Ensoniq EPS Ambient Kit2 Sound Review

Specs

Overall

5/5. A really powerful kit dripping with perfect ambient reverb. Beautiful loops on the cymbals. All of John Robinson's kits are really great, and this one is no exception. If you primarily use the EPS as a drum machine, you should have all of John Robinson's disks.

As with all drum kits, this sounds best on the EPS with the number of voices set to 12.

Demo

Ambient Kit2 Demo (mp3 1mb) - As an mp3, this will be slightly muddier than the real thing.

Instruments

Two kick drums, two snares, closed hi-hat, open hi-hat, one crash sample (tuned and panned to provide two crashes), two tom samples (tuned to provide seven different toms). All appear to be stereo as they each require two wavesamples.

Patches

OO - Loud! Velocity sensitivity is off for everything except for some of the cymbals.

*O - Reverse. Wavesamples play in reverse.

O* - Velocity on for all drums.

** - Same as OO.

Details

Cymbal Sustain

4/5. Loops are audible, but very well done. Probably the best you can expect.

Polyphony

5/5. @ 12 voices, at least 6 notes, probably more. It's a drum kit, so polyphony isn't a big issue. However, if you are putting together a sequence with another instrument, you may run into trouble in 12 voice mode. Changing to 20 voice mode will increase polyphony, but the sample rate will go down, and the cymbals will start to sound muddy.

Velocity

5/5. Velocity sounds great. Make sure you use the O* patch to turn on velocity sensitivity.

Mod Wheel

The mod wheel pitches the entire kit up.

Aftertouch

This sound does not support aftertouch.

Where To Buy

Syntaur appears to be the only place that still sells the old EPS sounds. You can buy ESS-11 from them.