Back in the day, long long ago, I was able to borrow an AKAI S612 Sampler which I used on an album called Come Visit The Big Bigot. But when it came to touring this LP around Europe and North America I chose to take a Mirage rack – which was stolen in the first week of the tour. I had to then buy and lug a huge Mirage Keyboard which I came to hate, and it went as soon as I could afford something more luggable – unfortunately the Roland MKS-100 and quick discs. (Pro tip: it’s not like the MKS-80. At all.)
So I can’t claim a long experience with the Mirage – just intense. I would buy another Mirage rack in a heartbeat because it wasn’t just a sampler, rather a synthesiser with an excellent filter that happened to have sample playback. Many of my sounds were tight buzzy little loops that made an excellent variety of textures once filtered. Editing 8-bit sounds using hexadecimal was more about synthesis by ear than long elaborate soundalikes.
There are now plenty of 8 bit software samplers with filters you can use (by TAL, Arturia and many others). I don’t really desire to set my loop points in hex. But damn it, I wonder what my music would have been like if I hadn’t had my suitcase pulled out of the van by some Spanish git. It was many years later that I bought the Ensoniq EPS16 and then the glorious ASR-10. Welcome home!
How would you rate TAL Sampler in comparison to the Mirage? Does the analog filter add that much?
I don’t have the Mirage any more to make a solid comparison. But the technique is certainly possible on the TAL Sampler. He has modelled on the AKAI and EMu samplers – they had their own grunge style that I couldn’t afford at the time. It’s a kind of metallic whistle – the filter will aggressively round that off, so you might do a quick filter sweep to make a crunch at the very start.
Anything with a drive will give you a similar sound. Also it’s how you sample in the first place – through a guitar pedal? Or a bad microphone? Lots of possibilities. He’s mostly tried to steer you away from perfection.