Planet Earth 64-Voice World Sound Module

Back in 2000, this rackmount gem arrived as E-MU's dedicated dive into global sounds, packing a 32MB World Expedition ROM loaded with 807 authentic instruments from every corner of the planet—from African drums and kalimbas to balafons, gamelans, and exotic flutes.

It's a slimmed-down Proteus 2000 module in a compact 1U green chassis, delivering 64-voice polyphony with 16-part multitimbrality via sample-based PCM synthesis at 44.1kHz/16-bit. Each of its four layers per preset offers Z-plane multimode filters (50 types, including resonant lowpass), three envelopes, two multi-waveform LFOs syncable to MIDI clock, and a deep mod matrix with 64 sources routing to 64 destinations. Front-panel real-time knobs give instant access to 12 key parameters like cutoff, resonance, attack, and decay, while a 24-bit dual stereo effects engine serves up 76 options. MIDI In/Out/Thru handles full control, with two 1/4-inch TRS audio outs, two SIMM slots for expansions, onboard arpeggiator, sequencer, and SuperBEATS mode.

Vintage hunters love its rich, evocative world tones that still integrate smoothly into modern DAWs via MIDI, though some note the limited outputs as a tradeoff for its era. The intuitive editing keeps it fresh for layering ethnic percussion or organic pads in any setup.