Introduction 7
ESQ-M – Musician's Manual
CONGRATULATIONS
Your new ESQ-M Digital Wave Synthesizer Module gives you all the great sounds and true multi-
timbral capabilities of ENSONIQ'S ESQ-1 Digital Wave Synthesizer in a compact, rack-mountable
package.
If all you want to do is play one sound at a time from a remote keyboard (as you would with most
MIDI voice modules), you'll find the ESQ-M to be a versatile synth with a wide variety of sounds to
choose from. If, however, you are one of those who likes to explore every capability of an
instrument, and tends to push things to the limit, you are in for a treat. The ESQ-M is just the kind of
machine you've been waiting for.
The voice architecture of the ESQ-M is exactly the same as that of the ESQ-1 – all ESQ-1 sounds
play just fine on the ESQ-M, and vice versa. The ESQ-M gives you full access to all the same
programming pages and parameters that have made the ESQ-1 a favorite among programmers and
players alike.
Like the ESQ-1, it has:
forty Internal Programs
a cartridge slot for an STC-8 Program cartridge for 80 more programs
true stereo output (Left/Mono and Right audio outs)
a CV/Pedal input
eight dynamically assigned voices
true poly-timbral operation, able to receive polyphonically on nine MIDI Channels at once
Unlike the ESQ-1, the ESQ-M does not have the built-in sequencer.
TRACKS?
The ESQ-M does, however, have Tracks. Since there is no sequencer, you may ask, what do
Tracks have to do with anything? Well, a Track on the ESQ-M functions the way a Track of an
ESQ-1 sequence does when you send it MIDI information from a remote instrument. The Tracks are
the mechanism by which we are able to play multi-timbrally (using different sounds simultaneously)
into the ESQ-M. Each Track can "listen to" a different MIDI Channel, and respond polyphonically to
information coming in on that Channel.
Each Track is a separate MIDI target with its own:
Program (patch)
Program number
MIDI Channel
Volume (mix) level
There are nine Tracks, numbered 0-8. Conceptually, Tracks 1 through 8 correspond to the Tracks of
the ESQ-1 sequencer, and Track 0 corresponds to the "straight synth" section of the ESQ-1. In
most ways Track 0 is identical to the other eight Tracks.
When the ESQ-M is in MULTI Mode, each track will receive independently on its own MIDI
Channel, each with its own Program and mix level. This makes the ESQ-M ideal for use with a
sequencer, or with a controller keyboard capable of sending different "zones" of the keyboard on
different MIDI Channels. You can address up to nine different sounds on the ESQ-M without ever
sending it a Program Change, just by playing into the unit on different MIDI Channels.
The ESQ-M, in effect, can act like nine separate synths set to receive on nine different MIDI
Channels. The only catch is that those nine synths share the same eight voices, so no more than eight
voices can be playing at any one instant. You'll find that this usually isn't much of a limitation. Most
of the time you won't be using all eight voices, and the ESQ-M's ability to play lots of different
sounds at once can make eight voices sound like a whole band.
