Ensoniq Fizmo: The Weirdest 90’s Synth You’ve Never Heard of | Synths that Time Forgot

Comments · 236

• IN

  @infindebula · 5 years ago

  As I understand the origin on the name "Fizmo" is that Ensoniq had a physical modeling synth on their roadmap. Fizmo - "Phys(ical) Mo(del)".  The physical modeling synth was never completed, but the name was so cool they used it on this.

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• MO

  @mournblade1066 · 5 years ago

  Believe it or not, this synth is very capable of producing &quot;classic&quot; synth sounds. &nbsp;It&apos;s got something like 64 different wave forms, but amongst those are square, sawtooth, and sine wave.<br><br>The vocoder is also tons of fun.

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• JA

  @jaywood5831 · 5 years ago

  This sounds like the perfect synth for ambient music

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• BL

  @blimolhm2790 · 5 years ago (edited)

  the nostalgic intro made me shed a tear 😭<br><br>this synth seems like it&apos;s easy to push it too far on complexity. It is definitely unique in its sound because to achieve the same results on a PC would require much more work

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• RO

  @routinehead2481 · 5 years ago

  Best Fizmo video on YouTube. Tell that boss of yours to give you a damn raise!

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• IN

  @infesticon · 5 years ago

  While I don&apos;t think I could use it. Im glad it happened and I like when people make things that are different. It totally has it&apos;s own vibe.

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• FA

  @FabulousDazaster · 5 years ago

  Wow, it sounds like Trent Reznor stomping on a Sega Genesis.

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• TO

  @tommymandel · 5 years ago (edited)

  Cool piece, Zach! I beta-tested for Ensoniq (but the last one I worked on was the MR-Rack/MR-61, pre-Fizmo.) I believe Ensoniq pioneered the Transwave term - you could argue it was PPG (Waldorf 80&apos;s) related, but as you astutely pointed out, Transwave had its own unique features. Descended from the TS-10 (Ensoniq too), though you can find hints of it in their SD-1 (VFX) also! Thanks! <br>PS. the working name of the MR-Rack was Gizmo, which could factor into your interesting interpretation of where the term Fizmo came from! PS. Ensoniq was mostly guitar playing engineers, as opposed to keyboard playing engineers.(i was a keyboard resource for them.)

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• CO

  @Conforce · 5 years ago

  bill gates of synths. this fizmo is such a rare beast. must be one of the most obscure sounding wavetables

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• HE

  @Helena081107 · 5 years ago

  I&apos;ve owned (and some times sold) many synths over the years. I was lucky enough to find one of these for a VERY reasonable price many years ago (it literally didn&apos;t even get sold on eBay back then (which I predicted to the owner) so I got to bargain an even cheaper price). Normally, I use this golden rule that if a piece of gear doesn&apos;t get used enough, I have to sell it. I almost never use my Fizmo, yet I can&apos;t seem to part with it. I know no other synth that sounds like this. The name Fizmo is really excellent, in the end, because there seems to be a sort of bright &quot;fizziness&quot; in almost every sound it produces. Maybe one of the biggest problems, apart from it&apos;s mostly totally unique sound palette (when you&apos;re not using it as a VA), is that you&apos;re trying to &quot;tame&quot; it most of the time. Every &quot;part&quot; of a patch can already sound really complex, so most patches are simply just way too complex to still be playable. And yes, the fact that parameters jump with every move of a knob (as is the case with most old synths of course) doesn&apos;t help much either. You honestly simply have to give into the Fizmo, and try to make the best of it/tame the beast. You&apos;ll be scratching your head a lot with this synth, but you&apos;ll also be pulled into sonically magnificent soundscapes. Not a synth you will use a lot, but definitely totally unique. Absolutely worth it&apos;s legendary status, somehow... :)

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• PR

  @PrimevalMudd · 5 years ago (edited)

  &apos;How did you spend your day, Zach?&apos;<br><br>&apos;I filmed myself fiddling with a fizmo and put it up on the internet.&apos;<br><br>&apos;Zach, I think we might need to have a word.&apos;

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• TR

  @troelsknudsen253 · 5 years ago

  I think this thing sounds SO cool in an erratic uncanny valley sort of way. Downright spooky once the effects are dialed in to mush up the harshness. Truly unique chord/drone machine and anyone into their lofi anything could find some use for it. That glitchy thing you get up to at the end of the demo is super interesting, it&apos;s a very now kind of sound actually.

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