Romplers

Get Creative In the 1980's E-mu Systems successful transformed itself from being a low volume manufacturer of analog modulars, to a leading edge manufacturer of high quality samplers (which sold quite well). But the profit margin was reducing on these once fabled instruments by the late 1980's, and E-mu Systems again needed a transformation to survive.

By the late 1980's the Japanese were dominating most of the sampler and synthesizer market, having put the US analog synthesizer manufacturers into the sea. The Akai S range, the Roland D range, the Korg M1 and the Yamaha DX took the market by storm. These guys had cracked low cost manufacturing, digital engineering, reliability and they had the scale needed to reduce costs further.

E-mu Systems needed to broaden their product range with a new set of products at a price point below $1000, so they could increase their volumes and profits. This strategy, which was initial just a stop gap product line, ultimately lead to E-mu Systems developing so well that they were bought up by Creative - as only the large survive.

Spinning off the EIII The Emulator III was too expensive a product for the growing army of semi-pro musicians, but its awesome 16-bit sample library could be spun off, sliced into tiny fragments and loaded into sets of 4 or 8MB of ROM. Where Roland had shown the way in the ground breaking D50, E-mu Systems were to follow, leveraging the Gbytes of sounds created for the EIII, and the sampling technology of custom E-mu chips. A new generation of Sample + Synthesis instrument was born in 1989 - the Proteus.

Reviews The original Proteus models came out to rave reviews in the early 1990's, thanks to their clear, exciting samples, and ease of use. The addition of digital filters, analog samples and FX boasted the range in the mid 1990's, especially the ground breaking Morpheus (with its mega filter - thanks Dave !) which got very good reviews. However the range of sounds was not evolving as fast as some of the new Japanese synths, or the new virtual analog entrants.

Re-inventing the Proteus The late 90's saw the range diversify into niche models with much improved synthesis capabilities, as the need to compete with these new sounds increased. Extra features were continually added, but the 1U rack with limited controls remained. These "colour" models are good sources of sounds, but they are not at the leading edge of sound design. One failing was their lack of sample expansion capability, which Roland sorted with their long lived JV range.

The introduction of the "2000" range in 1999, and then the "1000" range in 2000, with aggressive pricings and a much needed upgrade in flexibility and scale (as well as more knobs - at last!), has met with very positive reviews. The Audity 2000 was particularly good, if you don't need traditional instruments.

Buyers Guide The "2000" and "1000" range are sufficiently powerful and cheap new, that this is the best way of accessing the Proteus range and sounds. They simply eclipse the older models, which are now down to £125 - 300 in the second-hand market. However the Morpheus is still an exciting programmers synthesizer, and a worthwhile purchase. The older modules can be a cheap source of good sounds if the budget is tight. The "2000" and "1000" range will continue to be developed with new ROM SIMM's on the way in 2000. E-mu Systems is deliveringr on the promise of new exciting sounds, at a low upgrade cost (to ensure they compete with the Roland JV/XV range). They may also need to consider some virtual analog modelling, rathrer than just 128MB of sounds.

Models The Proteus range has been in production since 1989, although the names have got rather more sexy and the cases now come with sun glasses. The Proteus format and underlying architecture has remained the same, although the "2000" and "1000" models are considerably more powerful. During the last 10 years memory and processors have reduced in price, and E-mu System have continued to leverage scale since 1993, via their new owners Creative. This means that today's Proteus 2000 is far more flexible and powerful than the Proteus 1. It can even be loaded with the same samples on a sound ROM !

Technical Bit The Proteus range initially made use of the EIII sample library, and the early models use the same 18-bit DAC's (Analog Devices AD1860's) from the Emax II and EIIIx. This ensured a high quality sound, even though a non standard sample rate of 39kHz is used (just like the Emax II). Early Protei used the Motorola 68000 micro-processor, with the Morpheus using a faster 68020. Later models used the Motorola ColdFire processor running at 33MHz.

The E-mu Systems H chip digital filter from the Emax II sampler was developed as the digital filter chip for the Proteus range. In the Morpheus the designers went to the limits and created the most awesome digital filter ever seen in a synthesizer (197 different types of filter - then up to 288 in the Ultra Proteus!).

The recent "2000" and "1000" models are substantially improved, with new 20-bit main output DAC's, new main processor, an improved 24-bit FX chip, a coax SP/DIF digital output (sometimes optional), and 44.1kHz sample replay rate. The G and H chips are the same versions that are used in the Ultra range.