E-mu Emu Proteus 1 XR 1XR - $125

[jimsmusic]

Proteus 1XR Rock & Pop 16-part multi-timbral tone module $125 or best offer

 

XR The XR model has additional RAM for storing another 192 user presets. E-mu shipped these models with 128 new presets, and duplicated 64 ROM presets in RAM.

 

Overview The Proteus 1 was released in 1989 as the first synthesizer module that E-mu Systems had ever produced. It contained 32 voices of multi-timbral samples, coupled to a basic synthesizer sound architecture. The sounds for the Proteus came directly from the EIII library (with a bit of sample rate changing), and includes pianos, organs, strings, horns, guitars, basses and drums.

 

Expansion The base model could be upgraded with an additional 4MB of orchestral samples from the Proteus 2, making it a Proteus 1 Plus Orchestral. The ROM chips sat on a daughterboard and E-mu provided 128 new ROM presets as well.

 

These chips are not included and I don't have them to sell you.

 

Presets The base model has 192 presets (64 of which are user programmable), whilst the XR has 384 presets. E-mu Systems went on to create a library of presets and sold them in sets of 64 as SysEx downloads on floppy diskette.

 

LCD The Protueus uses a standard green 16 x 2 LCD display, augmented by a MIDI activity LED, and LED's for Master, Edit Menu, Preset, and Home.

 

Front Panel Controls The Proteus 1 has the standard set of early Proteus controls, which are: Power Switch, Master Menu Select Button, Edit Menu Select Button, Home/Enter Button, Cursor Controls, Data Entry Control, and a rotary Volume Control.

 

Waveforms There are 125 waveforms are the heart of this module, ranging from Piano, Strings, Voices to Guitars, Bass and Drums.

 

Configuration The Proteus module implements part of a classic analog synthesizer - digitally. There are two "oscillators" called Primary and Secondary Instruments. They each can replay any of the 16-bit sampled waveforms. The waveforms are replayed first via a simple low pass tone control, then a digitally controlled amplifier(DCA) and stereo pan. The amplifier is modified by a dedicated envelope generator.

 

Inside The Proteus 1 uses a standard set of hardware and the Revision A motherboard. It has a Motorola 68000 processor, eight ROM chips for the samples, and six Burr Brown 16-bit DAC's (PCM56P). There are also a couple of custom surface mount ASIC chips, the Toshiba Gate Array and the special E-mu G-chip.