E-MU ROM Info

What’s not to love about instantly loaded samples? For out of the computer workflows, clearly the biggest thing that kills your motivation and creativity is the load time of patches or samples into vintage hardware. We love the sound coloring that the old boxes provide but yet its walking a tightrope with your patience. There’s a reason why there was a big push in the 2000s to move to computers for convenience. As much as I love a 10Gb collection of a sampled baby grand streamed through a soft sampler, personally I enjoy the limitations and quirkiness of old space limited samples that were hand curated for the instruments themselves. Coupling that with the routing options that the Proteus 2K / EOS sampler line provide (re: patchcords), you get some unique combinations that are still not replicated on modern alternatives.

If you are looking for hardware details, this website has a fantastic write-up — https://snw.lonningdal.no/p2k.php

E-MU Product Lineup

E-MU developed a bunch of devices that all used the same technology under the hood. It was quite nice to have sample ROMs that could be transferred between different devices for different purposes.

Sound Modules:
  • Proteus 2000
  • Vintage Pro
  • Virtuoso 2000
  • Orbit-3
  • B-3
  • Xtreme Lead
  • Mo Phatt
  • Planet Earth
  • and some of the above with Turbo permutations
Keyboards:
  • MK-6
  • XK-6
  • PK-6
  • Halo
Command Stations:
  • MP-7
  • XL-7
  • PX-7
  • Proteus 2500 (rack version)
Samplers:
  • EOS Samplers namely the E4 XT

Sound ROM Flavors

There are twenty four ROMs that were released by E-MU. Some variations of the presets were made to cater to the hardware specifics, e.g. Command Station vs keyboard. Typically the Command Station versions are used with patterns, and keyboard versions have an extra bank with riff and preset variations. The raw samples used in the variants are the same, its just the presets were altered. I grouped them below to show the overlap between products:

Composer variants
  • Composer v1 (CMPSR) – used in Proteus 2000 module
  • Composer v2 (P2500) – used in Proteus 2500 rack version of Command Station
  • Composer v3 (PROM1) – used in PK-6 keyboard
Phatt variants
  • Pure Phatt v1 (PHATT) – used in Mo Phatt module
  • Pure Phatt v2 (MP-7) – used in MP-7 Command Station
  • Pure Phatt v3 (MROM) – used in MK-6 keyboard
Extreme lead variants
  • Extreme Lead v1 (XLEAD) – used in XL-1 module
  • Extreme Lead v2 (XL-7) – used in XL-7 Command Station
  • Extreme Lead v3 (XROM) – used in XK-6 keyboard
ZR variants
  • Sounds of the ZR (ZR)
  • Sounds of the ZR (QROM) – used in Halo keyboard
Unique releases
  • Rob Papen’s Techno Synth Construction Yard (TeCnO) – used in Orbit-3 module
  • Rob Papen’s Beat Garden (BEAT) – used in Orbit-3 module
  • Orchestral v1 (ORCH1) – used in Virtuoso 2000 module
  • Orchestral v2 (ORCH2) – used in Virtuoso 2000 module
  • World Expedition (World) – used in Planet Earth module
  • Definitive B-3 (B-3) – used in B-3 module
  • Vintage (VROM) – used in Vintage Pro module
  • Protean Drums (Drum) – used in PX-7 Command Station
  • Holy Grail Piano (Grail)
  • Protozoa (P/123)
  • Siedlaczek Advanced Orchestra (AORCH)
  • Ensoniq Project (SONIQ)
EOS sampler ROMs only

NOTE: These releases will not work in Proteus as a standalone ROM.

  • ESYNTH – used as sample ROM in Esynth and other EOS samplers (e.g. e6400)
    • Sound ROM included in Composer variants
  • AUDTY – used in Audity 2000 module
    • Sound ROM included in Xtreme Lead variants
  • XTREM – used in Audity 2000 module
    • Sound ROM included in Xtreme Lead and Composer variants

Sound Objects By ROM

Below are some tables that break down the preset and instrument objects composition – for each of the expansions. These tables highlight the linkage of the presets all the way through to the referenced sample names. If you come across an “INST-ONLY” tag in the preset name, that means the instrument was on the ROM but not referenced by any presets. If the table is too awkward to work with, you can always download the table (CSV button) and filter away in a spreadsheet.

This table has all the expansions in one searchable table. FYI, it takes some time to load.