Hey, Filter Demon here. First off, I would just like to say that I am not a "Power User" of this gear, nor do I claim to be any sort of Hrdware Expert. The following opinions are those of a rank amateur musician and part time no money making Mp3.com artist, who has only had this stuff for about a fortnight.
That being said, lets jump right in.
First, the EA-1.
My favorite specs include two oscillators per part, 3 wave types and the option of using the first osc to modify the second with ring mod, sync and Decimator. The ring mod has the most drastic effect which sweeps the frequencies and adds varying metallic and detuned tones when stationary. The sync really cleans the mix up for lead type sounds, while I'm still trying to really find out what good the Decimator does. The Delay is BPM matching which rules. The filter section is tits going from calm to outrageouse with a few strategic tweaks. I cant keep my hands away from this section. The step mode recording feature makes patterns a breeze, and song writing is just as easy. Patterns can be made for 1 to 4 measures with 1/8th notex16, 32nd notex16 or 18/th note tripletx12. Lastly the owner's manual is so well laid out it makes the learning curve a horizontal line.
The very first thing I did, and I'm sure most people do, is scroll through about the first ten preset patterns and said,"These suck". However, having owned several pieces of equipment similar to this, I knew the importance of actually taking the time to hear them out. Whomever it was that put these together really did a good job of demonstrating alot of what this little baby can do. There are pads, stabs, sub basses and weird ring mod effects all throughout 256 patterns. I stopped a few patterns and played around with filters and resonance and was instantly reminded of my Korg Polysix, as the resonance will go all the way to self oscillation . Balance it out at about 75% res on ramp or square waves and you get squeeling acid. Add distorion and Delay and you are there baby! The sine wave belts out nice fat bass timbres especially when you use both oscillators.
One big selling point of the EA-1 is the Motion Sequence Recording Feature. It is very useful in many ways, however the only problem is that you can only record one motion sequence per part, so no recorded volume fadin with matching Filter opening. You will have to do one or thew other manually in song mode. You can do the motion sequences in pattern or song mode, so if the sequence will be more than 4 measeres, or random, you simply do it in song mode.
As far as song mode goes, its as easy as selecting a song, choosing a song position and applying a part, all the way up to the last step which is called end. Easy.
The last thing worth mentioning is that by setting the clock to Internal on the EA-1 and the clock to External on the ES-1, makes it so all you have to do is hit start on the EA-1 and the ES-1 start in perfect unison. You can also use the thing as a tone module and even a midi controller. Haven't tried that yet, but as well as everything else has gone, I'm sure it works fine.
Now I may be painting a rosy picture here but I do have one major complaint. The fact that each part is monophonic and two part multi timbral is a real bummer. Linking two of them together would not be cost effective, so if that is a big concern, I can't reccoment this thing to you. I am used to using Rebirth with it's two 303's and was actually looking for a hardware replacement for that, and the EA-1 does that and more with a greater tonal range. Another small gripe is that there is no slide function, but playing with the Portamemto in a motion Sequence can help a little.
Official Filter Demon Rating - 8/10. Sound quality and ease of use good. Limited multi timbrality bad.
Second, the ES-1.
My favorite specs include eleven effects. The reverb is not the best nor the resonant filter, only because you cant combine two effects per part(more on that later), but unlike on the EA-1, the Decimator really shines on this instrument. The phaser is excellent, the distortion is nice and the Pitch transposer really alters the samples in unexpected ways. That may sound funny, but there are two pitch transposers on board . One stretches the samples, while the other one doesn't and when you combine the two, look out. Pitching an effect up and back down again really dirties it up.
Again, the first thing I did was go through the preset patterns, but this time instead of being disappointed, i was very impressed. Some huge sounds come out in your face and phat as hell with huge bass and tweaked out effects. Wow. The onboard sample set is kinda lame, but with all the processing and such, it really comes out smelling like a rose in the end. My first thought was that this one might be a little harder to come to grips with and boy was I right.
The Owner's manual on this is a little thicker than the one for the EA-1, so you can't just do a cover to cover skim and fully understand how to use it. I ended up trying to figure things out, failing and resorting to reading the manual a couple of times to fully grasp what I was trying to do.
The second order of business, after listening to the pattern presets and samples, was to try a few parts myself. The first thing I had to figure out was how to arrange my own sample set. Not too hard, just crack open the manual and have a look. A couple of button pushes later, and voila. A drom set and a few scattered effect sounds. A good point here, is that you have 7 paramaters available for each sample. Effect on/off, Roll(as in Drum Roll) on/off, Reverse on/off, pitch/speed named as such because it does not process the sample but rather vary speed to change tempo, Filter(Low Pass) Level and Pan. With all of these paramaters up front, you can really customise your samples making them usefull and non repetitive. Another good point here is that you can have any one of these parameters involved in a Motion Sequence per sample. Right off the bat that's 9 different Motion sequences. (Side note-they say ten part sample playback, but one track is a gate for incoming audio).
Third, put some effects on. Quickly I realised that only one effect can be used at a time. At first this kind of bummed me out, but hey, I only paid $500 for it. Plus, you get two variables per effect, one of which can be recorded as a motion sequence. That's ten motion sequences so far. Like I mentioned above, some of the effects are better than others, but I can remeber when eleven effects meant eleven pedals costing about $70 to $80 each. So I'm not complaining much, just not using those shady effects.
Delay next. It's BPM syncable and even has it's own Motion Sequencing option. That's eleven Motion Sequences per part. Impressive.
After consulting the owners manual several times to achieve this, I was happy to learn that song mode was identical to the EA-1, so no hassle there.
Official Filter Demon Rating - 9.5/10. The amount of sound manipulation here will make ant knob tweaker happy. After the initial learning curve, it really is simple to use. My only gripe and I'm being petty here, is that you can only use one effect at a time and the Delay settings are Global.
There you have it, my first two weeks with the EA-1 and ES-1 in a nutshell. There are several other paramaters and functions available that I have not commented on simply because I have not used them yet. Audio in being the major one.
To demonstrate what the first time user can put together in a couple of days, I submit to you a couple of songs. First is "Chemistry". Basically, the EA-1 produces a bass line and Acid style lead line, while the ES-1 acts as a drum set. This track was fully automated with any tweaking edited and fine tuned. The Second song is "Satan's theremin. The approach to this song was completely different. It was performed live with the ES-1 operating in Pattern mode with heavy effects applied to a drum sample set. All tweaking and pattern changing was done off the cuff. The EA-1 was Satan's Theremin by simply holding down the lowest note possible with resonance cranked, tweaking the filter and messing with the delay and distortion settings. You may notice that there is little tweaking one both instruments simoultaneously as I only have two hands!
Hope you enjoyed my article, and please feel free to comment on it and my songs as well.
Later
Filter Demon