@@SeraphimArchives If you have a LinkedIn account, it's listed on his resume. Dave and partial Scott got all the glory at E-mu. And Dave Rossum sure was a ingenious guy. But there where a few other people there who pulled a significant weight there too.
If this is really the case, then thank God for that. If they had went under early, we never would have had their great modules of the mid 90's (Orbit, etc), or any of their incredible Samplers in the E Series.
I don't suppose your friend could come up with another brainchild to start a revived E-mu company to bring back some of that vintage ear candy and tech goodies?
Proteus was the thing to use for multimedia music in those days. I did so many radio jingles with it. Songs were so easily mixed when done with the Proteus. Every sound sat well in the mix. Thanks for the memories!!
I’m 23 years old and last year purchased a Proteus 2000 and a Mo’Phatt. Producers my age have never heard of E-Mu. Even tho I produce modern Hip-Hop/RnB which is dominated by VST’s, E-Mu sounds are in every single of my tracks. The sounds not only sound so much fun, they are so crisp and fit in every mix perfectly. The editing might seem tedious to most, but it’s actually really intuitive. I will never give up my modules. Just wish the ROMs weren’t so damn expensive !!
Ann Other yes but since I started at age 13, I’ve gone basically ten years using exclusively the computer. The screens on these modules are a brief but welcome change of scenery and experience for me lol
@@Aroverlord ok man. But bear in mind the main jogwheel on these e-mu synths are the weak spot and are prone to failure after a certain amount of time. It happened to a Morpheus I used to own
Funny. I'm 23 now and I'm in the same exact position. Hip-hop/RnB producer. There is just something special about the sound of all these romplers. Especially the pads. Made me want to make ambient music. Purchased a Korg 01W/FD and it's great. Looking at the JD-990 now. Oh man, I can afford it. But I just don't think $1,100 is worth it though.
It's crazy how nostalgic I get watching your channel. I am one of those dudes who's too poor to buy keyboard magazine so I read them in the library. Every single synths from the 90s you put up here meant something to me. It reminds me how poor I was lol. Later, when everything nowadays becomes soft-synths, I've never looked back. I still have my Roland D-10 with me but that's it. The E-MUs in the old days, I remember, it meant sampling to me. I don't know why, but E-MU meant sampling. Always lovely hearing you play, sir.
6:02 Dire Straits! Yeah buddy, straight to my 80s rock heart! :D And for those wondering why he has two Proteus/1, it's because the first one I sent him was a Protologic expanded one, but it doesn't boot up and is generally beyond what any of us can repair. I got this one in hopes of transferring the Protologic expansion to the working one, but it requires a lot of soldering and moving chips, changing resistors and connectors. So "Vanilla" version it is for now. ;)
Oh ,yes. The Proteus Series was very popular at begin of the 90s ,too. I remember the Vintage Keys was also a huge success when it came out. I never had one of them ,but when i purchased an ESI 4000 Sampler ,i also got the Protozoa CD-Rom with al of the Sounds from the Proteus Series. Very useful sounds for that type of music. Thanks for showing and the Informations about it
Theyve never been bettered. So theyll always be the standard. The machine they came from the Emulator three. Use to cost as much as a decent car. It was one of the GODS of 80s synth pop.
Dave Rossum, 2015: The G-chip powered the Proteus. The "G" was taken from one of the authors of the technical paper that introduced us to high order interpolation - Phil Gossett and Julius Smith - and we called the algorithm "Gossett-Smith". While there was great engineering and economic benefit to using one sample rate, the drop sample approach produced unacceptable distortions with many sounds. Mathematically, any single sample rate approach uses “interpolation.” Drop sample is the simplest (what we call “order zero”); linear (“order one”) interpolation gives somewhat less distortion, but was still not good enough for us. The G-chip was my vision for an “order seven” interpolator that would have no audible distortion. In the spring of 1988, we taped out the G-chip, and the prototypes worked perfectly! The Proteus was internally first called "the plug", because we had a big hole in our revenue due to the EIII reliability problems, and needed something to plug into the product map as soon as we could. The product concept was simply "the quickest thing we could design that made music using the G-chip". As the product came together, there was great debate about the sound ROM content. Some lobbied for a few great EIII samples, but Marco insisted that we put a full complement of pop/rock instruments in our allocated 4 MiB. The sound department expressed great concern over the sound quality, but remember, this was when the G-chip was brand new, and none of us realized how great it was. The sounds were compressed and compressed again, and still sounded fabulous. Then Herb Jimmerson did the demo sequence, and we all were blown away. That was when we realized we had a sure winner. It was not deliverable for a long time. The G-chip, made for us by LSI Logic, used LSI's 16×16 pipelined multiplier-accumulator cell as the heart of its DSP math engine. The prototypes worked perfectly, but when LSI made the first production lot in January 1989, those chips drew too much power. LSI build another lot in March, and those had the same problem. By May, they had determined that the problem lay in their multiplier cell; it took until August for them to find the root cause. There was a "design-rule violation" creating a tiny short-circuit. This had been fixed months before for other customers, but somehow the E-mu design was missed. Finally, new masks were made, and a production lot was scheduled for late October. On October 17th, 1989, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurred with epicenter just 5 miles from E-mu. Our company did OK, we were back in full operation in a couple of weeks, but at LSI's fab 40 miles away, the G-chip production batch was ruined. I think we finally got the first batch of production G-chips in December 1989. We probably lost millions of revenue dollars, all of which could have fueled R&D on expanding and cost-reducing the Proteus line a year earlier than we did, and we would have been prepared for the competition from the Sound Canvas and other copycats. Why didn't it have a filter? Our digital filter, the H-chip, hadn't yet been completed.
I was at producer Hannon Lane's home studio in Richmond, Virginia back in 1992. He had the Proteus 1 & 2. He and another musician had reconstructed one of my songs using a bunch of Proteus sounds. The original sounds I used were from a Yamaha DX 100. I wasn't happy with the chord structure changes but I did find the new sounds delightful.
I got a Proteus as soon as it came out. I couldn’t believe such a thing existed. My “setup” was a D50, M1, Proteus, Dx21, going through a Boss 16 track mixer, then out one bass speaker (because I did not yet comprehend different types of speakers and stereo monitors). Later I got a pair of Alesia monitors and a Quadraverb. I thought I was hitting the big time with so much gear.
#Espen Kraft Fun fact, this module was the one Josh Mancell used for scoring both PlayStation classics Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter. He used the Proteus 1-3. I own the Proteus 2000 and that was used on a ton of games like Spyro 3 and Ratchet and Clank. ^^ Those Z-Plane filters man! 👌🏻
4 ปีที่แล้ว +1
One of the first sounds he played got me thinking of crash bandicoot! 🤪
The Proteus, together with the Roland U110*, are really the dawn of the "rompler" term used in a derogative sense (ie, sample-based modules with limited editability, as opposed to true synth engines with filters etc). But we all needed boxes of sounds for our sequencing setups, and more polyphony, and the Proteus at the time hit a sweet spot, and really helped save Emu during that period, if you listen to some of Dave Rossum's stories. * There were others, but these two were the most popular ones that kind of defined the category.
Yes, to fulle appreciate these one needs to take into consideration the time when these were introduced. Of course the specs are dated and many of the sounds won't cater for what is now called "synthwave", nor were they meant to of course. ;-) but that doesn't mean the sounds aren't usable. Most of them still are imo.
We had one of those Roland modules in the lab/studio at my college in the late 80s, along with a DX7ii. Loved it, especially after having only a semi modular mono analog synth the first semester. I guess the analog synth fetish is not for me 😁
love your demo song at the beginning, a great groove! As Always, Espen, you have a great video.....When I bought this unit many moons ago, the main reason I got it was because of it's guitar sounds which were ahead of their time back then....
I actually bought a sound card in 1991 from TurtleBeach called MultiSound which had the E-mu Proteus 1/XR onbaord!!! It was a all-in-one pci soundcard with audio in/out and midi/in out all in studio quality. Very capable and powerful package i 1991 and I really liked the sound of the E-mu Proteus 1/XR. btw. great video Mr. Kraft 👌
The Rugrats intro and quite a few others used the Proteus1 , sound of so many childhoods came from that box . The mid files for them can be found without too much digging . I only found this out after I’d brought a module for cheap from a pawnshop. The flexibility of the audio routing and layering is crazy once you start to explore it
Cool. I’ve never thought of collecting that series. My music partner probably had them all at one point. He sold them all when Emu released the CD ROM set. All the sounds were there but having the individual modules was way better and useful.
I have many of the P2000 series. If you need firmware updates, please visit my site emu.tools/ where there's a WebMIDI based firmware updater that runs direct within various web browsers (Chrome recommended).
It was one of the first sound modules i bought. I remeber it like it was yesterday. When i bought it, it just came out, and was the last one in the shop. The guy behind me wanted one too. It was Ben Liebrand. famous mixer (they call them DJ's now ;-) ) He wanted my module, but i took it home. I loved this module. later i bougth the E-mu Proteus 2 orchestral. also a great module. But what i missed in these modules, were the effects. I bought the Proteus FX later. My brother still have my other Proteus module's. Now that i have seen your video, i want to play with them again. Thanks for your nice reviews Espen!
Got my hands on a cheap Pro/Cussion module a few weeks back. All the drums from the Emulator 3 some of which are surprisingly useable. You can edit and stack samples for big percussion. Good to hunt for these little gems while still cheap.
The Pro/cussion had some fantastic sounds - my only issue when I used to have one was for some reason these units used to exhibit quite a bit of MIDI latency , which strangely( and luckily) the Proteus 1, 2 and 3 didn’t have.
Great video as always - thanks! I think this planted a seed in my mind as I stumbled across a decent priced ultra proteus the other day which has this goodness plus the really interesting z-plane filters.
Strongly considered buying one of these, from eBay or the like, 4 years ago when I was getting back into electronic music. I ended up going down the software route instead, at least at first just to arrange MIDI files. As you’ve shown, Espen, this is a nice bit of kit. I did buy the samples for some of these from Digital Sound Factory, who has the rights to the ROMs, apparently. I still sometimes use these sounds in NI’s sample player in my laptop and the soundfont player on my iPad.
In particular, there are a number of nice, General MIDI compatible, drum kits, which Native Instruments’ Kontakt library sorely lacks. NI has nice drums, but they aren’t GM compatible. Proteus is.
I have come very close to buying a Proteus 2 a few times in the past but changed my mind at the last minute ( I very nearly bought a Proteus 1 Plus Orchestral in 2019 ). But I have just ordered a Proteus 2 and it's on the way. Until now I was using Proteus 1 and 2 instruments in DSK Virtuoso, Drumwavy by Synthway plus Mixcraft's Acoustica instruments sampled some of it's sounds from the Proteus 1 and 2. I did also buy the Proteus 2 soundfont but it doesn't have the Whistlin Joe sound. I'm not sure weather or not to buy the Proteus 1 since I mainly want it for it's marimba sound. Drumwavy samples the marimba sound pretty close.
Very nice! Can't remember if I'd seen this when I made/posted my Proteus /1 demo. I only had the module for a few months, you seem to have a lot more experience with it...
As always, great video. I've always preferred the Emu samples and was considering selling my Proteus 1 recently because it wasn't getting too much use. After watching this, I'm inspired to do some more 80s/90s sounding beats.
I have a Proteus/1+ Orchestral. A customer was throwing away a pile of old sound hardware; I offered to take the equipment for e-cycling. Glad I had a look through the hardware before I e-cycled it! It remains the only "professional" grade synth I own. I had to loan a MIDI controller from my father-in-law to test and operate it.
A very lucky find! I would love to own that module but unfortunately space is something I have to consider but I do have other Roland sound modules including a JV-1080. I can't believe someone would throw a working sound module away.
@@McTroyd It sounds like the dead battery was replaced before it even had a chance to explode. Dead batteries can explode and destroy the internal circuitry if they are not removed or replaced.
That piano a 4:16 is still usable, I mean in modern production applications..So rich in character! 10: 16... Those string beds are awesome!!! Wow! I sure need an emulation of this Emulator. ! Many thanks for sharing Espen
Most of the sounds are usuable. A classic sound doesnt get old. Music has gone downhill today. Nothing touches the 80s. That was the ultimate era for synth based pop. And our man here keeps reminding us of that.
The gods must have overheard me. Just a few days ago, a friend and I were discussing the old Roland JV 1080s (and the subsequent other racks and workstations). I had said that while it would be fun to have those sounds again, I don’t know that I’d use them, but I still really want a Proteus sometimes. You just made it more difficult for me to resist buying one haha
Just get any newer Roland module. Half of the Integra is the whole JV library wich is where the sounds from also the U-110/220 was taken. 32 years has gone and roland still uses 30+ year old samples to fill half the Integra-7. But they also were quite a good library back then, but kinda cheapish with todays standards of non looped full length 24bit 48khz stereo samples. But nothing bad said of the Integra. All the newer stuff in it is actually great for bread and butter sounds, and really many musicians don't really spend a lot of times programming own sounds. They just want something that sounds nice right OTB.
I admit I was always much more to the Japanes sound. I never really was that much into the american sounds back then. Really many of those American sampler/rompler sounds sounded more raw and unfinnished, where eg. Roland and Yamaha sounded more polished. Its kinda the same with many of todays "arranger" keyboards. when you compare eg. any of the European arrangers like Ketron, with Korg and Yamaha .. there is a world of difference, and Yamaha always had that more "finnished mix " sound with lots of effects and reverb, where the others are great too .. there is some more "intimisity of eg a Korg arranger. The sounds are more dry and more in your face, where the Yamaha's to some sound too polished and are more souped into all kind of effects. The Yamaha sound like eg a Bigband in a big venue where the Korgs sound like a Jazz quartet in a little smoky Jazz club. But still in my ears, Yamaha is ways ahead of the competition in the quality and ease of use with there advanced SA2 sounds wich can quite easy be mastered by even beginners and intermediate players to sound like a pro. No need to fiddle around with 10-20 key switches to switch between the different articulations like in a Kontakt instrument. You eg. just play a sixth or seventh and the sound automaticly switches to a slide up/down dependent on the sound type
@@mrdali67 I actually recorded a soprano sax from the Integra (SuperNatural mode) the other day. All of my professional music friends thought it was a real one.
Fantastic vid about a equally fantastic sampler! That demo song you did though, so groovy! Love it. I immediately started jamming along on guitar, because it's so funky.
Cool machine, never had one. Back then I got myself a Roland U-220, basically also a "rompler" type of instrument with some programmability and excellent sampled sounds. Its voice and choir sounds pretty much beat all competition and knocked the Korg M1 off its throne in that field.
I definitely like the Proteus 3; it has a lot of obscure instruments so its very useful for making world music or soundtracks. I'd say its still useful.
I still own one, my first synthesizer. Lovely memories trying all sounds. Later came an Oberheim Xpander (older), then a Yamaha SY99, Kawai K5000S. Still have them all
En los 90's tuve la experiencia de ver a un grupo con dos módulos próteus y quede maravillado de sus sonidos únicos .... gracias excelente video saludos desde Coatzacoalcos Veracruz México.....
Great video Espen. I actually still have an offspring of this module. The Ultraproteus, which had the best of the Proteus 1, 2, and 3 modules along with the proformance piano module stereo piano sample. Really a shame that E-MU went out of business right along with Ensoniq. Those were the digital ROMpler glory years for sure :)
Flott video. Lydmodulen låter mye mer 80-talls enn jeg hadde forventet av et produkt sluppet i 1989, men siden den var en salgssuksess, så tyder jo det på at den allikevel ikke kom for seint på markedet. Mange lyder er helt perfekte for nåtidens retro synth-pop.
Now that is a synth with soooooo many satisfying and instantly usable sounds. I've long wanted to get the 2 Orchestral version but might have to add #1 to that list!
I bought the EMU Soundfont Packs back in the 90s. When I moved to thus new place I stumbled upon them once more. Studio One uses an SF2 format for Presence it's ROMplersizer plugin. Of course, these days, they're more layered and across less keys per sample than they were 25 years ago but it was nice to see that sf2 was still a 'Thing'. And you're right we all wanted one and/or their rack sampler; was it the ESi -32 that was the first of those ?
Totally agree. They were used in Final Fantasy VIII and some tracks in IX. And the snare at 6:40 was used in FFV (Probably the EIII) and some Bally/Williams pinball tables.
I have the VX software version, which I believe has a lot of the same sounds, When you use it for everything in the song, including drums you have an instant polished 80s track and there are some fun weird sounds buried in there also
That harpsi patch at 9 mins is great, and that Kraft made pad is very nice. the Proteus 1 definitely sounds better than the later Proteus iterations. Something about this box is just classic and nice.
I love how many of these sounds were just straight resampled into so many N64 games. (And a few SNES ones.) The lower fidelity alters the character a bit of course, but almost every one of these pad sounds reminded me of the system. A lot of the stabs and choirs were too. I don’t blame them of course, they’re great sounds. Sometimes they even just took them from sample library CDs to be cheap about it, since they were being re-sampled into various sound engines anyway. But IIRC Rare had actual Proteus modules. Plus of course almost every movie and TV score from the 90s and early 00s had these sounds somewhere! But I feel the other comments discussed that already ;)
One of my favorite sounds is the marimba, the Proteus 1 and 2 modules are also known for having realistic flute sounds. The strings were also outstanding for that time and it was incredible that you could get this sort of sound quality out of a 1U module. DSK Music used a few Proteus 1 and 2 sounds in VSTs like Virtuoso, Mixcraft's Acoustica instruments sampled a few sounds from the Proteus 1 and 2 plus Synthway's Drumwavy used mainly selected Proteus 2 sounds plus Drumwavy includes the Proteus 1's marimba which is solely why I bought it. I think Roland were better when it came to things like pianos, basses and saxophones.
Yep, I got one. First time I could afford samples. Hours of fun with the module. 64 voice I thin...16 part multi- really broke the boundaries. Sold it about 10 years ago as the samples even though 16 bit were so hackneyed by everyone including computer sound cards
Ah, fond memories of a lot of sequencing with this unit. Mine had the ProtoLogic expansion. If I recall, the only thing lacking, for my taste, were the electric bass patches, but I had those well-covered with the Roland Bass Legends rack unit. Along with an Alesis D4, Yamaha DX-7, and Roland D-50. Great times.
Still have my Proteus 2000 with its slots full of orchestral, vintage & world cards - and i occasionally move the expansion cards to my PK-6. So many nice sounds - even in 2020. Often fills a need i can't meet with anything else - like last year when i needed a good sitar - and i found three different ones among its patches.
Ooo, a module I don't have! Still sounds nice. And I appreciate and approve of your use of the Emax II here too! (I do have an E3 and the ESynth Ultra, but the Proteus series of modules are special and more important they were somewhat more affordable than a full sampler...) Nice video, as always.
I had one of these. I had to pretend I was getting my bathroom done, so I could borrow the £800 required. I painted the bathroom myself, and made several albums which included this amazing machine. Everyone was happy! Now I can get all these kinds of sounds on my iPad for next to nothing. Time moves on...
That track sounds similar to the early 80s electrofunk hiphop, like it. Love these Emu modules they have a strong punchy sound and tons of useful percussion and drums and the sounds might be basic but they work so well in a track, the piano and strings are perfect for 80s music in general and that early 90s era like Soul2Soul and even up to late 90s UK Garage so quite versatile. I use the Proteus 2000s with Emulator X software which is one of my favourite vsts.
Its amazing how they could cram all those sounds into 4mb and yet they still sound pretty good! How they managed to get the piano to sound that good, must have been some magic involved? I agree that some of the original Emulator II sounds are better, richer, but not a bad little module. They are just so cheap now, you can pick them up for just about nothing!
A bus hit my car back sometime in the 90’s, so instead of getting the car repaired, I spent the money from the insurance on one of this with a Protologic expansion as a demo deal. I think it was somewhere between 12-14.000 NOK. The car was never repaired, still have this module laying on a shelf 😁 Might be time to try if it are still working.
Still the best sound module of all time.as far as I'm concerned. Just the choir and string piano sounds made it worth the money. Instant PSBs and ART OF NOISE with one of these gems.
Oh wow ... that "bell" kind of sound at 8:30 sounds exactly like something that was used in one of my favorite documentaries, "The KGB, The Computer, And Me."
I bought this back in the day when it came out... don't remember that snare... but the one I remember was some clangy thing.. lack of filter limited it,, but for me was my first "piano" as such,,, loved that Heaven patch and the choir.
I own one of the newer Emu Proteus models that is the FX, which is basically a enhanced emu proteus 1 with EFX and also have many sounds from the Emu Proteus 1, Proteus 2, MPS into one package. It does have 2 banks of 256 patches that can be saved and replaced via Edit i think. They are sorta like harder to find sometimes compare to it previous models but the prices are not so expensive through, i bought mines for 140 USD. Overall i love the demo of the emu proteus 1 you did here.
@@EspenKraft Yeah, my FX in terms of Polyphony and Multitimbral is not very different from the older models, through at least the battery is not soldered compare to the previous models. Switching out the battery is pretty simple and easy. They are great and cheap modules in my opinion.
E-mu really knew how to get nice sounds from digital filters, but are the digital filters in the various Proteus models identical, or do some sound more analog-ish or more 'retro' than others? I have read that the Ultra-Proteus does not sound as good as the others, but I'd like to get your opinion re: various Proteus models. Thanks!
@@derekbaker3279 A lot of the sounds i heard in the FX are actually identical to the ones i heard in Proteus 1 and 2, also MPS, through it does have digital filters.
Thank you for another great video Espen! Very interesting! I KNEW you'd go for Dire Straits as soon as I heard the sound around the 6 min mark! :D Many cool sounds there, a bit plasticky design but still, it's what comes out of it that counts.
I got a Baldwin SM-100 for cheap which is just a rebranded E-MU Proteus/1. Only has a different badge and logo on the firmware. Same samples and can be loaded with any Proteus/1 presets.
The original Proteus was the brainchild of Byron Sheppard, a personal friend of mine. It was the product that saved E-mu from an early bankruptcy.
Thanks for sharing ;-)
@@SeraphimArchives If you have a LinkedIn account, it's listed on his resume. Dave and partial Scott got all the glory at E-mu. And Dave Rossum sure was a ingenious guy. But there where a few other people there who pulled a significant weight there too.
If this is really the case, then thank God for that. If they had went under early, we never would have had their great modules of the mid 90's (Orbit, etc), or any of their incredible Samplers in the E Series.
Nice!!!😀 Glad your partner had the vision...lots of great music has been made with that bad boy...old school🧐💯
I don't suppose your friend could come up with another brainchild to start a revived E-mu company to bring back some of that vintage ear candy and tech goodies?
Proteus was the thing to use for multimedia music in those days. I did so many radio jingles with it. Songs were so easily mixed when done with the Proteus. Every sound sat well in the mix. Thanks for the memories!!
you made a living out of the proteus uh?
the 90's nostalgia is strong in this unit... I got to know this module in the college MIDI lab quite well. loved it.
I’m 23 years old and last year purchased a Proteus 2000 and a Mo’Phatt. Producers my age have never heard of E-Mu. Even tho I produce modern Hip-Hop/RnB which is dominated by VST’s, E-Mu sounds are in every single of my tracks. The sounds not only sound so much fun, they are so crisp and fit in every mix perfectly. The editing might seem tedious to most, but it’s actually really intuitive. I will never give up my modules. Just wish the ROMs weren’t so damn expensive !!
Editing the synth via Midiquest is a bit more fun. Visual editing on a pc
Ann Other yes but since I started at age 13, I’ve gone basically ten years using exclusively the computer. The screens on these modules are a brief but welcome change of scenery and experience for me lol
@@Aroverlord ok man. But bear in mind the main jogwheel on these e-mu synths are the weak spot and are prone to failure after a certain amount of time. It happened to a Morpheus I used to own
Funny. I'm 23 now and I'm in the same exact position. Hip-hop/RnB producer.
There is just something special about the sound of all these romplers. Especially the pads. Made me want to make ambient music.
Purchased a Korg 01W/FD and it's great. Looking at the JD-990 now. Oh man, I can afford it. But I just don't think $1,100 is worth it though.
Where did you get the Proteus 2000?
It's crazy how nostalgic I get watching your channel. I am one of those dudes who's too poor to buy keyboard magazine so I read them in the library. Every single synths from the 90s you put up here meant something to me. It reminds me how poor I was lol. Later, when everything nowadays becomes soft-synths, I've never looked back. I still have my Roland D-10 with me but that's it. The E-MUs in the old days, I remember, it meant sampling to me. I don't know why, but E-MU meant sampling. Always lovely hearing you play, sir.
Many thanks! :) btw, I read a lot of magazines in the library too. ;-)
yes! I read all the guitar and synth magazines in the public library. 😂😂😂
@@EspenKraft You are pompous and annoying, you will see how many agree in the next couple weeks. Bye bye 👋
6:02 Dire Straits! Yeah buddy, straight to my 80s rock heart! :D
And for those wondering why he has two Proteus/1, it's because the first one I sent him was a Protologic expanded one, but it doesn't boot up and is generally beyond what any of us can repair. I got this one in hopes of transferring the Protologic expansion to the working one, but it requires a lot of soldering and moving chips, changing resistors and connectors. So "Vanilla" version it is for now. ;)
Do you know if that organ sound was used on Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman? Shorten those note lengths and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were.
Wasn't that the M1? I think Synthmania did a video on that once.
apislapis Yes, as Espen said. It’s the M1, but the Proteus sounds pretty close too.
th-cam.com/video/KAq04oyRU98/w-d-xo.html
apislapis M1 by Kong yeah? I have le software and I play le riff
I thought Protologic was a drop in upgrade board along with its eprom chips
Wonderful video, Espen. Proteus3/World in the studio here. Sequencing it using VCV-Rack virtual modular. You can teach an old dawg a new trick!
Thanks Paul! :)
Oh ,yes. The Proteus Series was very popular at begin of the 90s ,too. I remember the Vintage Keys was also a huge success when it came out. I never had one of them ,but when i purchased an ESI 4000 Sampler ,i also got the Protozoa CD-Rom with al of the Sounds from the Proteus Series. Very useful sounds for that type of music. Thanks for showing and the Informations about it
the oberheim matrix has a lot of vintage keyboard sounds
The pianos and choirs from this little machine still sounds usable nowdays. I'm impressed.
Theyve never been bettered. So theyll always be the standard. The machine they came from the Emulator three. Use to cost as much as a decent car. It was one of the GODS of 80s synth pop.
I absolutely love the marimba on this thing. It's actually the same patch that was used in the original crash bandicoot games too!
So do I, shame it's not included on the Proteus 2.
Dave Rossum, 2015:
The G-chip powered the Proteus. The "G" was taken from one of the authors of the technical paper that introduced us to high order interpolation - Phil Gossett and Julius Smith - and we called the algorithm "Gossett-Smith". While there was great engineering and economic benefit to using one sample rate, the drop sample approach produced unacceptable distortions with many sounds. Mathematically, any single sample rate approach uses “interpolation.” Drop sample is the simplest (what we call “order zero”); linear (“order one”) interpolation gives somewhat less distortion, but was still not good enough for us. The G-chip was my vision for an “order seven” interpolator that would have no audible distortion. In the spring of 1988, we taped out the G-chip, and the prototypes worked perfectly! The Proteus was internally first called "the plug", because we had a big hole in our revenue due to the EIII reliability problems, and needed something to plug into the product map as soon as we could. The product concept was simply "the quickest thing we could design that made music using the G-chip". As the product came together, there was great debate about the sound ROM content. Some lobbied for a few great EIII samples, but Marco insisted that we put a full complement of pop/rock instruments in our allocated 4 MiB. The sound department expressed great concern over the sound quality, but remember, this was when the G-chip was brand new, and none of us realized how great it was. The sounds were compressed and compressed again, and still sounded fabulous. Then Herb Jimmerson did the demo sequence, and we all were blown away. That was when we realized we had a sure winner. It was not deliverable for a long time. The G-chip, made for us by LSI Logic, used LSI's 16×16 pipelined multiplier-accumulator cell as the heart of its DSP math engine. The prototypes worked perfectly, but when LSI made the first production lot in January 1989, those chips drew too much power. LSI build another lot in March, and those had the same problem. By May, they had determined that the problem lay in their multiplier cell; it took until August for them to find the root cause. There was a "design-rule violation" creating a tiny short-circuit. This had been fixed months before for other customers, but somehow the E-mu design was missed. Finally, new masks were made, and a production lot was scheduled for late October. On October 17th, 1989, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurred with epicenter just 5 miles from E-mu. Our company did OK, we were back in full operation in a couple of weeks, but at LSI's fab 40 miles away, the G-chip production batch was ruined. I think we finally got the first batch of production G-chips in December 1989. We probably lost millions of revenue dollars, all of which could have fueled R&D on expanding and cost-reducing the Proteus line a year earlier than we did, and we would have been prepared for the competition from the Sound Canvas and other copycats. Why didn't it have a filter? Our digital filter, the H-chip, hadn't yet been completed.
Cool story and insight to the history. Thanks! :)
I was at producer Hannon Lane's home studio in Richmond, Virginia back in 1992. He had the Proteus 1 & 2. He and another musician had reconstructed one of my songs using a bunch of Proteus sounds. The original sounds I used were from a Yamaha DX 100. I wasn't happy with the chord structure changes but I did find the new sounds delightful.
Your demo does an excellent job of illustrating why this was a much sought after module. Thanks Espen.
Si, Gratsi Espen!
[ Mi 🍆 + Your sweet 🕳 = 🏅🚬🖤 ]
Much Appreciated!
-Michelangelo
Awesome, thanks! :)
Gracias!
I got a Proteus as soon as it came out. I couldn’t believe such a thing existed. My “setup” was a D50, M1, Proteus, Dx21, going through a Boss 16 track mixer, then out one bass speaker (because I did not yet comprehend different types of speakers and stereo monitors). Later I got a pair of Alesia monitors and a Quadraverb. I thought I was hitting the big time with so much gear.
It was a nice setup for the time. ;-)
Raymond Castile ......good old days 🎼
Raymond Castile great set up at the time!
#Espen Kraft Fun fact, this module was the one Josh Mancell used for scoring both PlayStation classics Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter. He used the Proteus 1-3. I own the Proteus 2000 and that was used on a ton of games like Spyro 3 and Ratchet and Clank. ^^ Those Z-Plane filters man! 👌🏻
One of the first sounds he played got me thinking of crash bandicoot! 🤪
Kristian Blåsol 3 has the Crash 3 Orchestra.
Nothing pleases me more than finding out what is responsible for each and every noise and tune in music I like
The Proteus, together with the Roland U110*, are really the dawn of the "rompler" term used in a derogative sense (ie, sample-based modules with limited editability, as opposed to true synth engines with filters etc). But we all needed boxes of sounds for our sequencing setups, and more polyphony, and the Proteus at the time hit a sweet spot, and really helped save Emu during that period, if you listen to some of Dave Rossum's stories.
* There were others, but these two were the most popular ones that kind of defined the category.
Yes, to fulle appreciate these one needs to take into consideration the time when these were introduced. Of course the specs are dated and many of the sounds won't cater for what is now called "synthwave", nor were they meant to of course. ;-) but that doesn't mean the sounds aren't usable. Most of them still are imo.
We had one of those Roland modules in the lab/studio at my college in the late 80s, along with a DX7ii. Loved it, especially after having only a semi modular mono analog synth the first semester.
I guess the analog synth fetish is not for me 😁
love your demo song at the beginning, a great groove! As Always, Espen, you have a great video.....When I bought this unit many moons ago, the main reason I got it was because of it's guitar sounds which were ahead of their time back then....
Thanks! :)
I actually bought a sound card in 1991 from TurtleBeach called MultiSound which had the E-mu Proteus 1/XR onbaord!!!
It was a all-in-one pci soundcard with audio in/out and midi/in out all in studio quality. Very capable and powerful package i 1991 and I really liked the sound of the E-mu Proteus 1/XR.
btw. great video Mr. Kraft 👌
I still have my MultiSound. I loved this card to bits. Sadly, I don't have an old PC to put it in anymore.
I absolutely love my Proteus 1,.it's a brilliant little piece of synth, I use it a lot these days 👍
The Rugrats intro and quite a few others used the Proteus1 , sound of so many childhoods came from that box . The mid files for them can be found without too much digging . I only found this out after I’d brought a module for cheap from a pawnshop. The flexibility of the audio routing and layering is crazy once you start to explore it
Every time I watch one of these videos I'm transported back to the 80's! Wish I could go back there but still have TH-cam and the Internet.
Sweet!
Good stuff, I own what has been called the EMUseum. The entire 2000 set, and more. I luv them all. ✌🏾👍🏾
Where is it? Im interested!
Cool. I’ve never thought of collecting that series. My music partner probably had them all at one point. He sold them all when Emu released the CD ROM set. All the sounds were there but having the individual modules was way better and useful.
I had the Emu Orbit 9090 . My first romper. The Xtreme or XL7 is what I lusted in 2000
I have many of the P2000 series. If you need firmware updates, please visit my site emu.tools/ where there's a WebMIDI based firmware updater that runs direct within various web browsers (Chrome recommended).
It was one of the first sound modules i bought. I remeber it like it was yesterday. When i bought it, it just came out, and was the last one in the shop. The guy behind me wanted one too. It was Ben Liebrand. famous mixer (they call them DJ's now ;-) ) He wanted my module, but i took it home. I loved this module. later i bougth the E-mu Proteus 2 orchestral. also a great module. But what i missed in these modules, were the effects. I bought the Proteus FX later. My brother still have my other Proteus module's. Now that i have seen your video, i want to play with them again. Thanks for your nice reviews Espen!
Cool story, thanks Erwin! :)
Got my hands on a cheap Pro/Cussion module a few weeks back. All the drums from the Emulator 3 some of which are surprisingly useable. You can edit and stack samples for big percussion. Good to hunt for these little gems while still cheap.
The Pro/cussion had some fantastic sounds - my only issue when I used to have one was for some reason these units used to exhibit quite a bit of MIDI latency , which strangely( and luckily) the Proteus 1, 2 and 3 didn’t have.
As the owner of an E-MU Proteus Custom with the Protozoa ROM, I appreciate this video! Beautiful intro song!
Thanks! :D
@7:10 this piano + strings patch was all over the place in the 90s. Nice review! thx
Thanks!
always been a fan of the emu marimba and 'ooh' vox sounds...they're synthetic, but they always cut through a mix so well.
Great video as always - thanks! I think this planted a seed in my mind as I stumbled across a decent priced ultra proteus the other day which has this goodness plus the really interesting z-plane filters.
Thanks ! I have both Proteus 1, FX, Emax 1 and ESI-32, never had the time to use them but the possibilities are damn' good.
0:20 this bass sound was sampled and used in a lot of Super Nintendo games.
Strongly considered buying one of these, from eBay or the like, 4 years ago when I was getting back into electronic music. I ended up going down the software route instead, at least at first just to arrange MIDI files.
As you’ve shown, Espen, this is a nice bit of kit. I did buy the samples for some of these from Digital Sound Factory, who has the rights to the ROMs, apparently. I still sometimes use these sounds in NI’s sample player in my laptop and the soundfont player on my iPad.
In particular, there are a number of nice, General MIDI compatible, drum kits, which Native Instruments’ Kontakt library sorely lacks. NI has nice drums, but they aren’t GM compatible. Proteus is.
I have come very close to buying a Proteus 2 a few times in the past but changed my
mind at the last minute ( I very nearly bought a Proteus 1 Plus Orchestral in 2019 ). But I
have just ordered a Proteus 2 and it's on the way. Until now I was using Proteus 1 and 2
instruments in DSK Virtuoso, Drumwavy by Synthway plus Mixcraft's Acoustica instruments
sampled some of it's sounds from the Proteus 1 and 2. I did also buy the Proteus 2 soundfont
but it doesn't have the Whistlin Joe sound. I'm not sure weather or not to buy the Proteus 1
since I mainly want it for it's marimba sound. Drumwavy samples the marimba sound pretty
close.
Very nice! Can't remember if I'd seen this when I made/posted my Proteus /1 demo. I only had the module for a few months, you seem to have a lot more experience with it...
I just had this module on loan for a few days, but I remember them from when they were released in the late 80s. ;-)
Loving the sounds on 10:00 mins feeling Goldie intros ♥️
Still have mine. My favorite patches were the B3 patch and the Hall Strings. Lots of really good tones and I still hear them pop up in commercials.
As always, great video. I've always preferred the Emu samples and was considering selling my Proteus 1 recently because it wasn't getting too much use. After watching this, I'm inspired to do some more 80s/90s sounding beats.
Don't sell it! ;-)
I have a Proteus/1+ Orchestral. A customer was throwing away a pile of old sound hardware; I offered to take the equipment for e-cycling. Glad I had a look through the hardware before I e-cycled it! It remains the only "professional" grade synth I own. I had to loan a MIDI controller from my father-in-law to test and operate it.
A very lucky find! I would love to own that module but unfortunately space is something I have to consider but I do have other
Roland sound modules including a JV-1080. I can't believe someone would throw a working sound module away.
@@LittleRichard1988 The 3V SRAM battery was dead. That was all that was wrong with it. I couldn't believe it either.
@@McTroyd It sounds like the dead battery was replaced before it even had a chance to explode. Dead
batteries can explode and destroy the internal circuitry if they are not removed or replaced.
@@LittleRichard1988 Quite correct. I've been burned by that before. As soon as it became apparent the SRAM presets were corrupted, I went looking.
That piano a 4:16 is still usable, I mean in modern production applications..So rich in character! 10: 16... Those string beds are awesome!!! Wow! I sure need an emulation of this Emulator. ! Many thanks for sharing Espen
Cheers!
Most of the sounds are usuable. A classic sound doesnt get old. Music has gone downhill today. Nothing touches the 80s. That was the ultimate era for synth based pop. And our man here keeps reminding us of that.
@@fender1000100 4real
I had the Proteus 2. The strings are still today the most powerful I've ever used.
The gods must have overheard me. Just a few days ago, a friend and I were discussing the old Roland JV 1080s (and the subsequent other racks and workstations). I had said that while it would be fun to have those sounds again, I don’t know that I’d use them, but I still really want a Proteus sometimes. You just made it more difficult for me to resist buying one haha
Haha .. Cool!
Just get any newer Roland module. Half of the Integra is the whole JV library wich is where the sounds from also the U-110/220 was taken. 32 years has gone and roland still uses 30+ year old samples to fill half the Integra-7. But they also were quite a good library back then, but kinda cheapish with todays standards of non looped full length 24bit 48khz stereo samples. But nothing bad said of the Integra. All the newer stuff in it is actually great for bread and butter sounds, and really many musicians don't really spend a lot of times programming own sounds. They just want something that sounds nice right OTB.
I admit I was always much more to the Japanes sound. I never really was that much into the american sounds back then. Really many of those American sampler/rompler sounds sounded more raw and unfinnished, where eg. Roland and Yamaha sounded more polished. Its kinda the same with many of todays "arranger" keyboards. when you compare eg. any of the European arrangers like Ketron, with Korg and Yamaha .. there is a world of difference, and Yamaha always had that more "finnished mix " sound with lots of effects and reverb, where the others are great too .. there is some more "intimisity of eg a Korg arranger. The sounds are more dry and more in your face, where the Yamaha's to some sound too polished and are more souped into all kind of effects. The Yamaha sound like eg a Bigband in a big venue where the Korgs sound like a Jazz quartet in a little smoky Jazz club. But still in my ears, Yamaha is ways ahead of the competition in the quality and ease of use with there advanced SA2 sounds wich can quite easy be mastered by even beginners and intermediate players to sound like a pro. No need to fiddle around with 10-20 key switches to switch between the different articulations like in a Kontakt instrument. You eg. just play a sixth or seventh and the sound automaticly switches to a slide up/down dependent on the sound type
@@mrdali67 I actually recorded a soprano sax from the Integra (SuperNatural mode) the other day. All of my professional music friends thought it was a real one.
Have a Proreus/1 +Orchestral and love it, part of my current setup.
Proteus 2000 still in my setup
I still have my Proteus 1, Proteus 2 Orchestral & Proteus 3 World. They still sound great and seem to last forever.
I've got all those libraries in my E5000. They're great aren't they?
Your song and sound is great! And I can feel your love to Emu's proteus. (I bought it.)
Cheers!
I remember having to buy the proteus at all costs. Haha. Who would of thought it would be a VST one day. Amazing. Nice work!
Had the Proteus 1 and 2500. Now got and use their 'Vintage Pro' module which to me is their best one...love it!
Just bought these for Kontakt, bundle of 5 E-mu modules, love em, super cheap too
DSF bundle(s), right?
I did the samething for dimension pro vst. In cakewalk sonar. I also had the protues x with the e-me soundcard. Tremendous deal
Tommy, where did u buy it
Blue Matrix - try this link
www.digitalsoundfactory.com/product-category/format/kontakt/
Fantastic vid about a equally fantastic sampler!
That demo song you did though, so groovy! Love it.
I immediately started jamming along on guitar, because it's so funky.
Sweet man! The arrangement does leave room for additional sounds. ;-)
Proteus 1 & 3 were responsible for pretty much everything I recorded in the 90s. The breadth of sounds for the price was amazing at the time.
I got one of these when they first came out in 89 and I LOVED it. I still wish I had mine today. I might need to find me another one!!
Fun fact: This sound module was used in seasons 3-7 of Thomas the Tank Engine
Actually, that’s the Proteus 2.
@@GabePickles3837 The Proteus 2 is the Orchestral model from this overall lineup of products this video's about
UPDATE: Never mind. Just found out that TTTE also used the Proteus 1 and 2000.
FUN FACT: They also used the Prophet 2000 sampler, Yamaha Grand Piano, Yamaha RX5 drum module, and Rickenbacker bass guitar.
Nice, that's where I started in someone else's studio in '96, and I guess I need one now
Cool machine, never had one. Back then I got myself a Roland U-220, basically also a "rompler" type of instrument with some programmability and excellent sampled sounds. Its voice and choir sounds pretty much beat all competition and knocked the Korg M1 off its throne in that field.
Yes, the U-220 is excellent :)
I love this sound module, I have four, 1,2,3 and P2K, these sounds through plugins are cool yet
I definitely like the Proteus 3; it has a lot of obscure instruments so its very useful for making world music or soundtracks. I'd say its still useful.
That woody xylophone, sounds very Depeche.
That intro jam was fantastic 👏🏼 I aspire to have your level of 80’s skill one day
Cheers!
So incredibly wonderfully heavy and full strings on that Terminator theme
I still have my Proteus and Planet Earth.....great sounding modules and easy to set up and control. I love them both.
I still own one, my first synthesizer. Lovely memories trying all sounds. Later came an Oberheim Xpander (older), then a Yamaha SY99, Kawai K5000S. Still have them all
I used to have one of these and I really miss it 😔
En los 90's tuve la experiencia de ver a un grupo con dos módulos próteus y quede maravillado de sus sonidos únicos .... gracias excelente video saludos desde Coatzacoalcos Veracruz México.....
Great video Espen. I actually still have an offspring of this module. The Ultraproteus, which had the best of the Proteus 1, 2, and 3 modules along with the proformance piano module stereo piano sample. Really a shame that E-MU went out of business right along with Ensoniq. Those were the digital ROMpler glory years for sure :)
Proformance Piano Module is fantastic! I love that small rack with awesome sounds!
Thanks man! :)
They didn’t go out of business - they got bought but then the new owners (Creative) lost interest in the instrument business.
Flott video. Lydmodulen låter mye mer 80-talls enn jeg hadde forventet av et produkt sluppet i 1989, men siden den var en salgssuksess, så tyder jo det på at den allikevel ikke kom for seint på markedet. Mange lyder er helt perfekte for nåtidens retro synth-pop.
Takk så mye! Ja, jeg syns den holder i massevis fortsatt! :)
Now that is a synth with soooooo many satisfying and instantly usable sounds. I've long wanted to get the 2 Orchestral version but might have to add #1 to that list!
I always wanted to get /1 yet ended owning /2 instead! Lol!
I bought the EMU Soundfont Packs back in the 90s.
When I moved to thus new place I stumbled upon them once more.
Studio One uses an SF2 format for Presence it's ROMplersizer plugin.
Of course, these days, they're more layered and across less keys per sample than they were 25 years ago but it was nice to see that sf2 was still a 'Thing'.
And you're right we all wanted one and/or their rack sampler; was it the ESi -32 that was the first of those ?
The Emax was also released in rack form. ;-)
i love the strings on it .. used it a lot
Totally agree. They were used in Final Fantasy VIII and some tracks in IX. And the snare at 6:40 was used in FFV (Probably the EIII) and some Bally/Williams pinball tables.
I have the VX software version, which I believe has a lot of the same sounds, When you use it for everything in the song, including drums you have an instant polished 80s track and there are some fun weird sounds buried in there also
Great review! I got mine for free when I bought my Akai S612. I never even turned it on. I will soon after this review! thanx!
Cool. Do it! Thanks :)
My first muliti-timberal box. Definitely needed effects but what they packed into that 1U sample wise was ground breaking at the time.
🥰
I rock a Proteus FX in my studio - great ROMpler for sure - still recording with it in 2020
That harpsi patch at 9 mins is great, and that Kraft made pad is very nice. the Proteus 1 definitely sounds better than the later Proteus iterations. Something about this box is just classic and nice.
I put in a bid on a 2XR a few days ago and then I see this...I just hope no one gets any ideas before the auction ends :)
I love how many of these sounds were just straight resampled into so many N64 games. (And a few SNES ones.)
The lower fidelity alters the character a bit of course, but almost every one of these pad sounds reminded me of the system. A lot of the stabs and choirs were too.
I don’t blame them of course, they’re great sounds. Sometimes they even just took them from sample library CDs to be cheap about it, since they were being re-sampled into various sound engines anyway. But IIRC Rare had actual Proteus modules.
Plus of course almost every movie and TV score from the 90s and early 00s had these sounds somewhere! But I feel the other comments discussed that already ;)
I was so often tempted to buy one of these on Ebay. 😆
One of my favorite sounds is the marimba, the Proteus 1 and 2 modules are also known for having realistic flute sounds. The strings were also outstanding for that time and it was incredible
that you could get this sort of sound quality out of a 1U module.
DSK Music used a few Proteus 1 and 2 sounds in VSTs like Virtuoso, Mixcraft's Acoustica instruments sampled a few sounds from the Proteus 1 and 2 plus Synthway's Drumwavy used mainly selected Proteus 2 sounds plus Drumwavy includes the Proteus 1's marimba which is solely why I bought it. I think Roland were better when it came to things like pianos, basses and saxophones.
I think the X-Files theme uses one of those for the whistle sound.
That's correct, in fact it's the Proteus 2's "Whistling Joe" patch.
Yep, I got one. First time I could afford samples. Hours of fun with the module. 64 voice I thin...16 part multi- really broke the boundaries. Sold it about 10 years ago as the samples even though 16 bit were so hackneyed by everyone including computer sound cards
as a hobbyist i'd love to have one of these i'll have loads of fun
I had this and the other Proteus models too. Wondered why sounds aren’t available today.
Ah, fond memories of a lot of sequencing with this unit. Mine had the ProtoLogic expansion. If I recall, the only thing lacking, for my taste, were the electric bass patches, but I had those well-covered with the Roland Bass Legends rack unit. Along with an Alesis D4, Yamaha DX-7, and Roland D-50. Great times.
Great times indeed. ;-)
Still have my Proteus 2000 with its slots full of orchestral, vintage & world cards - and i occasionally move the expansion cards to my PK-6. So many nice sounds - even in 2020. Often fills a need i can't meet with anything else - like last year when i needed a good sitar - and i found three different ones among its patches.
Ooo, a module I don't have! Still sounds nice. And I appreciate and approve of your use of the Emax II here too! (I do have an E3 and the ESynth Ultra, but the Proteus series of modules are special and more important they were somewhat more affordable than a full sampler...) Nice video, as always.
Thanks Chris! The Emax II is greatas well ;-)
I had one of these. I had to pretend I was getting my bathroom done, so I could borrow the £800 required. I painted the bathroom myself, and made several albums which included this amazing machine. Everyone was happy! Now I can get all these kinds of sounds on my iPad for next to nothing. Time moves on...
I go back, all the time. ;-)
That track sounds similar to the early 80s electrofunk hiphop, like it. Love these Emu modules they have a strong punchy sound and tons of useful percussion and drums and the sounds might be basic but they work so well in a track, the piano and strings are perfect for 80s music in general and that early 90s era like Soul2Soul and even up to late 90s UK Garage so quite versatile. I use the Proteus 2000s with Emulator X software which is one of my favourite vsts.
was a really good rack modul love the pads strings and piano sound in it.
I recently bought a Proteus 1, Proteus 2 XR Orchestral, and a ProCussion all for $60 in a 4u Rack case. Not a bad haul =o]
Nice deal!
Wow, those choirs, organs and strings... Just wow...
Its amazing how they could cram all those sounds into 4mb and yet they still sound pretty good! How they managed to get the piano to sound that good, must have been some magic involved? I agree that some of the original Emulator II sounds are better, richer, but not a bad little module. They are just so cheap now, you can pick them up for just about nothing!
I agree, to me the piano and organ sounds still hold up (and not in a retro way, like the choir aahs). I don't know but they do.
underrated little device
There's one coming my way some time in the future, courtesy of my old man :) Can't wait to play with it!
Congrats!
Percussion sounds awesome on this!
Completely true! That's why I own a Proteus 1, the heart of my live rig is the Proteus 2 though, combined with a Kurzweil K2000R
any of the old-time OCRemix and or VGMix fam wanna talk about 4:30 😂
A bus hit my car back sometime in the 90’s, so instead of getting the car repaired, I spent the money from the insurance on one of this with a Protologic expansion as a demo deal. I think it was somewhere between 12-14.000 NOK. The car was never repaired, still have this module laying on a shelf 😁 Might be time to try if it are still working.
For that reason alone you should fire it up and use it again! :)
I used to have this module but now I got the 2000. The boy band "Take That" from UK relies on this module in their first album.
Very nostalgic to see this - It's inspired me to get my EMU Morpheus out of the cupboard!
Excellent! :)
@@EspenKraft what did the squence the sound to back then? And is this what boy bands had in their songs...?
Still the best sound module of all time.as far as I'm concerned. Just the choir and string piano sounds made it worth the money. Instant PSBs and ART OF NOISE with one of these gems.
MMM the patch at 7:00. That's a nice piano+pad combo!
It sounds pretty nice. ;-) Cheers
Oh wow ... that "bell" kind of sound at 8:30 sounds exactly like something that was used in one of my favorite documentaries, "The KGB, The Computer, And Me."
I bought this back in the day when it came out... don't remember that snare... but the one I remember was some clangy thing.. lack of filter limited it,, but for me was my first "piano" as such,,, loved that Heaven patch and the choir.
Ah yes Mythical Pad at 10 mins....
I own one of the newer Emu Proteus models that is the FX, which is basically a enhanced emu proteus 1 with EFX and also have many sounds from the Emu Proteus 1, Proteus 2, MPS into one package. It does have 2 banks of 256 patches that can be saved and replaced via Edit i think.
They are sorta like harder to find sometimes compare to it previous models but the prices are not so expensive through, i bought mines for 140 USD.
Overall i love the demo of the emu proteus 1 you did here.
Thanks! They did come in many different forms through those years. Some have them all, some have one or a couple. ;-)
@@EspenKraft Yeah, my FX in terms of Polyphony and Multitimbral is not very different from the older models, through at least the battery is not soldered compare to the previous models.
Switching out the battery is pretty simple and easy.
They are great and cheap modules in my opinion.
E-mu really knew how to get nice sounds from digital filters, but are the digital filters in the various Proteus models identical, or do some sound more analog-ish or more 'retro' than others? I have read that the Ultra-Proteus does not sound as good as the others, but I'd like to get your opinion re: various Proteus models. Thanks!
@@derekbaker3279 A lot of the sounds i heard in the FX are actually identical to the ones i heard in Proteus 1 and 2, also MPS, through it does have digital filters.
@@derekbaker3279 The Morpheus had ALL the z-plane filters. the little brother and sister racks had much less but still z-plane
Thank you for another great video Espen! Very interesting! I KNEW you'd go for Dire Straits as soon as I heard the sound around the 6 min mark! :D Many cool sounds there, a bit plasticky design but still, it's what comes out of it that counts.
Thanks man! Yeah, it's have to be that line with a sounds like that. ;-)
I got a Baldwin SM-100 for cheap which is just a rebranded E-MU Proteus/1. Only has a different badge and logo on the firmware. Same samples and can be loaded with any Proteus/1 presets.