Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    Bizarre!
    
    It sounds just like a VFX-SD with the exception of using credit
    card type memory modules instead of the usual Ensoniq E-proms.
    
    If it is truly different than the VFX, all I can say is that I
    hope and pray that it offers some level of compatability/conversion
    with the SQ-80/ESQ-1.
    
    The only reason I haven't bought a VFX-SD is because I've got too much
    invested in the SQ-80.  I had always thought that eventually Ensoniq
    would just provide some VFX software that would convert your ESQ
    sequences and do some intelligent if not exact conversion of ESQ
    sounds.
    
    	db

    
>    It sounds just like a VFX-SD with the exception of using credit
>    card type memory modules instead of the usual Ensoniq E-proms.
    
>    If it is truly different than the VFX, all I can say is that I
>    hope and pray that it offers some level of compatability/conversion
>    with the SQ-80/ESQ-1.
    

	I have not had time to enter all of the specifics yet, but I'll
give you a general run-down on it.  It is definitely based on the VFXsd
synth and sequencer, not the ESQ SQ80.


VOICE ARCHITECTURE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
           SQ-1                              VFX-SD
=================================   	=============================
1 meg wavesample memory       		1.7 eg wavesample memory
3 oscilator per voice			6 oscilator per voice
21 note polyphonic			21 note polyphonic

All of the paramters for the oscilators appear to be the very similar (1 lfo
per, filter envelope, pitch envelope, amp. enbelope, 2 filters), with the
exception of custom tunings.  The SQ-1 can play back system tunings or fixed. 
The VFX-SD allows custom tuning tables.  The SQ-1 has less wavesample
memory.  Some of the samples are shorter.  It is not clear yet wether it
contains all of the samples on the VFX-SD.  It does however have additional
drum samples not found on the VFX-SD.  A few extra snare samples, and more
percusion (hand claps, finger snaps...). Also, if a patch is used for drums, 17
drum samples can be assigned a key-range, 2 filters, pitch? (I have trying to
get them to add this to the VFX-SD). 

SEQUENCER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sequencer is definitely based on the VFX-SD.

Almost all of the features of the VFX-SD sequencer as far as track editing.
Auto punch in/out. 30 songs, 70 sequences.  8 sequencer tracks, 8 songs tracks.
It might be possible to transfer sequences back and forth from the SQ1 to the
VFX-SD, but this has not been verified. 


STORAGE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
No disk drive.  It stores information on one of those credit card
(like the d50) type cards.  The card can hold 160 patchs? and/or
sequencer information.  I assume sequnces can also be dumped
via sysex.  

PERFORMANCE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are performance presets like on the EPS and VFX.  They can
split/layer/zone/transpose/pan/release rate etc... 8 internal
or midi patchs.  No patch selects (with only 3 oscilators, I
can almost see them leaving this out). 

KEYBOARD
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Velocity sensitive, no aftertouch.   

EFFECTS
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It appears to have the exact same effects processor as the VFX-SD.

BACK PANEL
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
MIDI in,out,thru
Pedal cv
Footswitch
stereo out

DISPLAY and USER INTERFACE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It looks like a roland U-20.  The case it not the same case used in the
ESQ,SQ80, ESP, VFX, VFX-SD.  The display is no longer the large
display with the soft buttons above and below the display.  It has
a 2 line backlit LCD.  1 data enter slider with data entery buttons
like:

		/|\
                 |
           <---------->
                 |
                \|/

I guess this will save them some money, but prefer the soft buttons!!!


				Mark...

    
    Of course the real reason they are coming out with this is because I
    just bought a used SQ-80  8^)  8^)  8^)
    	
    							Brian

Here are the specifications off of the back of the flyer
that appears in .0.


SQ'1 - THE ENSONIQ PERSONAL MUSIC STUDIO

KEYBOARD
o 61 key (c-c) with programmable velocity sensitivity
o Up to 8 programmable keyboard zones for splits and layers

CONTROLLERS
o Programmable dual footswitch input for sustain, sequencer start/stop, 
  and other assignable functions
o Pitch and Mod Wheels
o Mod/Volume Pedal input

INTERNAL SOUND MEMORY
o 180 sounds available without a memory card:
  - 80 RAM sounds
  - 100 ROM sounds including 20 dedicated drum and percussion sets

CARD
o 160 additional sounds possible on each ROM/RAM card
o Cards can also store sequencer data

WAVES
o 8 Megabits (1 Megabyte) of waveform ROM
o Over 1100 variaions possible from the 121 wave selections which include:
  -Multi-sampled piano, strings, brass, and bass waves with timber shifted
   versions
  -Sustained synthesizer waveforms wtih harmonic and inharmonic structures
  -Transwave spectral interpolation waves with real-time modulation
  -Acoustic and electronic drums including kicks, snares, tom-toms, hi-hats,
   and cymbals
  -Percussion waves including Latin percussion, world music percussion,
   orchestra blasts, fingersnaps, tambourine, and others
o Modulatable start point and forward-backward playback mode on most samples
o pitched of fixed frequency playback of all waves possible   

VOICE ARCHITECTURE
o 21 dynamically assigned voices with programmable voice priority
o A single Sound can use up to 3 waves per key simultaneously (Drum sounds 
  can use up to 17 drum voices)
o Programmable voice delay up to 250 msec
o 2 independent multi-mode dynamic digital filters per voice (low pass,
  high pass, variable bandwidth band pass)
o 3 fixed stage envelopes per voice w/13 parameter per voice
o 17 preset envelope templates for ease of programming
o One LFO per voice
o 15 modulation sources routable to Pitch, Filter 1&2, Volume, 
  Wave Start Index, Effects Mix and others

PERFORMANCE PRESET PARAMETERS
o The combination of up to 8 sounds, special performance parameters
  and an effects setup can be saved as a Preset
  - Performance parameters include Volume, Pan, Timbre,
    Key Zone, Transpose, Release Time and others.

OUTPUT
o 16-bit D/A conversion with 96dB dynamic range
o First-order linear interpolation for wide tanspostion range
o Linear phase output filters
o Stero panning per voice

DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSOR
o Custom VLSI 24-bit digital signal processor (ESP chip)
  wtih 48-bit accumulation
o Programmable steroe effects processing with dynamic performance control
  capability
o Multiple effects including Reverb, Chorus, Flanging, Delay, Distortion,
  Phase Shifter, Roto Speaker combinations.
o Three stereo buses allowing for dry individual or grouped effects
  processing.

SEQUENCER
o 16 polyphonic tracks (including 8 "Song Tracks") each with
  seperate Sound, volume and MIDI channel/status
o 70 Sequence/ 30 Song structure
o Over 9,000 note capacity standard, expandable to 58,000 with
  options SQX-70 memory expansion kit
o Clock resolution 96 PPQ
o Song form provides up to 99 steps with up to 99 repetsions for 
  each step (each Sequence Track in a Step can be individually
  transposed and/or muted for memory efficient use)
o Tracks can play internal Sounds and/or external MIDI instruments
o 3 real-time record modes (Replace, Add, Looped) and Step-Entry 
  recording possible 
o Post-quantization (auto-correct up to 1/64th note triplets)
o Automated punch/edit points remembered for each sequence
o Step editing, bar/beat/clock and key range editing, transpostion,
  time-shifting, append, extract, change length track merge,
  filter, scall controllers
o All editing can be auditioned before saving changes
o Auto-locate controls, adjustable click track, Tap Tempo control
o MIDI Auto Mix feature records all volume/panning changes
  for each Track.  

MIDI 
o Omni, Poly, Multi, Mona A and Mono B
o Multi-timbral, accomodating up to 8 simultaneous polyphonic MIDI
  channels with seperated sounds and performance parameters
o Responds to global controllers in Mono modes for use with
  alternate controlers (MIDI guidars, window controllers, etc.)
 

INPUTS/OUTPUTS
o 1/4" PHONE JACK CONNECTORS:
  - Left and Right audio outputs (connecting either
    singly provides mono output)
  - Serperate headphone output
  - Single/Dual footswitch input
  - Pedal/Control Voltage input (allows modulation from external sources)
o MIDI connectors
  - MIDI in/out/thru

DISPLAY/PANEL
o 32 (2x16) character LDC displpay
o 41 front panel buttons, 12 with LED indicators (including 8
  dedicated sequencer track buttons for ease of sequencing)

STANDARD ACCESSORIES:
o Musicians manual
o Detachable power cord
o SW-1 footswitch

OPTIONAL ACCESSORIRES
o MC-32 and MC-64 RAM data cords (stores sound and sequencer data)
o SC and ISC series ROM sound cards
o SW-5 Dual footswith - 2 pedal piano type for
  sustain pedal, sequencer start/stop, Sutenuto, Song Step Advance
o CVP-1 (CV Pedal) - for voice modulation or volume control
o SQX-70 sequencer memory expander (expands memory from over 9,000 to 
  58,000 note capacity)


PHYSICAL
o Dimensions: 40 3/8" (102.6 cm) widee x 5 1/8" (13cm) high x 19" (34 cm)
  deep 
o Weight: 25 pounds (11.3 kilograms) 


LIMITED WARRANTY
o One year, parts and labor

Process and specifications subject to change without notice.

Last night I went down to the Ensoniq Clinic at Union Music in Worcetsre, MA
and saw the VFX and SQ-1 machines demoed side by side.  It cleared up a lot of
questions on the SQ-1.

1. Voicing

Like the VFX, there are 21 "voices".  Patches are built up from up to 3 waves,
if you use 3 waves you get 7 voice poly, 2 waves, 10 voice poly, etc.  Over
MIDI, it's 8 part multitimbral.  The VFX lets you use up to 6 waves, so some
more complex sounds are definitely possible, but you can also cheat and layer
two 3 wave sounds together on the SQ-1 to get a 6 wave sound.  Voice data is
*not* interchangeable with either VFX machine at the sysex level.  Also, some
of the waves are different.  However, the rep demoed two patches, one on each
machine and they sounded identical.

2.  Effects

24 bit processing, three types of algorithms: delay, chorus/flange, reverb.
Multi-processing can be done, however only if the algorithms are from a
different group.  He showed a split with dry bass on the bottom, chorused piano
in the middle and reverbed flute on top as an example.  You can cascade, too. 
For instance a delayed lead patch, a chorused piano and a dry string patch can
all be fed into a reverb, etc. What's illegal is having two different reverbs,
etc.   The SQ-1 has some new effects, including a phaser and a
distortion/reverb algorithm that will be included on updates to the VFX in
about a month.  There is a Leslie simulator with speed-up/slow-down available.

3.  Sequencer

Basically identical to the VFX-SD, but only 16 tracks (8 in sequence mode, 8 in
song mode) instead of 24.  9,000 notes exapndable to 56,000.  Expander is about
$300.  This is the first Ensoniq synth to have true step entry!!  Probably
can't step backwards, tho  8^)  8^)  This sequencer is miles beyond the ESQ-1,
you can now velocity edit, time shift, and do note removes with range and time
scaling (i.e. only take out notes above middle C appearing after the 3rd beat
of the measure, etc.).  One cool feature, also on the VFX-SD: you can tap in
your tempo using the enter key.   The VFX-SD upgrade will gain the step entry
mode.  Sequences can now be stored to card (32K and 64K cards will be
available).

4. Other Differences from VFX

No disk, no aftertouch on keyboard (responds to channel or poly over MIDI), no
patch select buttons.  The small display is a disappointment but the rep
mentioned that since everybody else has a small LCD readout, many buyers seem to
*expect* one.  Not mentioned was that for future products, LCD panels can
support graphics while the flourescent display of the other Ensoniq machines
can't.  No rack mount on the horizon.  The rep said due to the small size of
the company they don't want to get into the under $1K market and get beat up
with the Japanese.  We'll see.  Oh yeah, one other new Ensoniq product: they
have gone into the hearing aid business.


							Brian

    I happened to be noodling on an SQ-1 yesterday and discovered yet
    another turnabout from Ensoniq SOP.  
    
    When the ESQ-1 came out, it was the first synth I had tried which would
    not cut off all notes when you changed patches, but rather any
    sustained notes sounded the old patch and new notes sounded the new
    one.  Recently other manufacturers have been touting this as a great
    new feature...sheesh, Ensoniq's had it for years.
    
    Anyway, the SQ-1 does NOT do this.  Every time I called up a new patch,
    *poof*, away went my notes!!!  
    
    Food for thought if this might be important to you.
    
    							Brian

    Hmmm... 
    
    Question to VFX owners: does the VFX also have this regression?
    
    Actually... come to think of it:
    
    Question for SQ-1 owners: what happens when you switch from one
    sequence to the next in a song.  Do sustained notes at the end
    of the first sequence get cut off when the 2nd sequence comes up?
    
    That could be a MAJOR pain.
    
    	db - future VFX-SD owner

    
    From the manual....
     
    
     IF you set VOICE MUTING = ON  sustained notes will be cut off when
     				   the patch change occurs.
    
     If VOICE MUTING = OFF  voices that are sustaining from previous
    			    sounds will continue to play as long as
    			    the keys are down ( or till the MIDI Note off)
                                                   
     The one caveat is - if the new patch has a different EFFECT ( reverb
    etc) it will be applied to the sustaining voices.
    
                         
    brien                          
    

With the 2.0 version of the VFX software they changed the default from muting
off to muting on.

Dave

    Surprise, surprise...
    
    At a clinic the last week of May, Ensoniq rep Bob Stillman swore that
    no new rack-mount modules would be coming from Malvern.  So now it's
    August 2nd and I open up EM and see ablurb on the SQ-R.  Now we all
    know magazines set their content well in advance of the date they hit
    the street, so Ensoniq obviously knew this was coming out....sigh.
    
    The SQ-R, $1195, is the SQ-1 minus keyboard and sequencer.  
    
    						Brian  

        Which Should I Get, SQ-1 or W-30 ?!

   After reading all of this topics, I'm now inclined to SQ-1(W-30, 
   last night). But one thing I'm concerned. SQ-1 has (cheesy) 
   two-line LCD, while W-30 has better(wider) one. Don't you, SQ-1 
   owners, feel a frustration about that? Can you put up with it??

   /sugimoto

    It's a toss-up.
    
    IMO Ensoniq is almost legendary for their excellent documentation
    and easy-to-use user interfaces.
    
    Also, IMHO, Roland is "notorious" for their poor documentation and
    obscure interfaces (I hold the S-550 up as the primo example). 
    
    However, Roland has always been (ok, "IMO") a forward thinking company
    and it is clear that they realize that in the process of making the
    boxes do more and more amazing things, we are approaching a saturation
    point where the limiting factor is not "what it does" but "how easy
    it is to understand how to make it do it".
    
    A year or so ago, Roland took a bold and welcome step forward (with
    that in mind) by offering a series of new boxes whose emphasis was
    not so much "what new stuff it does", but rather having new display
    technologies that made them much easier to use.
    
    So, I'd say you probably can't go wrong with either, 
    

    I've had my SQ-1 for about a month now and have no problems with the
    small display, if fact I think it looks a lot smarter and it does the
    job well.  It's a great keyboard and has exellent percussion sound, my
    only complaint are the bass sounds, not enough of them so I'm looking
    for a RAM card to fix that.  Any of you guys/girls  have any good RAM
    cards.  By the way, can sombody tell me what PROs and CONs where on 
    KEYBOARD magazine's review of the keyboard as we get them a little late
    here in Australia, the current issue is August 90.
    
    Serg.
    

        Thanks for -1 and -2. 

        I see. No problem about small display.
        And next question. What is SQX-70. I read in SQ-1's brochure 
        we can expand the sequencer's memory up to 90000 sounds by it.
        It must be a memory-card, but I'm not sure. How does it cost?

        BTW, I went to the keyboard shop last Friday, and tried SQ-1 
        and its demo. Yeah, splendid... Especialy the percussion and 
        the base sound(I like it). W-30 was also there, but did not 
        work. Shop man said,
        "It(W-30 or SQ-1) depends on your purpose. W-30 can sample any
        sound, but it can't synthesize(really?!). SQ-1 has synthesize
        feature and some effectors. And Japanese keyboard can't generate
        this(he pointed the speaker that plays SQ-1 demo) low tone."

        Hmm...

        /sugimoto

    Please don't get me wrong.  I like the SQ1's bass sounds I just don't
    think there are enought of them.  As for the SQX-70, as I understand
    it, it is an expansion of the sequencer's memory which is installed
    inside the case.  Standard the SQ1 can record about 9,000 notes with the 
    SQX-70 installed it can record about 58,000.  I'm not sure about the
    price, last I heard it was about $US300.00.
    
    Serg. 

The more I compare SQ-1 with the other keyboards, the better it looks to me. I 
considered SY-77. It can handle only one song at a time, and the sound was not
good. I played it yesterday at the shop. I was far from impressed. And W-30, it 
has no synthesizing feature, also has less effectors. M-1, the HUI is awful, 
right?

I called Japan-Ensoniq and asked what sorts of options I can get.
He told me,
        SQX-70  Memory expansion kit. 45000 yen(300$)
        MC-32   Card  14800 yen(99$)

If only SQ-1 had 3.5 disk drive as VFX-SD, I won't hesitate...

sugimoto

I was able to spend a good hour poking with an SQ-R over lunch.  This is a nice
unit, although it may have trouble finding its niche.  Basically it packs most
of the sonic power of a VFX into a single rack space for a street price of $800
or so.  That seems high vs. lots of other modules, D110, TG55, etc. but the
SQ-R goes way beyond all of them, and really should be competing with boxes
like the D-550 and M1R (which are way more expensive).

The voice structure is weird.  Each patch can use up to three "voices", with a
total of 21 in the box (so 7-note poly with 3-voice patches).  Each voice has
an oscillator, an LFO, two filters (one is low-pass only, the other may be high
*or* low pass), a DCA, and panning.  The patch is then assigned effects.  To
maximize voice usage, each voice is assigned a priority, low, medium or high. 
When a new voice wants to steal another it can only steal voices of equal or
lower priority, and always steals the lower priority first.  So if you assign
things like attack transients low priority, you can make the polyphony of the
unit appear to be greater than it actually is.  You have 121 waveforms to
choose from, including Transwaves, which are basically a connected set of
varying waveforms which you can sweep across with modulators, in order to get
time-varying timbres that are unattainable with filters.

In the multitimbral mode, you can choose to use the panning and effects
routings of the individual patches, or override them.  Nice idea.  In most
cases you'll want to at least need to override the effects.  You have 80 multi
setups in the box, which can be selected by patch selects sent over the box's
base MIDI channel.  Each multi also has the usual key window, transpose, detune,
channel select, etc. settings you would expect.

The effects unit uses 24 bit processing.  You can have either single or multi
effects.  The singles include reverbs, chorusing and phasing, and allow mucho
parameter control.  The multis offer a chain of two or more effects, with
a simpler reverb at the end.  You have two effects busses; on single effects
you can have different wet/dry mix on each bus, while for dual effects, bus 2
gets only reverb while bus 1 gets the full chain and both have individual
wet/dry mix.  You can also choose dry.  The two effects that blew me away were
the distortion+reverb, used in the "Dirt Guitar" patch...wow, pretty good HM
guitar simulation.  The rotospeaker+reverb makes the organ patches come alive. 
The mod wheel acts like the Leslie switch and it does speed up and slow down.
Nice, nice, nice.

The SQ-R has a jack for the CVP-1 pedal, in case you want to use pedal
modulation and your controller won't send it.  

When programming patches, if you want to save time, there are about a dozen
preset envelopes you can choose, including "piano decay", "slow strings",
"blip", "Pad", etc.  Once you choose a preset envelope you can still tweak it.
The programming is straight forward, but it's menu/cursor based, which is slow
if you need to tweak one parameter deep into the menu; however, the cursor
wraps around, so the hardest spot to get to is actually the *middle*
parameters, since you can scroll backwards to get at the last few.  ESQ fans
will notice that instead of using two assignable modulators at each block, the
LFO is hardwired to most, and you have one assignable modulator.  Like the ESQ,
you can choose one external MIDI controller (outside of the default set of
1,4,6,7,64,71).

There are 20 drum kits which reside at patch locations 81-100, the regular
patches reside at 1-80, multis can be accessed by program change 1-80, and
program changes 125-128 over the base channel can select internal ROM, internal
RAM, card bank 1 or card bank 2 for the source of the 80 patches.  Well thought
out.  So everything can be accessed *without* resorting to sysex, a nice idea.

The sounds are the same as the SQ-1.  The piano is not bad but mushy in the
bottom octave (and if you accessed the octave below that with a 76 or 88 key
controller, it probably gets mushier).  The upper octaves aren't bad, but my
$130 Korg sample player blows it away.  Same on the harpsichord patch, but some
of the sounds do sound very realistic; clarinet, french horn, trumpet and
strings are all very good.  "Burnin' Sax" has the sound but is difficult to
articulate.  "Bari+Brass" was very nice though, perfect for R&B horn blasts.
Plus the usual obligatory L/A movie soundtrack pads which sound suitably
massive and airy at the same time.

The manual is typical Ensoniq.  I was editing a patch within ten seconds of
opening the manual up.  Everything is explained in clear language and the text
is very conversational.

Overall, at about 1/3 the price of a VFX-SD, a good way to get VFX class sounds
into your rig.  At the blowout prices of diskless VFXes ($895), if you could use
a good controller, that might be a better buy (it does *not* have the
rotospeaker effect, though...).

							Brian

Nice review Brian.

One nit:

>diskless VFXes ($895)
>it does *not* have the rotospeaker effect, though...)

I don't know exactly what the SQ1/R has for roto-speaker but my VFX
does have it. Could be it came with the newest operating system? I know 
FX were added with the 2.0 update.

BTW, I think the "diskless VFXes" ( is that an insult? %-} )are lacking 
mostly in drum sounds compared to the SQ1/R and VFXsd. I'm hoping
I'll find patches to prove me wrong.

Dave

    
    See note 1932.110 for more info.

    It turns out that Ensoniq left out one feature of the SQ-2 in the
    advertising blurbs, because it got put in at the last minute...
    
    The SQ-2 is the first Ensoniq board to offer channel (mono) pressure,
    rather than key *and* channel pressure.  Since the SQ-1 has no pressure
    send capability at all, this may be of interest to prospective buyers.
    
    						Brian

    
    
    Anybody out there who uses an Ensoniq SQ1 and knows about an 
    Editor/Librarian ???
    
    Thanx in advance for your help.
    
    Uli 

    Gee, Ensoniq is like a stuck record.  About a month ago I asked the
    factory point blank about whether or not an upgrade to the SQ-R with
    the extra waves found in the SQ-1+ would be offered and the answer was
    "No plans at this time"....so of course, here comes the SQ-R+, withthe
    extra waveforms.  Still $1195 list.  Ya gotta love it....
    
    						Brian

    Brian, 
    
    Ensoniq does that ALL the time. 
    
    For example, I asked them if they were going to offer the EPS in
    a rack format and they didn't even say "no plans at this time", they
    said "no".
    
    A few months later (aftering having bought my Roland S-550) the EPS-M
    came out.  I find it hard to believe that it wasn't under development
    at the time I asked about it.
    
    I can understand why they don't want reveal this kind of information,
    but at the moment they are giving MIS-information (something they KNOW
    to be false).
    
    I would rather they say "we can't discuss that" then have them say
    "No, we aren't going to do that" and later discover that they were
    in the PROCESS of doing it!
    
    Oh well, it's about the only flaw I can find with Ensoniq.  In all
    other respects I think they are a superb company producing the
    very best products and service.
    
    	db

    I asked Roland about PCM cards specifically for the D70.  At least they
    were up front about how the service reps don't get any more info about
    new products than the rest of us.  He also mentioned that Roland bases
    all their sounds now on one vast library of samples.  Not much going on
    as far as generation of new samples goes, apparently.
    
    BTW, looks like there isn't anything specifically for the D70, yet.  I
    might as well go for a couple I've had my eye on:  SN-U110-02 (Latin &
    F.X. Percussion) and SN-U110-06 (Orchestral Winds).  I know that the 
    -02 card setups don't work.  The Roland rep said that you have to
    handle it correctly or it will mess up.  With it I'll get 19 FX sounds
    (including Orchestra Hit, Siren, Typewriter, Clock, Pinball, Telephone,
    Scratch and so forth) which may or may not be useful.  What *will* be
    useful will be the 26 latin percussion samples including *vibraslap*!
    It almost doubles the number of percussive original tones available.
    
    The other will get me some sounds that are (for me) hard to get on the
    D70: timpani (no, a tom won't cut it), oboe, bassoon, clarinet, french
    horn and tuba.  I can get close, but not enough for solo work I don't
    think.  Didn't go for the orchestral strings card because you can get 
    pretty believable strings with the built-ins.  I'm a big horn fan and 
    am pretty satisfied with the trumpet, trombone and sax stuff already 
    provided.
    
    Another temptation is the sound effects card.  That's a possiblility
    later on.  But, for right now these other two cards will be the most
    useful.
    
    Steve

    
    I did an A/B at lunch between an SQ-1+ vs. a vanilla SQ-1 relative to
    the pianos...no contest, the Plus has a very good (no, db not as good
    as the RD300) sampled piano sound. Scheming towards an SQ-R+ even as I
    type this in  8^)  8^)
    
    What was *really* cool, though was exploring the drum patches.  Ensoniq
    has a new app note about the "drum map" feature which the SQs plus now
    the SD-1 have which lets you construct custom drum kits.  I played
    around with this a bit and found the following:
    
    1.  You can use up to 17 waves.  They need not be drum sounds, either.
    
    2.  You can assign them over the keys in up to 17 zones.
    
    3.  You can pitch *each* key, so as to "retune" the sounds, create
    	alternative cymbal pitches, etc.
    
    4.  You can play samples backwards.
    
    5.  Each sound has a velocity sensitive pitch envelope so you can do
    	weird effects or just get the natural sound of the changing pitch
    	of a struck drumhead.
    
    6.  Each sound may be filtered.
    
    7.  Each sound may be panned.
    
    8.  Each sound may be routed to either FX bus or be kept dry, allowing
    	complex processing of the kit within the synth itself.
    
    9.  Sounds may use the "mono/glide mode" to do things like open/closed
    	hihat cutoffs or for special effects.
    
    If you don't like the default Ensoniq assignment (which is standard
    across all the units) you may reassign to other standards...notably the
    Roland drum map...if you like, and save off as a patch.  As typical for
    Ensoniq, I managed to edit a kit without looking at the manual.
    
    							Brian

Eeek!  I can feel the lure of an SQR+, myself.  And I haven't heard any quality
horror stories about the SQ stuff....  Now, if they'd have a close-out sale....
Nah.

	Eirikur

    Just for the record, the D70 can do all that and more (counting the TVF
    and TVA stuff) except it can't play samples backwards.  Oh, and you can 
    have each key use a separate sample, so 76 different samples are
    possible.  Heh, heh, dontcha just love the old "my synth can beat your
    synth" ratholes ...
    
    Steve