E-Mu Proteus FX Synthesizer

via this auction

"Taking its new design from the Vintage Keys and Morpheus modules, the Proteus FX is housed in a rugged metal casing that surprisingly weighs only a couple of pounds more than the earlier more 'plastic' and fragile-feeling Protei. The headphones socket has been brought around to the front, next to the volume control, whilst the various cursor and select buttons (including an extra directional cursor) have been grouped together to the right of the LCD and conveniently within finger-striking distance of the enlarged and responsive data entry control. Also useful, but difficult for the veteran Proteus user (i.e. myself!) to get used to, is the 'Home/enter' button. The 'enter' feature is self-explanatory, but the button's dual function enables the return of the cursor to the 'home' position (top left of the LCD) and so negates endless cursor pushing.

Like its predecessors, the Proteus FX benefits from 16-bit digital samples taken from the Emulator III sample library. The new unit has a double 8Mb sound set consisting of sample data (sound ROM), plus additional instrument data in the program ROM. The 8Mb of samples (4Mb was the standard Proteus allocation unless you had an XR model) the resulting array of 512 presets (256 of which are user-programmable) have been arranged in four banks (0-3). Banks 0 and 1 contain user RAM presets, whilst the remaining two banks contain ROM presets.

The Proteus FX also adopts a far better 'grouping' of presets, which aids easier selection of, say, a bass sound. In addition, you are also presented with a useful 3-letter prefix -- for example, gtr (guitar), eth (ethnic) and kbd (keyboard), which gives an idea of the type of sound to expect. This, along, with the inclusion of more vocal sounds means that at least Emu have been taking note of user suggestions and earlier criticisms. The Proteus FX is a superb vintage sounding synth that will fill that vintage synth sound niche you're looking for."