E-MU Proteus/1

E-MU Proteus/1

W × H × D (mm)	482.6 x 44.45 × 215.9
Rack units	1U
Weight	2kg
Type	Fully-editable ROMpler sound module
Manufacturer	E-MU Systems
Release date	1989
Parts	16
Max polyphony	32
Normal presets	Original 192 XR 384
Expansion	4MB Expansion Board E-MU Plus Orchestral Expansion Invision Protologic Expansion

The E-MU Proteus/1 is a 1U rackmount sound module synthesizer created by E-MU Systems in 1989, made to the likes of units like the Roland U-220, being E-MU's first foray into making a rackmount synthesizer module. And much like the U-220 takes from sampled content from the S-series samplers, the Proteus/1 takes a lot of its sampled content from the Emulator III sound library.

Presenting itself with an average 16x2 character display and uniquely being made of plastic and held together with plastic tabs, the Proteus/1 takes another major economical measure of having no realtime effects, but did have a notable quantity of sound contents and 16-part multi-timbrality compared to its contemporaries. The Proteus/1 would be labelled the "Pop/Rock" module with later produced units, since the Proteus/1 focuses on a large range of instruments for contemporary production, and would be followed up by the Proteus/2 and Proteus/3, focusing on Orchestral and World instruments respectively.

The sounds of the Proteus/1 and the rest of the Proteus series would find themselves on later E-MU products and software. A digital version of the Proteus/1 is officially offered in Digital Sound Factory's "E-MU Proteus Legacy" Kontakt library, however the sound is often inaccurate.

Sound Generation

The Proteus/1 is fully editable ROMpler synthesizer. Presets are made up of 2 oscillators known "pri" (primary) and "sec" (secondary) that can hold one of Proteus/1's 125 instrument tones. An instrument tone can have its sound reversed. Along with a preset having its own global volume envelope/ADSR, each oscillator has pitch/tuning, panning, chorus and ADSR available.

Each oscillator also features 2 programmable LFOs with 5 waveshape options.

The two oscillators can also be split to different parts of the keyboard or interact with an editable crossfade across the keyboard range. Up to 4 presets can be linked together and split simultaneously.

Out of its 192 presets, the Proteus/1 has 64 user-rewritable preset locations, or 128 ROM; 64 RAM presets. This range starts at 064 to 127 in the preset list. If the battery of your Proteus is depleted, then RAM presets will always be the default initial preset.

Preset Selection

Any Proteus/1 and its variants (as well as its two followups) is going to bear at least 192 presets.

Unfortunately, the presets on these modules are not possible to all be selected over program changes. Unlike other synthesizer modules that use MIDI and have over 128 internal presets, the Proteus doesn't utilize MSB/LSB bank switching. A solution offered on the module is the ability to link different presets to different program numbers.

So for example, you can link 072 Bright Steel to MIDI Program #40, or 141 Steel Drum to MIDI Program #23 (through the MASTER menu). This is the only way to access presets on the Proteus/1 past its first 127 over MIDI. If you have ever acquired a secondhand Proteus/1 or related module where program changes jump around the preset list in a way that doesn't make sense, it's likely the previous owner had tweaked this particular setting for their own use.

Variants & Expansions

Proteus/1 XR

The Proteus/1 XR features more RAM than the original module, adding an extra 192 user-programmable preset locations (with 128 of those being new presets, and 64 being duplicates), bringing the overall total to 384 (256 RAM; 128 ROM).

Protologic Invision Proteus/1 / Protologic Invision Expansion Board

There was an expansion board created by Invision that would add 4 MBs of sounds to the Proteus/1, featuring 70 instrument tones and 128 presets of sounds like basses, keyboards, horns, percussion, synths, etc.

Proteus/1s that had this expansion installed had a distinctive yellow squiggle graphic to the side of the "PROTEUS/1 16 BIT MULTI-TIMBRAL DIGITAL SOUND MODULE" text on the module.

Proteus/1 Plus Orchestral / Orchestral ROM Expansion Board

A Proteus/1 with the Orchestral Rom expansion board installed

There was also an expansion board for the Proteus/1 by E-MU that you had to seek the service of an authorized E-MU Dealer or service center to install in your module. It upgraded a standard Proteus/1 to a fully expanded 8 MBs, featuring 4 MBs of sounds making up a selection of instrument tones and 128 ROM presets from the Proteus/2. This brings the preset count to 320 between the original 192 and new 128 ROM presets.

The Proteus/1 Plus Orchestral or also known as a Proteus/1 Plus 2 (Module reads "1+2 XR" upon startup), is a variant of the Proteus/1 XR released in 1992 that has this expansion board built in.

The demo sequence is removed due to space reasons.

Proteus MPS / Proteus MPS Plus Orchestral

The Proteus Master Performance System, or better known as the Proteus MPS is a keyboard version of the Proteus/1 that adds 2 effects processors with 32 effects, featuring 200 presets and is expandable to 300 with a RAM card. The piano preset from the original Proteus is also replaced with a mono version of the piano sound from the Proformance/1 piano module.

The Proteus MPS Plus Orchestral, similarly to the Proteus/1 Plus Orchestral, adds 4 MBs from the Proteus/2 and more ROM presets utilizing them. And much like the Proteus/1 Plus Orchestral, there was an expansion board to upgrade a standard MPS to a Plus model as well.

Digidesign MacProteus

The MacProteus is a computer sound card version of the Proteus/1 produced by Digidesign for Macintosh computers in 1990.

Oddities

• Proteus modules respond to the standard MIDI panning message, however it is divided into 17 segments going in either a negative direction/left (-1 to -8) or a positive direction (1-8) with 0 being center and each value corresponds to an arbitrary MIDI panning number. Though, for some reason these values are slightly offset - a center panning message (0) is actually +1, or slightly right on a Proteus.

External Links

• Proteus Operation Manual, via Wayback Machine
  • synthmind.com mirror
• Proteus/1 Demo Sequence