{{Short description|American electronics engineer and inventor}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = | name = Dave Rossum | honorific_suffix = | image =Dave Rossum.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = Dave Rossum at the 2025 NAMM Show | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = David P. Rossum | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1949}}<ref name="MIDI">{{cite web|title=Dave Rossum, EMU, and Rossum Electro|url=https://midi.org/dave-rossum-emu-and-rossum-electro|website=MIDI Association|access-date=13 January 2025}}</ref> | birth_place = | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | education = | spouse = | parents = | children = | module = {{Infobox engineering career | discipline = Biosciences | institutions = California Institute of Technology | practice_name = | employer = | significant_projects = E-mu Systems | significant_design = Digital scanning keyboard | significant_advance = | significant_awards = }} | signature = | signature_alt = | website = {{url|rossum-electro.com}} }}
'''David P. Rossum''' (born 1948) is an American electronics engineer and inventor best known as the co-founder of synthesizer and sampler manufacturer E-mu Systems.
==Education and early career== Rossum grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), earning a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 1970.<ref name=MIDI/>
Later that year while pursuing graduate studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Rossum's advisor, Harry Noller, invited him to join him in the music department where students were unpacking the university's new Moog Model 12 modular synthesizer. Rossum discovered an affinity for synthesis and invited his Caltech friends Steve Gabriel and Jim Ketcham to come see the Model 12. Together, they were inspired to start designing a synthesizer.<ref name="EMMApr1983">{{cite magazine|title=Dave Rossum: Electro-Music Engineer|magazine=Electronics & Music Maker|url=https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/electro-music-engineer/5962|date=April 1983|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref> In 1971 Ketcham heard there was a request for bid from the San Diego School District for music synthesizers to add to their high school music program, and Rossum and his friends decided to build a prototype in an attempt to win the bid. A company name was needed for invoices related to the parts purchased for these synthesizers, and Rossum came up with the name Eμ Systems.<ref name="SOSSep2002">{{cite web|last=Keeble|first=Rob|title=30 Years of Emu|url=https://www.soundonsound.com/music-business/30-years-emu|website=Sound On Sound|publisher=SOS Publications Group|date=September 2002|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref> The completed prototype, which they named "Black Mariah" did not win, and they destroyed it by pushing it out the Dabney House library window. That summer, joined by high school friend Scott Wedge, Rossum used a $3000 inheritance from his grandmother to finance building another prototype, the E-mu 25. After completing the prototype, all but Rossum, Wedge, and Rossum's girlfriend, Paula Butler, decided to pursue other interests.<ref name="GrandlP1">{{cite web|last=Grandl|first=Peter|title=Interview: Dave Rossum E-mu, Part One|url=https://www.amazona.de/interview-dave-rossum-e-mu-part-one-english-version/|website=Amazona.de|date=2 July 2015|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref>
==Career== Rossum left graduate school and, in the fall of 1972, E-mu announced the E-mu Modular System,<ref name="Lowther">{{cite web|last=Lowther|first=Simon|title=Emu Modular (Retrozone)|url=https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/emu-modular-retrozone|website=Sound On Sound|date=July 2000|access-date=5 September 2024}}</ref> and on November 27, 1972, he and Wedge officially co-founded E-mu as a company located in an apartment unit in Santa Clara, California.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Colbeck |first1=Julian |title=Keyfax Omnibus Edition |date=1996 |publisher=MixBooks |location=Emeryville, CA |isbn=0-918371-08-2 |page=25}}</ref><ref name=GrandlP1/> In 1973 Rossum developed the E-mu 4050, the first digitally scanned polyphonic keyboard on the market,<ref name="Vail1">{{cite book |last=Vail |first=Mark |title=Vintage Synthesizers |date=1993 |publisher=Miller Freeman Books |location=San Francisco, California, USA |isbn=0-87930-275-5}}</ref>{{rp|24}}
Rossum met Tom Oberheim at the AES Convention in 1974 and the two became friends. He helped Oberheim with a circuit for dynamic control of Oberheim's phase shifter, which Oberheim Electronics patented with Rossum as the inventor. Similarly, Oberheim Electronics patented the polyphonic music synthesizer based on Rossum's polyphonic keyboard technology, with Rossum as the inventor. Oberheim Electronics licensed the polyphonic keyboard technology in the Oberheim Four Voice,<ref name=GrandlP1/> one of the first production synthesizers capable of playing chords.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Paradiso|first=Joseph|title=Electronic Music Interfaces|url=https://paradiso.media.mit.edu/SpectrumWeb/SpectrumX.html|website=paradiso.media.mit.edu|date=March 1998|access-date=9 January 2025}}</ref><ref name="TheSynth">{{Cite book|title=The Synthesizer|last=Vail|first=Mark|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2014|isbn=978-0195394894|page=39}}</ref>
Together with Ron Dow, Rossum co-developed the first analog synthesizer integrated chips manufactured by Solid State Music (later Solid State Microtechnology for Music, or SSM). <ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Ballou|editor-first=Glen|title=Handbook for Sound Engineers|publisher=Taylor & Francis|location=UK|date=2015|isbn=9781135016654|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8BLwBgAAQBAJ&q=rossum&pg=PT900|access-date=9 January 2025}}</ref><ref name=EMMApr1983/><ref name="GrandlP2a">{{cite web|last=Grandl|first=Peter|title=Interview: Dave Rossum E-mu, Part Two|url=https://www.amazona.de/interview-dave-rossum-e-mu-part-two-english-version/|website=Amazona.de|date=3 July 2015|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref>
In summer of 1977, he worked as a consultant for Dave Smith and Sequential Circuits, working on the operating system and analog circuits for the Prophet-5,<ref name="ChadabeJ">{{cite book |last=Chadabe |first=Joel |title=Electric Sound: The Past and Promise of Electronic Music |publisher=Prentice-Hall |location=New Jersey, US |date=1997 |page=187 |isbn=0-13-303231-0 }}</ref> which also licensed E-mu's digital scanning keyboard technology.<ref name=Lowther/><ref name="Reverb" /> Rossum also became friends with Roger Linn, and Rossum completed a design review of the LM-1 Drum Computer before it went into production.<ref name=GrandlP2a/>
In the 1980s Rossum and E-mu became pioneers in samplers, sample-based drum machines and low-cost digital sampling music workstations, with innovations like shared memory, looping, and multi-sampling,<ref name="GrandlP2c">{{cite web|last=Grandl|first=Peter|title=Interview: Dave Rossum E-mu, Part Two|url=https://www.amazona.de/interview-dave-rossum-e-mu-part-two-english-version/3/|website=Amazona.de|date=3 July 2015|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref> in such products as the Emulator series of samplers, the SP-12 and SP-1200 sampling drum machines.<ref name=SOSSep2002/> In 1985, Rossum won Seattle Silicon's IC design contest with his first DSP, the E-chip, which would be at the heart of the Emax.<ref name="GrandlP3a">{{cite web|last=Grandl|first=Peter|title=Interview: Dave Rossum E-mu, Part Three|url=https://www.amazona.de/interview-dave-rossum-e-mu-part-three-english-version/|website=Amazona.de|date=6 July 2015|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref>
E-mu was acquired by Creative Technology, Ltd in 1993, and Rossum became Creative's Chief Scientist from 1996 until 2011, when he went to work for Audience, first as Principal Technologist, then as Senior Director of Architecture.<ref name="GrandlP4">{{cite web|last=Grandl|first=Peter|title=Interview: Dave Rossum E-mu, Part Four|url=https://www.amazona.de/interview-dave-rossum-e-mu-english-version-part-four/|website=Amazona.de|date=15 July 2015|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref>
In 2015, he joined Universal Audio as Technical Fellow.<ref name=GrandlP4/> The same year, he co-founded Rossum Electro-Music, designing and manufacturing Eurorack synthesizer modules.<ref name="Bjørn">{{cite book |last1=Bjørn |first1=Kim |last2=Meyer |first2=Chris |title=Patch & Tweak: Exploring Modular Synthesis |date=2018 |publisher=Bjooks |location=Denmark |isbn=978-87-999995-1-4 |pages=228–231}}</ref> <ref name="AMT">{{Cite podcast |host = Darwin Grosse |date = 11 July 2017 |title = Art + Music + Technology Podcast 183: Dave Rossum |url = https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2017/07/11/dave-rossum-on-the-art-of-synthesizer-design/ |format = |work = Art + Music + Technology |type = Podcast |publisher = |time = |access-date = 9 January 2025 }}</ref>
At the 2023 NAMM Show, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the MIDI standard, the MIDI Association presented or posthumously presented lifetime achievement awards to Rossum, Don Buchla, Ikutaro Kakehashi, Tsutomu Katoh, Roger Linn, Bob Moog, Tom Oberheim, Alan R. Pearlman, and Dave Smith.<ref>{{cite news |title=MIDI Association Lifetime Achievement Awards at April NAMM 2023 |url=https://midi.org/midi-association-lifetime-achievement-awards-at-april-namm-2023 |access-date=13 January 2025 |publisher=MIDI Association |language=en-gb}}</ref>
Rossum also holds 36 patents, mostly related to music technology.<ref name="Reverb">{{cite web |last1=Orkin |first1=Dán |title=Conversations with the Masters of Electronic Instrument Design at Moogfest 2017 |url=https://reverb.com/news/conversations-with-the-masters-of-electronic-instrument-design-at-moogfest-2017 |website=reverb.com |publisher=Reverb.com |access-date=13 January 2025 |language=en |date=22 May 2017}}</ref> Many of these are used today throughout the industry. <ref name="Reverb" />
==Personal life== Rossum is an avid mountain climber and was involved with Caltech's alpine club.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Lansburgh|first=Janet|title=Climb Every Mountain- or anything else that's handy|url=https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechES:34.6.climb|magazine=Engineering & Science|publisher=Caltech Office of Public Relations|pages=17–23|issn=0013-7812|date=April 1971|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref> In April 2015, he completed the Big Sur International Marathon, placing 14th in his age group.<ref name=GrandlP1/> He has taught scuba diving,<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Lee|first=Jay|title=Dave Rossum Interview|url=https://synthark.org/resource/emu/DaveRossumPolyphonyInterview.pdf|magazine=Polyphony|date=November 1981|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref> and serves on the board of directors of the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation.<ref>{{cite web|title=CMSF: Our Board|url=https://www.californiamsf.org/our-board|website=CMSF|access-date=10 January 2025}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==See also== *E-mu Systems
==External links== *[https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/dave-rossum Dave Rossum interview] at NAMM Oral History Collection *[https://www.rossum-electro.com Rossum Electro-Music - official site]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rossum, David}} Category:1948 births Category:American inventors Category:Analog electronics engineers Category:California Institute of Technology alumni Category:Inventors of musical instruments Category:Living people Category:People from the San Francisco Bay Area