Boxed Ear has announced the release of a modern editor for the Ensoniq Mirage sampler, released alongside the first update to the Mirage operating system in nearly forty years.
The Mirage is a 1984 sampler with a wonderful, lo-fi musical character and a famously difficult user interface. Ensoniq’s own MASOS added a rudimentary sysex implementation, but it was never designed for real-time editing.
MASOS_BE adds a new sysex handler which acts on individual parameter messages as they arrive, so a Mirage can be edited live from a computer in the way any modern synthesiser can. Together with Visage, which puts every parameter on screen at once, the result is complete two-way control of the instrument.
Compatible with all Mirage models (DSK, DSK-8 and DSM-8) and with existing MASOS v2 wavesamples, Visage is available as a standalone application on macOS (Universal — Apple Silicon and Intel) and Windows.
MASOS_BE is supplied as an .hfe disk image. With a Gotek floppy emulator it is copied to an SD card and booted — no hardware modification is required.
Both are free and available now from the Boxed Ear website.
