Proteus FX

OverviewThe Proteus FX is essentially a combination of the Proteus 1 Rock/Pop module, the Proteus 2 Orchestra module, a Proformance Grand Piano sample, and a new dual effects chip. It is a 32 voice multi-timbral sample based synthesizer module that plays traditional acoustic and electric instruments. It was released after the success of the original Proteus modules, and with falling memory prices - 8 MB could be offered instead of the usual 4 MB. There are 512 presets arranged in 4 banks of 128. Bank 0 and 1 are held in RAM and can be edited, Banks 2 and 3 are held in ROM and cannot be changed.

Expansion This module can not be expanded.

No Filters! The Proteus FX module has just a low pass tone control enabling you to brighten the sound from velocity or keyboard scaling. There are no digital 24dB low pass filters on this puppy ! You have to rely on the dual effects section to sweeten the samples.

Configuration The Proteus FX module implements a rather limited synthesizer architecture. There are two "oscillators" called Primary and Secondary Instruments. They can each replay any of the 204 16-bit sampled waveforms, and up to four of these Instrument pairs can be layered under on key. The waveforms are replayed first via a simple digital tone control,and finally a digitally controlled amplifier(DCA) and pan.

The DCA is modified by a dedicated AHDSR envelope generator. There are also two independent LFO's (triangle, sawtooth, square, sine and random waveforms), and an auxiliary envelope generator (DADHSR), which can be patched into the Instruments, Low Pass Filter or DCA. There is also portamento, and cross fade between the two Instruments. Up to 8 sounds can be layered on each key, by linking four Presets.

MIDI Implementation E-mu Systems implemented MIDI bank select, so you can call up all 512 presets via MIDI, and you can determine which bank is mapped to which MIDI bank number. There is also a Program Change Mapping Table to map the 512 patches to the first 128 available MIDI program change messages. MIDI Overflow can be used to pass notes beyond the basic 32 to another module. The module is 16 part multi-timbral when the Multi mode option is selected. Unfortunately E-mu did not implement a means of storing multiple presets across MIDI channels. This feature, called HyperPresets, was eventually implemented in the Morpheus and UltraProteus.

Effects The module has a two internal effects units, with a range of different alogirthms.

Effects A Room, Warm Room, Small Room 1-2, Hall 1-3, Chamber 1-2, Plate 1-2, Early Reflection 1-4, Reverse ER, Rain, Shimmer, Stereo Chorus, Stereo Flange, Phaser, Echo, Delay, Cross Delay.

Effects B StereoChorus, StereoFlange, Phaser, Delay, Cross Delay, Fuzz, FuzzLite, Ring Modulation.

Verdict A good low cost source of some traditional instruments, with especially good orchestral sounds (EIII strings), but rather past its best now.

Factory Demos Press and hold the Master and Edit buttons together to play the two song demo.

Factory Presets E-mu Systems released five new preset diskettes, each with 256 presets.

• 3121 Modern Mix/Textures
• 3122 Fusion/Power Pro
• 3123 General MIDI
• 3124 Synth FX
• 3125 Orchestral

Diagnostics The Proteus FX has a full range of internal diagnostics, but beware they can cause speaker damage and the initialization routine is a one way process. To enter diagnostics mode, power on with both cursor keys held down. There are 13 modes, which test out all the various components inside the module. To re-initialize your module, if it locks up, scroll down until you get to the "initialize" option. Hit enter and you will wipe out your user-definable patches and reset the module back to its factory state. Beware! Save your patches first!