Free Ensoniq ESQ-1 Sample Library For NI Kontakt!

Free Ensoniq ESQ-1 Sample Library1

Neil Paddock of How To Program Drums has released ESQ-1 Re-Boot, a free collection of Ensoniq ESQ-1 hybrid synthesizer samples. I was lucky enough to join Neil for this great project and so I’ve created an additional set of NKI Patches (for use with Kontakt 5) which you can download for free on BPB.

ESQ-1 Re-Boot features 40 original instrument patches from the legendary Ensoniq ESQ-1 hardware synthesizer, known as one the finest hybrid synthesizers (with analog filters and digital oscillators). The library contains 497 samples in total, sampled across six octaves for each of the included instrument patches.

Neil Paddock has originally released the library as a Refill for Reason 7.1, however an additional version of the library with instrument mappings in SFZ format was released shortly after. You can download both versions of the library for free via Neil Paddock’s website How To Program Drums (linked in the downloads section below). Video instructions for installing the library and loading it in different sampler instruments are available on his website and on his YouTube channel.

For quite a while now, Neil and I have been planning to collaborate on creating free sound libraries, and as a first step in that direction I’ve created a free set of Kontakt 5 patches for the ESQ-1 Re-Boot sample collection. You will need the full version of Kontakt 5 in order to use these patches without any limitations. They will work for 15 minutes in the freeware Kontakt Player. If you don’t own Kontakt, your best bet is to download the free SFZ version of the library from Neil’s website and use it in a free sampler such as Shortcircuit 1, sforzando or Zampler.

A huge THANK YOU goes out to Neil Paddock for creating these samples and releasing them for free, as well as for giving me the opportunity to collaborate with him on such a cool project. It’s been tons of fun for me and I’m incredibly happy with the result. We have more plans for similar projects in the future, so stay tuned!

Video Demo

Check out the ESQ-1 Re-Boot demo video:

Download

ESQ-1 Re-Boot for Kontakt 5 (167 MB download size, RAR archive, contains 40 instrument patches in NKI format, 497 samples in 16-bit WAV format)

ESQ-1 Re-Boot SFZ (external link to Neil Paddock’s website How To Program Drums)

ESQ-1 Re-Boot for Propellerhead Reason (external link to How To Program Drums)

19 Comments

Neil Paddock
on October 29, 2014 7:05 am

Hey Guys!

You are most welcome. It’s been great fun putting this together with Tomislav and I hope you have a lot of fun with these ESQ-1 sounds. I am looking forward to hearing some great music made with them too!

All the best

Neil

Teen Power
on October 29, 2014 7:19 am

Love the sounds. I wasn’t able to bring in the .nki into Ableton Live, so I went ahead and made a live pack of all 40 presets with Sampler for each sound on each channel.

- Bedroom Producers Blog
  on October 29, 2014 12:38 pm
  
  Hi Teen Power, thanks so much for that! Great work! I’ll add your Live pack to the downloads section above. Cheers!
  
StudioCompyfox
on October 30, 2014 7:47 pm

Nice free sample pack. However, from the looks of the video, this is a barely scripted Kontakt preset (only an uber-large GUI). So why use Kontakt 5 and not Kontakt 4?

- Bedroom Producers Blog
  on October 31, 2014 12:48 am
  
  Hi Compy! Well, I can’t make a K4 preset with K5. And yeah the script is pretty basic, but that’s the best I can do at the moment! A simple A/R envelope and HP + LP cutoff.
  
jayfreeman
on November 3, 2014 11:38 pm

Are these factory preset ?
If so, i think ill make a reset on mine …
( still have 2 of the synth in the video – Mirage & ESQ-1 )
if not, can you make sysex dump available ?
@BPB waiting for Teen Power’s Ableton Pack ;-)
Thank You all

- Neil Paddock
  on January 10, 2015 11:57 am
  
  Hi Jay
  
  It took a while for me to notice your comment. Sorry!
  
  I have now added a .syx file and an SQ8L (.8XL)library file for the 40 Reboot patches to the sfz version of the ESQ-1 Reboot, which you can get from here:
  
  https://neilpaddock.selz.com/item/54978b2eb7987209d4a89c33
  
  Let me know if you can upload it okay to your ESQ-1 or Mirage. Thanks. :)
  
  - jay
    on February 11, 2015 7:16 pm
    
    and it took me a while to see your reply too.
    I Havent used sysex in the last 15 years.
    ill let you know if it works OK.
    thanks, cant wait to try it.
    
Wolfgang R
on December 16, 2014 11:12 pm

Kontakt 5 …what version ?, I have problem with Kontakt 5 version 3.1.0.4

- Wolfgang R
  on December 16, 2014 11:21 pm
  
  Zorry ! ….Is Kontakt 5 Version 5.2.0
  
Plastedre
on October 13, 2015 3:20 pm

The SFZ version is not free from 30th June 2015 there is now a minimum order fee of $5.00.

- Dan Reed
  on April 6, 2021 12:53 pm
  
  You can override the $5 to $0 just override it.
  
Joachim Smith
on April 19, 2016 1:45 pm

Thank you very much for this excellent pro bono work! Very much appreciated – with some envelope and HP tweaking there are some very playable sounds in there.

Kind regards,

Joachim

Fred Buck
on April 1, 2020 10:55 pm

yes, can I use this instrument on my Mac? If so, do I need a program that will work with RAR? Thanks

Dan Reed
on April 6, 2021 12:51 pm

The NKI version has a dead link on it. TIA.

Neil Paddock
on May 6, 2022 4:09 am

Thanks for pointing this out. The powers that be have been informed. Watch this space. : )

- Tomislav Zlatic
  on May 6, 2022 1:29 pm
  
  Noted and a new link coming soon. :)
  
The Sound Of Lex
on December 5, 2022 1:25 pm

Is there a way to download this for Kontakt? The download link doesn’t work. Greetings!

David
on September 4, 2023 8:48 pm

Any updates on a new link?

Connect

Download

Free Ensoniq ESQ-1 Sample Library Released By Neil Paddock And BPB!

Video Demo

Download

19 Comments