Espen Kraft vs. Ensoniq Fizmo: The Last Pink Warrior

The Fizmo is Ensoniq’s final synth stand from 1998, and Espen Kraft isn’t letting nostalgia cloud his judgement. Right from the off, he compares it to a questionable old uncle—memorable, a bit awkward, and definitely not for daily use. But there’s a glint of something special peeking out from the oddball reputation. This pink slab isn’t trying to be everyone’s bread-and-butter synth, and that’s sort of the whole point.

What you get is a machine with its own strange identity: real-time controls, a big arpeggiator, and a sound palette that likes to meander between ambient dreamworlds and glassy digital weirdness. Ensoniq went out swinging, not with a polite farewell handshake, but with a synth that’s as divisive as a toaster-fight at a warehouse party.

Espen’s quick to admit the Fizmo’s quirks, but he’s not blind to its live potential. The front panel’s five real-time knobs let you grab brightness, wave modulation, detune and more, making it less of a preset box and more of a street performance weapon. If you want to get your hands dirty mid-jam, you won’t be disappointed.

The arpeggiator is proper old-school Ensoniq excess—over a hundred pattern variations, splits, and instant MIDI clock sync. Kraft shows how this can flip the Fizmo from awkward uncle to groovebox cousin, especially if you’re after evolving, complex textures that don’t just sit there like a brick in your mix.

The Fizmo’s claim to fame is its trans-wave synthesis, stuffed with 58 waveforms—almost all of them trippy, glassy, and nothing like your standard saw or square. If you’re after vintage Prophet VS or PPG vibes, you’ll find some distant cousins here, but with a colder, spacier twist. Only around 2,000 keyboards and a few hundred rack units were made, so good luck scoring one without selling a kidney or two.

Kraft’s blunt: the high price isn’t about the sound quality, it’s pure scarcity. This thing is rare, and that’s what drives the market madness. Whether it’s worth it is up for debate—but if you want to flex a synth that most have never even seen, the Fizmo’s your ticket to synth snobbery.