E-mu Proteus 2 Orchestral (1990)
The Proteus 2 Orchestral was E-mu's second entry in the Proteus family. It came out in 1990 to fill the orchestral gap left by the Proteus/1. It's a 1U rack-mount sample playback module built around the same custom E-mu chip as its predecessor. This one carries 8 MB of 16-bit orchestral samples - strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, and keyboards - recorded from live instruments. The original US list price was $1,195.
It's a 32-voice polyphonic, 16-bit sample playback synth with 128 preset patches and 128 user patches, a 2-line by 20-character LCD, and a three-effect processor offering chorus, flanger, phaser, and a programmable delay of 0-15 seconds. Six individual analog outputs plus a stereo mix let you route sections separately. Each voice has dual lowpass filters, and there are two independent digital audio busses. The sources disagree on multitimbrality, with some claiming 16-part and others 6-part multimode, so that number stays out.
Reviewers at the time praised the strings and brass as remarkably realistic and expressive for the era. It became a staple in film and TV scoring through the early 1990s. The Proteus 2/Orchestral remained in professional use into the 2000s, appearing in recording studios alongside samplers like the Synclavier and Roland S760 (EQ Magazine, October 2004, p.24). It was also seen in the studios of artists like Harold Rebhun. The complaints were predictable: limited velocity layers, no realistic legato, and percussion that some found weak next to the rest of the sounds. It was marketed as an affordable alternative to loading orchestral libraries into a hardware sampler.
Today, used units typically sell in the $200 - $400 range. The known trouble spots are the patch-memory battery, which can leak and damage the PCB, dim or failed displays, and soldered ROM chips that make upgrades impractical. Replacing the battery and cleaning the front-panel pot are the usual first steps.
- 32-voice polyphony, 16-bit samples
- 8 MB ROM of orchestral samples
- 128 presets + 128 user patches
- Three-effect processor: chorus, flanger, phaser, 0–15s delay
- Six individual outputs plus stereo mix
- MIDI In/Out/Thru, 2×20 LCD
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