E-mu MPS/Orchestral Plus

Price Paid: US $130 used

Ease of Use: 10
I bought this used from ebay for $160. The factory presets are of a wide variety and all of them are incredible. I have only had it for a couple of weeks right now, so I'm still playing with the factory presets (nearly 500 of them). It doesn't seem as easy to program as, say, my Ensoniq SQ-80, but then the SQ-80 is a synth and the MPS is more a sampler...that is to say, it's sounds are sample based. I run it parallel to an E-mu Proteus FX (which shares many of the same factory presets). Needless to say, between the two of them, the sounds are PHAT!!! The strings are way above average, and the english horn sound is great. Keep in mind that my particular style is sort of chamber music set to industrial beats.

Features: 7
The polyphony is more than enough for my needs (I'm a guitarist more so than keyboardist). It has two stereo effects processors which ranges from mediocre to mildly decent. It does have a slot for rom cards, a few of which are still available from the E-mu website (I bought the last "Best Blend Volume" card today. :) The lack of filters and the so-so effects drops it's rating down a bit.

Expressiveness/Sounds: 10
Over all, it is very expressive and easy to use. There are four banks of 10 programmable "quick keys" that make it very useful in a live performance setting. The keyboard feel in itself is superior to the of my other keyboards - all of which are holdovers from the 80's.

Reliability: N/A
I've only had if for a couple of weeks, so I can't answer the reliability, but I would definitely gig with it.

Customer Support: 4
As I said before, I bought it used and the lowest two keys are missing it's springs, so I emailed E-mu tech support and their reply was quick - they couldn't help since they no longer produce these units, they don't support them. They did refer me to a repair shop which is located down in Miami, FL. I live in upstate NY. That repair shop informed me that the parts are not available. I believe companies should continue to support any product that has an active user base, so bad rating on support. Good rating for quick response and overall friendliness.

Overall Rating: 10
I am currently looking for another of these as a backup. If it were lost, I'd pick it up again, unless I could get a PK-6 for around the same amount.

Submitted by Aaron Christiansen at 03/02/2004 15:16

Price Paid: £350 used

Ease of Use: 10
In contrast to the reviewer above, I have to say that this as a proteus with keys is about the easiest syth there is to use. Turn the wheel to wade through the presets. press the edit button to make an alteration. press save to save it - manual - ha! My 8 year old should be able to make new sounds on this!

Features: 8
Well we are looking at a 10 year old synth, this is actually my best mates who used to be my bands keyboardist and left when his wife had their first baby, I have had it ever since. 32 note poly a whopping (by 1992 standards) 8mb of samples which is the standard proteus with 50% of the orchestral samples from the proteus 2. This gives you the solo strings and woodwind from pro2 and a bit of percussion, you lack the brass and extra ensemble strings - but most of that is covered in the proteus 1 chipset. 2 effects boards very similar to the PK-6 and contempory range of synths. No filters. Easy to programme though.
The MPS means Master Performance System, and it is a superb master controller. You can set up multiple zones for the onboard sounds plus your external syths, I used to control 3 synths from this so by pressing 1 preset I could have all the patches for a song over 3 synths. Great for making big orchstras that respond very dynamically (press really hard and the timps and trumpets come in - play soft and the flutes replace the brass etc. Or maybe I'm just a good programmer!

a simple none resonant filter would have made this one of the most flexible and great sounding sytnths of its time, - 2 points.

Expressiveness/Sounds: 6
The piano is comparible to a kurtzweil and you won't find much under £1000 that beats it even now! The strings have a great bowed attack - perfect for those menacing Jaws impressions, but lack the silky smoothness for a ballad. The woodwind are exceptional, especially the bass clarinet and oboe.

Other sounds that you might want in your armoury are severly lacking. The organs are bland and uninspiring, where as the acoustic guitar is clear and usable. The electric piano's sound too DX7ish and the drums too bombastic - full of 80's gated snares and power toms - this is one place it really shows its age.

So although you can easily set up enough string and brass layers to thump out the theme to Star Wars, you will be left looking embarrased when the singer asks you for a whiter shade of pale.

Programmed well the

Reliability: 10
1992 still going never had a service, never had a change of battery never had a fault. Nothing has fallen off.

Customer Support: 10
Well I have spoken to E-mu with regards to a proteus module I had. So although not related to THIS item, and assuming that there service record hasn't changed in 8 years then they were very helpful and easy to deal with.

Overall Rating: 9
No I would get one of the new models PK-6 and fill it with rom chips. Actually I AM giving this back to my friend AND buying a PK-6 so there!

Submitted by martin randle at 10/06/2003 17:00

Price Paid: US $1,000 used

Ease of Use: 9
If you get the manual(and I strongly suggest that you do)not too hard to use. Once you understand it is basically a computer-and utilizes a kind-of-windows-system of sub directories it becomes pretty apparent.

The presets are as anyone's presets-some great some not-so-some just suck but that is me-the cool thing about this unit is it's ability to change something you don't like to something you'll love. Now, I have owned this since 1992 used and I love it. I use it in a Country Rock band now-so the Piano-Organ-and Honky Tonk sounds maybe a little strings now and then-like the preset Heaven's Sake which is beautiful-a nice Piano with a very subtle almost floating String Ensemble-I use it a lot as is. The Clavinet is worthless though-and to get that Stevie Wonder tone-well good luck.

Editing is very simple but like all projects takes time. I don't know what a Patch Editor is.

The manual is like 1/2" thick and full of all the info you will need to make this thing work to it's fullest potential.I can't imagine not having the manual at all-no way.

Features: 9
This keyboard has what you need to do the things you want to do. The action is really good-easier than a Fender Rhodes but a little more firm than a Casio.
It has touch-sense too-i love that.
It uses RAM cards-but like i said with 500 places to put patches-a lot of room for experimenting.
The Midi is gr8-it has 16 channels-in/out/thru
No sequencer or portamento-but I have a Six-Track for that.

Expressiveness/Sounds: 10
I love the Piano. use it quite a bit-but the stock piano uses a wiggling vibrato instead of the sustain that i put in for the modulation wheel-i like that assignment freedom. I also used this in a Progressive Rook band in the early 90's-so I did my best to duplicate htose 70's Vintage Keys patches-Mellotron-Polymoog-ARP string ensemble-got pretty close there. I love this keyboard's many avenues to these instruments. A lot of trial and error of course.

Reliability: 10
1992-no problems-nuff said?

Customer Support: 10
very friendly-when i hit a key too hard-they walked me thru the repair on the phone to save me $$.

Overall Rating: 10
Hell yes i would get another-this is the only keyboard i will ever need-i love it.

Submitted by Rand Kelly at 02/28/2001 16:34