| ★ HARDWARE ★ CHEETAH MK5 MIDI KEYBOARD ★ |
Cheetah MK5 Midi keyboard and Amstrad mini-interface (Amstrad Computer User) | CHEETAH MK5 MIDI KEYBOARD (Popular Computing Weekly))[s=1 |
Cheetah converts Mini to CPCsMark Jenkins looks at the latest version of Cheetah's Mini Interface for Amstrad CPCs, and answers some readers' queries. A few months back we reviewed the , Cheetah Mini Interface for the Spectrum, and now the company has converted the system to the Amstrad CPC range. The system includes a Cheetah MK5 Midi keyboard, which we've mentioned many times; it's a five-octave full-sized Midi control keyboard with no sounds of its own which has a pitch bend wheel, stripped-down patch and octave select controls and a bargain price of £55. To the MK5 you have to add the Mini Interface which plugs into the computer, and the software on tape or disc. The routine here are as similar to those on the Spectrum as possible, and in fact the -Spectrum and Amstrad have the same sound chips so the end results will be pretty similar too. The micro holds 64 sounds in memory and these range from thin, pingy games-' type sound effects to quite powerful chordal sounds; the ADSR envelope is fully programmable so you can alter the way the note fades in and out and how the pitch varies during the course of the note; you can play three notes at a time from the MK5 keyboard. The system is menu-driven, but it doesn't take too long to go from one page to another; you can split the keyboard and edit sounds, saving a new sound or a whole set of sounds to disc. I can't comment in massive detail on how the Amstrad version of the Cheetah system performed, because mine kept crashing every 30 seconds or so. Maybe I have a bit of a wobbly edge connector on my CPC. However, what I could listen to (in 30 second chunks) was quite promising; if you have a CPC the Cheetah system will take you some way into creating new sounds and recording them on tape, and when you exhaust the potential there, you'll have a very serviceable master keyboard which will allow you to control any Midi synth modules you may go in for. Now on to a few readers' letters. Herr Frankenfeld has written all the way from West Germany with a question on the Spectrum 128. He has a Yamaha DX7 synth and would like to store sounds from it and edit them on the Spectrum; this is a very popular application for micros because the DX7's sounds are defined by 147 different parameters and there's only Data Entry slider to alter them all. Herr Frankenfeld wants an interface and editing software for the Spectrum and the only current solution lies with the XRI system, comprising their Micon interface (£49.95) with software (£24.95). However, the company is doing a special offer at the moment which throws in it's Step Time sequence editor as well (normally £38.95) for a total price of £75. Michael Neville of Edinburgh saw our review of Super Conductor and wonders if it would operate in conjunction with a Midi keyboard with 13 channels as opposed to 16. I'm sure it would, but I can't think of any keyboard that won't work on channels 14-16, or any keyboard that's 13-note polyphonic, or any keyboard that has thirteen memories. What's meant by a Midi ‘Channel' is a setting which allows the synth to respond to one set of information and ignore 15 other sets; most synths only respond to one channel at a time but some can respond to four (like the Casio CZ synths), some to six (like the SCI Max and Six-Trax) and some to eight or more (like the Prophet 2000). Whether you use one, two, 13 or all 16 Midi channels with your software depends entirely on whether you have enough synths to take advantage of them. Now perhaps, Michael, you'll write back and tell us exactly what it is that you've got 13 of. A J Martindale of Milton Keynes has a Yamaha CX5 music computer, an FB-01 module for additional sounds, a Gostex X-15 portastudio and a Yamaha YMC10 convertor to synchronise the computer to tape. He's selling the CX5 and buying an Atari 520ST soon and would like to use the Midi potential of this machine, but would still like to use the YMC10 convertor to link everything to tape. Step Time input is also important, and on the whole the EZ-Track package we mentioned from Hybrid Arts is not best suited for this sort of application. MicroDeal's Super Conductor is the best bet here, and costs only £50 or so. The YMC-10 should sync Super Conductor to tape quite happily, and the package itself will play the FB-01. If you do get the ST you can choose an editing package from Soundbits (Syndromic Music) or Dr T (Take Note) to create new FB-01 sounds as well. Paul Duggan of Caerphilly is a semi-pro musician who wants to be able to type music directly into a micro from a music or Qwerty keyboard. He then wants to be able to save and edit the piece and present it in printed form with lyrics to a group of up to eight musicians. Paul has a CPC464 at the moment and has tried Firebird's The Music System, finding it pretty limited for his applications. He says "I have tried to find out about other systems available but the computer shops don't understand music and the music shops don't understand computers”. This, of course, is the secret of the universe, as Paul has obviously discovered. Paul's thinking about the Atari ST and this seems to be his best bet at the moment. Dr T manufactures a Score Writer package (distributed by Take Note) which will cope with very complex note entry and gives massive editing and lyric insertion options; it costs a couple of hundred pounds but the only real alternative is to get Steinberg's Pro-16 and TNS Note Editor on the Commodore 64, together with a decent dot matrix printer, and that seems something of a sideways step for an existing Amstrad owner. PCW |
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