ENSONIQ Announces Free ASR-X 2.5 Upgrade

January 29, 1998 -- ENSONIQ announces a significant ASR-X 2.5 upgrade -- available to all current ASR-X owners at no cost. ASR-X is the ultimate production studio that includes a sampler/resampler, synthesizer, sequencer, effects processor and mixer together into a desktop design with pads.

"The ASR-X 2.5 upgrade is the latest in a long line of upgrades from ENSONIQ," said Dan Garrett, vice president, ENSONIQ. "It is indicative of the company's ongoing support to it's dealers and customers alike."

Features of the ASR-X 2.5 upgrade include:

Song Mode: allows the user to chain sequences together into a song playlist. A song playlist is constructed from steps, each of which plays a sequence. Songs can contain up to 128 sequences arranged into as many as 200 steps - and adding or deletion of song steps is possible at any time. Songs can be saved to disk in ALL-SESSION files.
Input Record Quantize: allows the user to correct the timing of the music as it's being recorded, eliminating the need for time-consuming post-recording quantization.
SCSI Disk Copy: allows the user to copy and optimize the performance of SCSI disks.
SMDI Transfers: allows the ASR-X to receive via SCSI from any SMDI-compliant application or product.
Faster ASR-10 Loading: speeds up the loading of ASR-10 sounds from disk.
Support for ISO-9660 CD ROM: the ASR-X can now read wav and AIF files from any ISO-9660-format CD ROM. If an ISO-9660 CD ROM contains wav - or AIF-format files, the files can now be loaded into the ASR-X Scratch Pad.
Selectable "MIDI Out" SoundFinder Category: allows the user to play sounds in external MIDI devices from the ASR-X sequencer. Each MIDI OUT sound can send Program Change and Bank Select values to external devices so that they'll play the sounds desired.
Time Compression/Expansion: allows the user to time-stretch and time-shrink sampled loops to fit a pre-determined space.
EFE/EFA File Support: users of Giebler Enterprises ENSONIQ Disk Manager (EDM) can now load .efe-format and .efa-format files into the ASR-X This format is popular for exchanging ASR-10, EPS and EPS 16 PLUS sounds on the Internet.

To get more information ASR-X users can visit www.ensoniq.com.