Leak: Arturia appears to be working on an Ensoniq SQ-80 emulation
Leaked Arturia SQ 80 V · Source: muckybeats / Twitch
Leaked Arturia SQ 80 V · Source: muckybeats / Twitch
The Arturia V Collection already contains a smorgasbord of fabulous synthesizers but it looks like the Ensoniq SQ-80 could be the next member of Arturia’s virtual instrument club.
Ensoniq SQ-80
Combining digital waveforms with analogue filters the SQ-80 arrived at the bad end of the 1980s when interfaces were disappearing into menus and endless button presses. However, it was an 8-voice polysynth with 75 waveforms that could be used in 3 oscillators per voice. There was also 5 sampled drum sets. It had lots of modulation, a fantastic keyboard, sequencer, patch memory and had MIDI over everything.
Arturia SQ 80 V
In the screen grabs you can see the SQ-80 complete with floppy disk drive and keyboard although thankfully they’ve added a bit more interaction than the original interface offered.
According to Synthanatomy, the leak came via Twitch streamer muckybeats who regularly broadcasts sessions in Ableton. The video in question has now been pulled but not before Gearnews.de was able to pull these images.
Leaked Arturia SQ 80 V · Source: muckybeats / Twitch
I imagine muckybeats is feeling a bit of heat from Arturia right now but we all like a bit of a leak so I hope he doesn’t feel too bad.
We’ve heard rumours that V Collection 9 is on the horizon and it is coming up on a year since the last big update. Maybe pop by booth Z090 at Superbooth to see if you can find out more.
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One response to “Leak: Arturia appears to be working on an Ensoniq SQ-80 emulation”
The Arturia VSTs are great. The first B3 and Wurly didn’t quite get the essence of the originals, though I think they’ve been improved now. This Ensoniq one I’d put in the same usage group as the Synclavier. It’s one that you don’t use on every track, but it gives you something different-sounding when you need it. My favourite Arturia ones are the Fairlight and the Mellotron (into which you can load your own samples, brilliant!). Let’s see what V9 brings……