Dave Rossum

Dave Rossum founded E-mu Systems in Santa Cruz in 1972 while a graduate student, going on to invent the polyphonic synthesizer keyboard, pioneer microprocessor use in music instruments, and develop the DSP architectures behind E-mu’s Emulator and Proteus lines and the SP-12/SP-1200 sampling drum machines — technology also licensed into the Oberheim Four Voice and Sequential Circuits Prophet-5. He co-designed Oberheim’s SEM with longtime friend Tom Oberheim in 1974, and was later commissioned by Dave Smith to design the 2140 filter for Sequential. After Creative Labs shut down E-mu in 2011, Rossum founded Rossum Electro-Music in 2015, building Eurorack modules descended from his own E-mu circuit designs.