Finding a huge-sounding pad or rhythmic sound is not difficult, and the strings, brass and winds patches on offer are better used for enhancing the synthetic sounds rather than taking center stage. Given its limited amount of orchestral instruments and sheer abundance of weird synth patches, Proteus VX is more suited for hybrid type arrangements rather than pure virtual orchestration. Having said that, all the “real” instruments that are present sound big and full, though of course dated in terms of detail and expression. The default unit was geared more towards other styles of music and the majority of presets consist of pop/rock/hip hop/EDM-oriented fare. Plus that several orchestral expansion boards were available for the Proteus 2000 as well. This isn’t overly surprising as E-MU released their dedicated orchestral unit Virtuoso 2000 shortly after the Proteus 2000 and I guess it made little sense having two of their products competing with each other.

Browsing through the Composer bank some 14 years later, I think my assessment wasn’t too far off the mark.ĭespite having tons of some things, Proteus VX does however not have a full set of orchestral instruments. I had a Proteus 2000 for a couple of years in the early 2000’s but never took a liking to it as it felt like 80% of its presets were basses and organs. While its synthesis architecture was virtually the same as the original Proteus, the Proteus 2000 came packed with major new features, sounds and expandability for the most demanding professionals It featured 128-voice polyphony and 32 MIDI. Having a lot to choose from is always very nice, but since many presets lack descriptive names and are only loosely ordered into categories, it’s difficult to find what you’re looking for without browsing through hundreds of them. The Proteus 2000 was a reincarnation of the economical Proteus rack module series of the early nineties. The Composer bank has a whopping 1024 presets, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Compared to the other two, Proteus VX sounds big, fat and expensive. The Composer bank is 32MB - 5.3x Cyclone’s RAM, and 8x the size of the S-YXG50 ROM - and the difference in audio fidelity is clear. Either way there's an immense amount of great sounds at your fingertips for any music application A 64-voice keyboard version is available too, the PK-6 Proteus Keys. It can be your main sound module, or one of many. Out of the three virtual instruments listed here, Proteus VX is the most modern (Cyclone is of course a much newer plugin, but emulates something far older) as its default Composer soundset is based on E-MU’s 1999 Proteus 2000 sound module. The Proteus 2000 is a light, compact module designed for use with sequencers.