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.

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.

Rossum discovered an affinity for synthesis and invited his Caltech friends Steve Gabriel and Jim Ketcham to come see the Model 12.

[3] 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.

[17] [18] 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.