Patch Bay

Commercial RetroSoniq

The Patch Bay is a resource for free sound banks and info about the best in commercial and public domain sounds.

The Commercial Section provides news and reviews of products that are currently available for E/SQ users from commercial vendors.

The RetroSoniq Section is like an ESQ/SQ80 museum, with a growing collection of historical sounds, anecdotes and ephemera from the glory days of the world’s one-and-only Analog Hybrid synthesizer workstation.

Grab the Sounds!

We know why you’re here! You want free stuff. Well you’ve found it:

Here are some free patch banks. They work great in the SQ80, ESQ-1, ESQ-M and even the SQ8L VST.

Get Your Synth “Online”

If you aren’t comfortable uploading system exclusive dumps to your synth, then you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Not connecting your ESQ/SQ80 to a computer via a midi interface is just like not connecting your computer to the Internet. Yeah, Your system is “pure”, but take a look at what you are giving up! You’re cut off from a tremendous amount of content.

Similarly, if your not “MIDI’d up”, then you’re not really online, in a musical sense! Chances are the only thing you’ve ever used MIDI for is to transmit note on/off events, or maybe a NRPN (whatever that is) here and there. You are missing out on an entire world of sonic possibilities that comes from the exchange of program data and the ability to both drive your synth from your computer and vice versa.

So get connected, and then grab these banks of sounds:

You say you’ve never read the Clav Shootout but just want the sounds?

Here they are, all zipped up for your amusement and amazement.

Read the article sometime if you are interested in why the bank is laid out the goofy way it is.

The article also features some performance notes about the patches.

Sound Guru Kirk Slinkard did these Star Trek Sound Effects patches back when I was in short pants.

We’re the same age, folks. I was just wearing short pants when he wrote them.

Anyway, you’ve either heard them or heard about them. They are quite remarkable in that they nail many of the old familiar Star Trek sounds.

We’ve done a whole feature article about these sounds, with a Listen Lab where you can compare them with the originals. Jump over there and enjoy the Trek sound feature!

Back in the day, these were some of the sounds used to show off the brand new ESQ-1 workstation synthesizer.

We review each of these patches extensively on their own page, with a little bit of added historical perspective. Jump on over to the ESQ Hits page.

We define what “hits” means in this context, and even offer a few performance notes! The bank is available for download at the bottom of the page.

You’ll become reacquainted with some old favorites and discover some obscure official sounds from some Ensoniq “Dealers-Only” promo cartridges!