Dave Rossum (was Electronotes...)

[The Proteus]

All,

	E-Mu is DEFINATELY still around, although they went by the wayside
on analogue gear a long time ago. I was talking with Dave Rossum last
week, and found out that there was only one Audity ever made. The story
goes that E-Mu could've held its water off of the royalties that they were
getting from Sequential Circuits (who licensed Dave Rossum's digitally
scanned polyphonic keyboard), and be able to optimize the Audity for cost.
The first Audity ever built was priced at an extremely affordable $70,000
(yeah, right!) - and still sits in the Audities museum down in Southern
California. Actually, from the demise of the audity project came a new
instrument... the Emulator sampler. E-Mu has also been responsible for
other instruments such as the Morpheus Z-Plane synthesizer, and their
revolutionary sound playback modules (my favourites) The Proteus/1, 2, and
3. 
	In 1994, E-Mu was acquired by Creative Technologies (Yes, the
soundblaster people), and in 1997, Ensoniq was purchased by Creative as
well and then subsequently merged with E-Mu. Through all of this, Dave
Rossum has taken a more leisurely position as Creative's Chief Scientist,
and lives in northern california. They are one of maybe two synthesizer
companies that started in the "golden age" right after the big modular
era that has survived the test of time. There's a much longer story behind
all of this, but neither am I qualified or well-suited to tell such a
tale. Most of it is in Mark Vail's book "Vintage Synthesizers" in the
chapter on E-Mu. If anyone wants to continue this thread privately, I'd be
more than happy to ask Dave and the gang at E-Mu more questions you might
have for them. 

The Proteus

- - - T h e  U n d e r g r o u n d  W a r e h o u s e - - -
- - - Subversive - Tools - For - A - Chaotic - Planet - - -
-  h t t p : / / w w w . u g w a r e h o u s e . o r g /  -
--<T h e  P r o t e u s>-<Musician>-<Producer>-<Engineer>--

On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Hallgeir Helland wrote:

> 
> Peter Snow wrote:
> > 
> > Dave Rossum (didn't he go to EMU at some point?)
> 
> Dave Rossum co-founded E-mu Systems with Scott Wedge
> in 1972. I think he was the Chief Engineer and the 
> main man behind the Audity synth. I really like the 
> Audity concept. Big is beautiful. :-)
> 
> Is he still there, does anyone know? 
> E-mu are still alive aren't they?
> 
> Hallgeir (this was before I was born.)
> 
> 
> -- 
> .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.
>  Hallgeir Helland   hhelland at mailandnews.com     
>     Evlogia           http://fly.to/evlogia
> '¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'¨'
>