We hope you had nice summer holidays. Before the summer break we asked you to vote for your favorite synthesizer out of five instruments, each of them having a special edge. From the retro-futuristic dual Akai AX80 to the WOPR-like FM flagship synthesizer Yamaha TX816 choosing a favorite for sure was not easy.
It was nip and tuck till the very end of the race. Dave Smith's legendary analog-digital hybrid ProphetVS missed the win by less than 1% of the votes allowing an underdog to take it all.
Yes, the quirky digital Ensoniq Fizmo released in 1998 is the most wanted synth from our little competition. Even though some might list it as bad gear it has a lot to offer. The Fizmo definitely has one of the best typographic logos if not the best in synthesizer history.
But that's not nearly all. The sounds you can create with this instrument seem to derive from an alien planet. It's really puzzling which target group Ensoniq had in mind developing this purple oddball. It was a live-or-die experiment for the company, an instrument on the blade. It's the only Ensoniq synthesizer featuring a lot of real time controls, partly pretty unusual like the global oscillator detuning knob. Unfortunately the Fizmo lost the wonderful large VF display of its predecessors. It came a long way and it was the final synthesizer chapter for Ensoniq.
To make you even more curious exploring this synthesizer in the future we are creating 10 multisample sets with SampleRobot in various formats for free download at the moment. The package will be released in the next 2 weeks so check this site again to hear the Fizmo in action.
We would like to thank all of you who participated in our survey!