Developer Update 2025

It’s been awhile since I have posted and I won’t bother with the details. Let’s just say, I hope 2024 never repeats! Annnnd moving on…

So where to begin. This is just a quick list of things that I will flesh out in the upcoming weeks.

  • ** LOW STOCK ** on existing ROM catalog
    • Stock counter is now shared between all products and is current
    • There will be another production run (lead time ~5-6 mo)

  • User guide for Shock Treatment almost complete, and as a special thank you:
    • Command station supplementary patterns will be provided
    • P2K preset conversions in progress

  • In lieu of adding any more capabilities to prodatum, I have created another utility that will simplify the loading and saving of any P2K family sysex. It is available free of charge, and if you are good with python scripting – you just need to download the files and run. Otherwise you can download the portable binaries on github here: https://github.com/haxorhax/haxloader/releases/tag/v1.0.1. The documentation has not caught up yet, but eventually will be on the project wiki page.

    Features at a glance:
    • A more capable E-Loader replacement
    • Loading and saving of presets, arps and Command Station patterns and songs
    • Presets, arps, patterns, and songs can have their sysex edited before uploading (not every parameter, but the common ones)
    • ROM conversion:
      • Convert between CMPSR presets and P2500 / PROM presets
      • Convert between XLEAD presets and XL-7 / XROM presets
      • Convert between PHATT presets and MP-7 / MROM presets
      • Convert Audity 2000 presets into XLEAD / XL-7 / XROM presets

  • For existing XL-7 / XLEAD / XROM owners, Balma will be donating free banks from his collection
    • Will upload preset zip file shortly

  • Considering the possibility to start a Kickstarter group buy where I can also gauge the interest (and procure parts) for:
    • ROM custom programmer
    • Blank ROM stock to use with custom programmer
    • Currently available ROMs (discounted)
    • Support development for other ROMs (FIZMO, and maybe another)

NEW E-MU Sound Expansion ROM – Balma’s Shock Treatment

Mauricio Balma and haxorhax have joined forces to introduce the new 32MB Shock Treatment expansion ROM – almost 20 years since the last E-MU expansion was released.  This expansion fuses modern electronic samples with experimental Command Station programming using many of the cutting edge tips and tricks provided by Balma himself over these decades.

Released:   3/17/2024

Shock Treatment Store Page


Genre: 

Electronic, Experimental, Fizmo’ish (ie. hold one button and sound evolves over time)

ROM Details:

512 Presets
634 Instruments (100 Drum Kits)
100 Arpeggios
640 Riffs

Legend: ARP (arpeggiator), BAS (bass), CHR (chorus), DRO (drone), GTR (guitar), HAT/KIC/SNR/PRC/TOM (drums), SCW (single cycle), SFX (sound fx), PAD (pad), NOI (noise), LED (lead), VOX (vocal), WND (wind), SYN (synth), KIT (drum kit), LNK (linked presets *special*)

Hardware Compatibility:

E-MU Command Stations:  MP-7, XL-7, PX-7, P2500
  • Presets were designed via this platform, and sound as intended
E-MU Proteus 2000/1000 Family:  Proteus 2000/1000, Vintage Pro, Virtuoso 2000, Orbit-3, B-3, Xtreme lead, Mo Phatt, Planet Earth (with Turbo mutations)
  • Presets may have artifacts of the 4 missing controllers present only on Command Station (aka MNOP)
  • 64 Voice units may run into polyphony issues (not tested, and do not recommend)
E-MU Keyboard Family:  MK-6, XK-6, PK-6, Halo
  • Same as Proteus 2000/1000 above
E-MU EOS Samplers:  E4XT, E4XT Ultra
  • Samples available only, no presets were translated
NOTE:  Please update to latest OS for all machines prior to install.

Downloadable Listings:

Preset Demos:

Artist Bio: Mauricio Balma

prodatum resurrected

*** NEW version created (v2.1.2) ***

Promising custom E-MU SIMMs is one thing, but the logistics of getting there is complicated. One of the decisions I have helped move this along was using prodatum for the effort of preset creation. There were work flow issues with how it saved off the data, as well as how it handled cross device sysex files. Well, I cracked open the source code and added some functions that will be needed to support the upcoming development. In short, you should be able to save the entire machine state in sysex with some newly added export / import capabilities.

Export / Import Capabilities:

  • Export one or many presets for any given rom or user banks
  • Import one or many presets into user banks (automatically handling the conversion between command station, proteus, and audity 2000)
  • Export one or many arp patterns for any given rom
  • Import one or many arp patterns into user arp pattern storage
  • Export current user setup
  • Import a specified user setup

I won’t go into them in detail, but I made a write-up on the wiki with all the features here:

Features Wiki

Portable builds (64bit – Win10, Linux, MacOS) available to download here:

prodatum Releases