E-mu Proteus
| Proteus | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | E-mu |
| Dates | {{{dates}}} |
| Technical specifications | |
| Polyphony | up to 128 voices |
| Timbrality | up to 128 notes |
| Oscillator | Digital |
| Synthesis type | Sample-based synthesis |
| Input/output | |
| Keyboard | {{{keyboard}}} |
The E-mu Proteus was a range of digital sound modules and keyboards manufactured by E-mu Systems in the late twentieth century.
E-mu Systems came to prominence in the early 1980s with their relatively affordable Emulator sampler, and subsequently pioneered sample-based synthesis technology with the Proteus range. Unlike the true synthesiser, sample-based equipment does not derive its raw sounds from electronic oscillators but from recorded sounds held in read-only memory (ROM) chips. These sounds may then be layered, filtered, modulated by low frequency oscillation and shaped by envelopes. However, unlike a true sampler, such devices do not allow the user to record sounds but instead offer a range of factory sounds suitable for any given use. This type of sound production dominated electronic music production for several years in the late 20th century. The exclusive license for re-formatting and managing historical E-MU Proteus sound content has been acquired by Digital Sound Factory.
The Proteus range was developed into several models, some differing from each other only by the sound banks they contained, which were optimised for different purposes. However, since most allowed four ROM chips to be mounted, and these chips were available separately, real differences might be simply cosmetic. The available ROM chips included the Composer, a work-horse set of sounds useful for popular music production, three orchestral ROMs, the Vintage Keys collection of electric organs, pianos and classic synthesisers, a chip dedicated to the Hammond organ and a drum ROM as well as the Orbit and Mo-Phatt collections, aimed at dance and urban genres and the Xtreme Lead, optimised for monophonic synthesiser soloing.
Though the Proteus was mainly known as a keyboardless MIDI sound module, E-mu also marketed the Proteus MPS (Master Performance System), a 61-key keyboard version of the Proteus module.
The Proteus 2000 released in 1999 was a 1U rack sound module based on Audity 2000 released in 1998. It contained many "bread and butter" sounds, among just over a thousand waves utilising 32 megabytes of ROM. It featured up to 128 voice polyphony and 32-part multi-timbrality. It could be expanded with slots for three additional sound ROM cards. A cheaper Proteus 1000 model was also introduced with the same soundset and ROM but only 64 voice polyphony and fewer individual sound outputs.
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