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I’ve been playing this synth since 2003. The owner of the store where I bought it said, “Aivaras, you’ll keep it for a few years and sell it because it will be outdated by then.” He’d be happy to learn he was wrong! 20 years have passed, and I’m still fascinated by this instrument. The E-MU Proteus 2500 generates sound by using audio samples, which are small segments of actual recordings, say, of a real drum, an analog synth, or some acoustic event. It then constructs, out of those tiny recordings, timbres suitable for music-making.