Dave Rossum

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. 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. 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.

Career Rossum left graduate school and, in the fall of 1972, E-mu announced the E-mu Modular System, 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.

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,

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).

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, which also licensed E-mu's digital scanning keyboard technology. in such products as the Emulator series of samplers, the SP-12 and SP-1200 sampling drum machines.

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.

In 2015, he joined Universal Audio as Technical Fellow.

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.

Rossum also holds 36 patents, mostly related to music technology. Many of these are used today throughout the industry. In April 2015, he completed the Big Sur International Marathon, placing 14th in his age group. and serves on the board of directors of the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation.