E-MU Proteus MPS

Very easy if you understand what this strange machine can do
Mine (orchstral & plus version) canmake very strange sound, you can link
The beginning of a sound and end of another.

all you need is in this machine

Killer sound very good sample, no boom o techno bass from this machine

mint after 10 years

The backbone of this unit was built on the legacy of the venerable
Proteus 1 model, and this unit is basically a Proteus 1 + 2
(orchecstral) pasted together, with a standard 64 note keybaord
and (2) on-board FX processors. I've always found the programming
layout to be as elegant as possible; with one hand on the scroll wheel
and the other punching buttons, its easy to get a lot of editing or
tweaking done. Every patch can be a multi-layer, by linking in a part
(or all) of another patch. Access to all 16 midi channels in is easy,
and outbound is a dial away. The manual is quite complete.

The claim is 32 part multi-timbral, though many patches (as one would
expect) are 2-part. The keyboard is fast, with aftertouch, and has
global sesitivity settings. The FX section is... adequate, but really
shines when you feed one to the other in bizarre combinations (check
out the overdrives - turns ordinary tones into Joe Satriani).
The real-time modulations can be very useful, with any source affecting
any destination. One of the most useful tools on board is its MIDI
Data Income Analyzer - under the main menu (it will show you whatever
midi activity is occuring down the wire - very handy).

For its time, this unit was stae-of-the-art with its efficient sample
playback type engine. The sounds are actual real sample clips, some
at great compression (comparable to a roland 220). It excells at
strings, some brass, very decent bass, and drums. Killer guitar, once
it is mutataed by the on-board FX units. Decent, although thin organs
and pianos. Some sounds drop their character a bit when the unit is in
dedicated multi-mode (since some of the patches rely on the FX).

I've had the unit for about 7 years without a burp, although there
has been no hard or steady road work.

I have had other E-MU products (esi and emax samplers, darwin,
proteus 1), and have not had problems, but have had questions.
Very decent, informed people to deal with. I just hope they all
stay after the recent Ensoniq / Emu / Creative Labs thing.

At the time, this was an excellent bang / buck combination - aftertouch
keyboard, FX on board, and (2) proteus brains. The ease of navigation
(especially compared to a Roland) is almost worth the price of admission
simply for the no frustration factor.
If this unit exploded, I would try to find another, or try to convince
myself that its replacement would be as easy to use.

This unit a breeze to use and program. Like other EMU gear, the manual is clear and simple to follow. For the most part, things are intuitive with the only exception being the effects routing. The presets, well they're presets. =) The piano sounds great as do the strings. The rest though are pretty lackluster. This is mostly due to the limited samples on board.

This keyboard has 32 note polyphony, is 16 part multitimbural, has 2 effects busses and 125 samples on board. It has a RAM card slot but this only allows for more "patches" not actual samples to be added. It's got an actual mod wheel, pitch bend, aftertouch and a pedal jack. These can all be mapped to whatever midi parameter you want (i.e. controller #) and so it is a cool master keyboard.

Where this keyboard fails in its sound generating and editing capabilities. The samples on board are poorly chosen if you want anything other than pianos, strings and horns. There are few "noise" type samples and the drum samples are a bit mediocre. As well, editing is quite limited - you cannot change the loop point of a sample, the drum kits are static (you can't access the individual samples), if you reverse a sound it won't loop and there are no filters. The onboard effects are a bit cheesy and not that powerful. The ring mod has little effect and no parameters, the distortion sucks (they call it fuzz) and the only shinging point is the flange (crank up the feedback for some weird effects). Realtime control is excellent and the routing of control signals is awesome. Basically, the strings and piano rock but it's hard to make good "bleeps and blats". If you want out sounds, this ain't the unit for you.

Don't know yet. Ask me in a year. =) Seems solid.

Played a bit of phone tag today. We'll have to see if they call back.

I don't think it's worth as much as I paid but there wasn't much around I could afford. If it was cheaper, I'd buy it again just because it's such a nice controller. I like the operating system more than anything I've seen by Roland or Korg but the sound generation setup is pretty substandard. Within my setup it does help me get things done faster and so for a controller in a system that has a sequencer, sampler, drum module, etc., it's pretty cool.