too. Had it since realise.
Might be biased, but I think you made the right choice.
@@ConstantLittleGhost I mean, it literally will speak…and those keys sounds are incredible. 16 possible operators????? TONS of some of the best 90’s fx (that still hold up btw). No brainer. Only thing that sucks is the interface and that’s where gold ol sound diver comes in lolz!!!
Oooh. Another instrument that I probably would enjoy programming. Although I agree that it does seem to have trouble sitting well in the mix. Thanks for showing off such a rarity.
I really love my VFXSD keybed with the poly aftertouch... Really a joy to play until it triggers a system error and I have to reload the OS... lol.
I'd love to try a VFX!
@@AudioPilz DHL/UK post lost 3 of about 7 packages to the US. And unrelatedly, my last used synth purchase was torqued / damaged in transit... So I'm would be a bit hesitant about shipping it, although I'd absolutely love to see what you did with it...
A shame, because similar (but to a lesser degree) as with the Emax SE, the VFX can make some musical artifacts when pushing one of the low res wave samples to the edge.
I tried one when it came out. "Shrill" as hell, and in many ways a one-trick-pony. I was so sad as an Ensoniq fan - The VFX that came before it, sounds awesome.
I'd love to try a VFX
I've always wanted to try one. It's ironic that so many of the patches you played remind me of the Emu Morpheus. I guess the guys over at Emu were preemptively preparing for the merger five years early. :)
Interesting. I really have to take a closer look at the E-MU product line
@@AudioPilz Yeah, Emu gear is cool, great sounds, amazing what little boxes like the proteus line could make, with so little sample ROM, and at a great price. Very cool company 👍
@@AudioPilz I remember E-MU's Orbit the Dance Planet being pretty bad. But now a bunch of people are probably going to jump on me and say it was actually great.
One shop alone that I worked at in Cleveland had half a dozen 80s era boot from floppy disk ensoniq chassis in the junk pile. Every techs nightmare....
😱😱😱
Heck yes, something from Ensoniq! I'm a proud owner of an ESQ-M and a VFX-SD :)
Nice!!!
Thanks for pour vidéo, Florian.
The Fizmo is an incredible sound design gear, but not versatile. I don't know why many musicians prefer obsolet synths like Korg wavestation or Waldorf microwave : these synths are really unprogrammables. The waves of an Waldorf clicks affully, even with recently "M".
Thanks! Fortunately there are quite a few modern Waldorfs out there...
FIZMO is epically overpriced these days. Like so many great synth companies, Ensoniq was pivotal in the late 80s and early 90s; shame they got bought by an empire without vision. Great vid, AudioPilz. Now do the Technics SX-WSA1.... another overpriced synth with massive limitations for the price.
"empire without vision"
an empire bankrupt in imagination altogether, lol, and probably run by Chinese execs as their products all reek of "chinese junk" quality
Yeah, the tragic story of Ensoniq is Shakespearean. Ensoniq were a vanguard in their day. No one could afford an EMU so along came the disrupter.
Thank you, great suggestion!
this is everything the Yamaha Cs1x wishes it was. those mid-range pad sounds. holy cow.
i would love to have one of these.
Yeah, it's almost all mid range...
UVI Digital Synsations 2 has Fizmo samples. Certainly more limited than owning the hardware would be, but a lot cheaper, and with some unique sounds for sure.
Very interesting video!
I'm amazed that you got your hands on a Fizmo!
And hands down, this is the best demonstration of this synth, i've seen so far. In most demos, i've seen, the Fizmo sounded just fizzy and thin. Not so in your video! Well done!
But still... The Fizmo is in my opinion the prime example to show someone what is often meant when a synth is described as sounding "digital".
I really can't believe, Creative Labs f***ed up two of the best makers of digital synths. Ensoniq and E-MU have such a great legacy. I'm wondering what digital synths we'd enjoy by now, if those two companies would've survived?
Thanks!!! I even supported Creative back then by buying one of their Soundblasters as a kid...
All these synths were great bargains, as in, they can do some really cool stuff, but they've been superceded. I wanted one of these for 10 years... but the Wavestate give me the sounds I'd want from Fizmo, and I think I prefer Wavestate's sound. For most people, modwave or Hydrasynth would supercede Fizmo. Waldorf M supercedes Microwave. 3rd Wave supercedes the PPG.
By "supercedes", I mean they're still fine synths, but it doesn't make sense to pay more for the old synth than the price of its newer version. It was weirdos buying this type of synth back then, just like now. Wedding singers aren't buying Iridium Keyboard unless they're secretly (or not) a weirdo. Which is good!
Though, I AM a little worried about how popular wavetable synthesis is getting. Can there be too many weirdos? San Francisco seems to manage. I say bring it on.
Wavetable synths took over in the VST realm long ago, expect hardware to catch up over the next decade.
i immediately thought of the wavestate. . seems much more versatile and cheaper, probably has better filters too
Yes, almost all old synth with ridiculous prices, you buy not to make music, but to collect..
Exceptions are, for example, the old V Synth and the Korg Radias.
Yeah, there have been some really innovative synths to come out over the last few years
Hey Pilz, I had 2 of these at the same time. I had them for years. I bought the first one for 300, and the second for 600, and I think I sold them for around the same. sometimes I miss it, but then I think about the thousands of hours I spent with them, and think, "no, I don't miss them" because after a while, you start realizing they are a one dimensional instrument, and you will find the end of it's abilities eventually. I made a lot of great jams with them, but moved on for more versatile gear. Also, the midi implementation sucks really bad. I could never get sound diver to work on either of the two, and was weird midi problems at any time. the power supply that came with them was trash, they could explode ,one of mine started to fry, but I caught it before it ruined the synth. I see the prices and just laugh . yes, they are super fun, but again, after a while, you just get tired of them.
you could get something like the korg wavestate these days for 700 bucks or so. . seems way more versatile. .
i do love ensoniq as a company though, my favorite synth is the SQ-80. . they put poly aftertouch in most of their offerings
@@JustinEdwords I've had a lot of synths, and I had the SQ-80 , and it was another one of those that at the time I felt was just way to difficult to program. and mine was mint! I sold if for a few hundred, like the rest of them at the time in the early 2000 that no one wanted them. Im hoping that Behringer will make something like the ensoniqs .. I had a VFX and loved that synth. amazing. a very unique sound out of all of their synths for sure. If I had a ton of cash, I would buy the rights to Ensoniq and have some engineers make a modern classic .. tons of knobs, tons of memory, and do like korg, and make software that is the same as the synth, so you can easily build patches. Korg is the king now as far as I'm concerned with synth building.
Yeah, lack of versatility is really a bit of a bummer. This one is running on a Super Nintendo power supply btw;)
@@AudioPilz oh crap! well it took me months to get a replacement back in the late 90's. tell your bros and fans that if they have one, better get non factory spares, because they are the shit dangerous ones
I'm really curious if there are any good free/cheap VSTs that cover this kind of ground? I have one a VST with some of the sounds from one of the Ensoniq synths but the palette is a bit limited. i've always heard wobbly things about the Fizmo but if someone recreated it 100% as a VST that would be incredibly cool.
Not cheap but there's the UVI DZmo.
I think it would be hard to emulate the modulation behavior
Now do Kawai K5000!
Great suggestion, thanks!
Yeah, this is actual bad gear. Lifeless, bland and boring, and also ridiculously overpriced. No idea what do people like on it - most, if not all, of what it does can be done on other, way cheaper synths just as well, if not better. It just seems like yet another pointless cult/circlejerk.
Not exactly my thing but there are quite a few people who really seem to dig the sound
This was so good! This is definitely one of the most unique sounding protagonists we've had in a while on bad gear!
😀😀😀
Gut gemacht AP! Ich hab etwas gelernt. I snagged a FIZMO for $500 (half the normal price, if I remember correctly) when it was announced it was discontinued. I was pretty frustrated it had a fair number of parameters that were hidden without a software editor, and I was never blown away with the core sound of the Transwaves. IMO, they just didn't sound that great without effects, and adding too much filter resonance fairly easily distorted the effects. Sold it about a decade ago for a bit more than I paid for it, not long after I picked up a used Access Virus C, which I thought was MUCH easier to navigate and use. And I still think the Virus C sounds better (at least for what I like in a synth). Had I been into long drone-y, ambient music, I might have kept it, but it didn't fit what I wanted at the time. Now I only wish I'd kept the FIZMO to let it appreciate in value a bit more.
Vielen herzlichen Dank!!!
I've been wanting to get my hands on one of these for a decade... I'm glad you got to do it first, I'm satisfied now 😂
Maybe get one of the rack units for 10K;)
My week sucks, I had a headache and the world felt coming to an end - and then YOU came along this friday and changed all that, thanks! Never heard of the Fizmo, but after a few of your experiments with it I slowly changed to "I want one, gib me now!" - And then you went ahead and mention it was produced in limited numbers, and sells for more than most peoples used cars are worth and yeah, maybe not so much. (PS: Still want one, but those prices...urgh).
Yup, these prices are quite a buzzkill... Have a nice(r) one!!!
The jam towards the end was absolutely awesome! I’d love to hear a full track of that. Well played, sir!
Thank you so much!!! Full track can be found on Patreon (end of plug;)
Awesome video! Had one of these back in their time, paid 150 dollars for it (in 2000) and never really got into it, also back then I remember seeing ESQ-1's at almost every pawn shop often at under 100 bucks (I had like 4), those were the days, long gone now. RIP Ensoniq, one of the coolest synth, sampler, FX companies EVER!
Thanks! Wow, insane price!!!
Awesome! I've been waiting for the Fizmo episode since this channel launched!
❤️❤️❤️
Fizmo is one of those models I spotted as a teenager, being 18 years old when it hit the market, that was something of a shocker to me. I’d let myself become conditioned to think no new synthesizer would have the complement of real time controllers this one has; I had probably put a mental block on the existence of the AN1x, JP-8000, Bass Station and first 2 Nord Lead models, not to mention the Waldorf and Access models. The idea of having an instrument you could (sort of) control the same way you could control the Minimoog seemed too good to be true. It might have been a good thing I didn’t try getting one, but that had more to do with the idea that my father always attempted to tell me I already had a synthesizer (the Alesis QS6) and should spend more time learning how to get better sounds out of it.
If this were my channel, AP, I frankly would have produced my first upload to be about the QS6. That model is one that I ended up choosing because my grandfather was paying for it and I did not want to spend too much of his money, but it ultimately led me to feeling deep buyer’s remorse. After I became accustomed to its sound engine, I discovered it only possess any value as a MIDI controller; its sound set really is that lo fidelity, even if you load external samples through its data card port. I wish I had soaked my grandfather for the amount of money it would’ve sent me back to get the Korg 01W Pro X.
The 1 key strategy thing with this unit is the trick that seems to work. I must say that this channel is on another level. The playing skills to milk great sounds out of these bad gears is only rivaled by the skills and time required to put together the background video clips. I do not know how you do it so well, Mr. Bad Gear. Thanks again. May there be unlimited bad gear in our future for you to review!
Thank you so much!!!
Man, youre really diggin up all of the 90''s + Stuff out of the graves. Love it.
Weirdest time of synth creation!!!
Worth mentioning that while the fizmo has multi stage looping envelopes, if you tweak the envelope knobs the envelopes switch to an adsr mode. I sat down and figured it out once, with the addition of one knob and two switches, all the parameters (except the fx section) would've been fully editable from the front panel.
The poor man's fizmo is an mr-61 or an mr-rack and the expansion cards. The only thing that gets lost is the resonant filter and what is gained is an actual multi mode rather than a 4 voice split. Someone makes a repro of the expansion cards. An asr-x works too and you get an equally bad digital resonant filter, but the asr-x is the one synth/sampler I've owned that I would actually consider bad.
True! That can be quite a buzzkill
This is one of my absolute favorites pieces of gear, along with the Ensoniq EPS and ASR
Agree & also own those 3 pieces (& duplicates) 🤗
Nice!!!
Hey Florian! It's always a treat on a friday afternoon after I come home from work, to watch a new episode of Bad gear before the weekend starts. Love the memes, the demo songs you make, and generally learning about new (bad) gear. Loving your new video as always! I've seen the Ensoniq Fizmo before, and I don't think the inflated price is worth it, but it has an interesting look and sound, so good to learn more about it. I was wondering if/when you are going to make an episode featuring the Arturia Polybrute. It's one of the few hardware synths I own (Alongside the Moog Subsequent 37, Yamaha MODX6 and Arturia Drumbrute Impact and some old arranger keyboards that don't count as synths). The Polybrute is my favourite synthesizer, but many people don't share my enthusiasm. They Say "It sounds like a VST", it has "bad oscillators", "can't do decent brass or string sounds", "The morphé is gimmicky", "the design is ugly" with 'too many knobs and buttons". I can see if i can collect screenshots of some of these comments if you like. I don't understand these points of criticism. Maybe people are using it wrong, don't understand how it works or whatever. I'd like a more objective point of view to find out what people mean and how to deal with any potential shortcomings of my synth. So, could you feature the Polybrute at some point?
Also some guy on the internet who says he's a sound engineer himself and builds his own oscillators claims the Polybrute can't do a proper saw wave "just some hairy thing". Judge for yourself. The Polybrute says it can do a saw wave though. If you play it it sounds like you expect a saw to sound. If you look at it through an oscilloscope or other visualizer, it looks perfectly normal. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing spectacular. Just you versatile bread and butter saw wave. No "hairs", nothing. Either that guy has a faulty model, he's doing something wrong, or I just don't know what a proper saw wave is supposed to sound and look like.
Thanks! Great suggestion, the PolyBrute is moving up my list...
Idea for an episode:
- get a Moog One;
- do the regular "ticks all the boxes" round and the first two jams;
- then reveal that all sounds so far were made with NI Monark;
- play the final jam with the One;
- finish by saying that maybe the final jam was played on the One, or maybe it was the single jam of the episode played on the Monark and the rest were the One... NOBODY WILL EVER KNOW!
Boom, most controversial Bad Gear episode done!
Moog One sounds like Monarch? Eww.
Great idea!!!
Whoah, when I got mine in the ‘00s for about $350, I had a few opportunities to get rack versions for the ‘ungodly’ price of $600-$700. Jeez, if I only knew.
It's like buying Bitcoin in 2012;)
Man
Jams are amazing as always, especially Jam 2
You step up your game every time with new bad gear
Thank you so much!!!
Okay... Whew! I thought you were wrapping up without going through the Fizmo's vocoder, and I was getting upset. LOL!
I've been waiting to see you get your hands on one of these ever since you started doing the vocoder shoutouts. It did not disappoint.
That was a one-time opportunity;)
I feel like we're getting closer to the kurzweil k2000 video I've been waiting for :)
It most probably has to happen;)
If you peel back the "leias" of my heart you'll just find an "I
❤️❤️❤️
First time viewer. I love your content, especially when watching your keyboards as you play. I'm a beginner in music and it really helps to watch a master at work. Thanks very very much!
Thank you so much!!! Stick around!
Nice pi clip!
You always have the best edits.
Happy Friday
Thank you!!!
Oh my goodness I was doing a deep dive on romplers and old samplers and rediscovered this synth this week, was gonna suggest it in the comments and here it is!
😀😀😀
Oh man, I wish I had bought a Fizmo back in the day when it was new. I drooled over it but never bit the bullet to get one.
Same here. Probably best bought around 2010;)
¡¡Ensoniq might have actually stayed in business if only they just threw that FIZMO’s reverb into a rack unit, and just saved the product development costs!!
I really think Ensoniq gave The Kurzweil K2000 a run for its money with their top notch weighted key KS32. For 20th century tech, the KS32 keys easily take the prize with that Keybed. Thanks again, Mr. Pilz!
Thanks! They did, try out a DP2 or 4
That's probably the best intro sound yet
😀
This is the one i was waiting for. Thanks
Thank you for watching!