E-mu Protozoa ROM

Price Paid: US $50.00 used

Ease of Use: N/A
just pop it in

Features: N/A

Expressiveness/Sounds: 9
The sounds on this board are damn good. If you cannot find any good sounds on this rom, you need to take a music class. I do hip hop so it fits into all my productions. I think you can use it in any type of music

Reliability: N/A
Its a ROM

Customer Support: N/A

Overall Rating: 9
Hell yeah i would buy it again, i was thinkin of just having this ROM in a unit alone and buying a spare unit to fill it with other ROMs. I own a korg triton, yamaha dx21, ensoniq asr-x, xtreme lead-1 with protozoa rom and some B&W 303's

Submitted by Anonymous at 03/25/2004 20:44

Price Paid: US $99

Ease of Use: N/A
N/A. It's a plug-in chip.

Features: N/A

Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
To my ears, the sounds are cleaner and punchier than on the 1 and 2 modules (never had the 3). Of course, as the other reviewer said, you have knobs a plenty to tweak from the new Proteus it's in and there's the added thrill of effecs which none of the original Protei had. The weak end are the pianos (though trust me, there will be situations where you'll be glad you had them in certain situations). EPs and organs are OK. Strings are more rough than smooth, more in your face than a Roland or Yammie, but still like 'em. Other rock sounds are great and the classical and world sounds are nearlly impossible to find in any other synth. My major complaint is that some sounds are STILL to loud compared to others (choirs, for some reason!). This was certainly a chance to fix this problem and Emu didn't.

Reliability: N/A
Had to reseat it first time in, but that should be the end of the "trouble shooting." It's a plug-in chip.

Customer Support: 4
From the past, I'd say fair-to-middlin'. Yamaha is now the support company to keep and eye on and that other manufacturers should try to emulate.

Overall Rating: 9
For $99, you basically get three "synths" and hundreds of classic and classy patches that can be installed in about three minutes. They're a great compliment to my Virtuoso 2000, what with 128 notes to play with and sometimes I just don't need an orchestra (the chip has some marvelous industrial effects, among other treats).

You could certainly buy all three modules separtley, but that takes up three rack spaces and the sounds are not as good as they are on the Protoza chip (maybe thanks to the new machine's D/As). And the three modules would probably set you back $200-$300 all together.

If you have a new Proteus and a C-note, this is pretty much a no-brainer buy.

Submitted by Anonymous at 08/05/2003 18:58

Price Paid: US $100

Ease of Use: 9
popped it into my Planet Earth. plug and play. no problems so far. this rating is partially based on my opinion of the Planet Earth module,..which i find to be pretty easy to navigate.

Features: 9
this ROM is a re-hash of the older Proteus 1/2/3 modules (with an extra bank of "combined" sounds tossed in. the sounds have been "updated" to be accessed by the tweak knobs on the newer Proteus modules. pretty much everything is covered.

Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
as i said before,..many sounds come DIRECTLY from the (decade-old) Proteus 1/2/3 modules. there is alot of good. in fact,..EMU has YET to improve upon MANY of the sounds from the older Proteus series. that being said,..quite a few sounds are really dated. i'd say (for the money) that the board is a good investment......a collection of classic Proteus sounds with modern "tweakable sensibilities".

Reliability: N/A
it is only a memory board.

Customer Support: 6
not the best.

Overall Rating: 9
i find it a nice compliment to my Planet Earth module (which i think is the BEST of EMU's "new" Proteus series). the Proteus 3 (WORLD) presets fit nicely with the Planet Earth tones and it's nice to have some "tweakable" orchestral and traditional synth/pop sounds at your disposal as well.

Submitted by Anonymous at 11/02/2002 20:24