Jon Bates was out doing his Christmas shopping when he popped into his local branch of BOOTS. What should he see, but CHEETAH's latest Keyboard and MIDI add-on? CHEETAH hadn't sent him the goodies, so a quick chat to the BOOTS Manager led to a review...

THE MK5 KEYBOARD

For the first time ever, a computer-based firm has stepped out boldly into the territory of the music business. In short CHEETAH, under commission from BOOTS, have
launched what is known in the trade as a 'mother' keyboard. On its own it's as deaf and dumb as a stuffed dodo, but linked via MIDI to either a synth, synth module or
MIDI hardware, it acts as a polyphonic master controller of all and sundry - especially those synths equipped with fiddly little keys. The instruction manual is very
easy to understand with jolly diagrams of the various configurations that can be achieved with the keyboard and various add-ons. I will assume that you have a little
knowledge of MIDI by now as I have been bleating about its virtues for some time (see - you should have been paying attention!)

The MK5 is a five octave keyboard with full-size keys and transmits MIDI codes. Obviously it transmits note on/off, but by selecting the centrally-positioned program
mode button, the top octave takes on various other functions: channel up/down, octave up/down and program up/down - programs here meaning the sound programs banked in
the synths - all 128 of them. A red LED, positioned to the right of the keyboard. flickers ominously whenever a note is played. From this the channel, program, and
octave number are read off. Endless sustain (more correctly, a hold function) is achieved by pressing the mode button before releasing the notes.

The pitch-bend wheel is rather oddly positioned - above the keyboard and parallel to it. I'm not sure that this is a good thing: no other keyboard manufactured since
1971 has done this. It's almost as it it were an afterthought. Another problem is that it only bends half the value which the synth is set to.

As with most products, ciri have had to suffer the problem of how much they can include in the MK5 without raising the price too high. Much of the MIDI protocol is not
here: keyboard split, modulalion wheel, transposition, tuning, provision for sound layering and velocity sensing are all absent. A more serious omission is that it does not work in omni mode - transmitting on aft sixteen channels simultaneously. This means that
you are rather stuck when it comes to u&ng two or more modules as you can only address them individually or by re-assigning each synth's receiving MIDI channel.
Perhaps an intelligent add-on box could provide multiple patch (program) memories and far more detailed MIDI data instructions.

(Many thanks to the management and staff of BOOTS in Stourbridge who loaned us their one and only MK5 for the purposes of this review. Mass executions have since
taken place in CHEETAH's promotions department as a result of their grave oversight.)

MINI iNTERFACE

The MIDI interface from CHEETAH has still only appeared in prototype form - there is however a MINI interface. This is an extra for the MK5 keyboard, but it is
essential if you have a 128 but no synth. It gives you control over the AY 8912 chip in the 128 which, it must be admitted, was really designed with arcade games in
mind; only giving you a basic square wave. Plugging in the hardware and loading up the Microdrive-compatible software gives you full control over the chip: sound
shaping, pitch shaping, noise mixing and a split keyboard function. The menu appears as pop-up overlays on the screen you are working on and is very easy to work use.

Full marks for the graphic display of the sound/volume shaping section (more properly called an envelope). It gives a pretty good idea of what the sound will be,
although the sustain part of the envelope seems to have a fixed duration. It's also a doddle to work with. Not so the pitch envelope, which is far more complex and
requires you to fill out an eight stage table of up to 24 numbers per sound. Why not simplify things and display it visually?

The 'noise' is optional and can be mixed in with the main sound or heard on its own. It isn't wonderfully clear from the manual, but the pitch bend on/off is really a
non-starter as: a) you'd hardly fiddle around with the pitch bend control if you didn't want to use it so why bother to switch it off and b) doesn't track with the key
scaling - in other words it only bends a fraction of an octave at the bottom end but achieves a full octave of bend at the top.

There is a tremolo option which does a fair job of chopping the sound up, plus a sound file which can contain up to 64 sounds - you get 20 when you purchase the
module. Sounds can be called up from the Spectrum or from the to work with any other MIDI keyboard other than the MK5 (I suspect some mix-up of MIDI codes and flags).
it is however a fascinating and easy tool to use. Watch this space for details of their next load of music modules - it would seem that CHEETAH are becoming very motivated in this direction.

Both these products are available from most branches of BOOTS. The MK5 will set you back £99.95 complete with power supply, and the MINI interface £29.95.

NOTE PERFECT?

SU wonders how many elephants you can get in Cheetah's new MIDI.

Cheetah busted a few price barriers with the SpecDrum and marginally missed the boat with its sampler (because of the Ram Music Machine).

Now here's the MK5 music keyboard which puts them right back on top of the price-busting music technology ladder.

A point to stress, the keyboard has been developed for Boots and if this review inspires you it's there that you should run, Cheetah itself doesn't sell them.

Why is the MK5 one of the best value electro-musical tools ever? On its own it does nothing except wink a few lights and sit there stupidly. It has no sound creation facility whatsoever. You can press its keys as much as you like but it won't make a single noise (other than a vague click).

In that sense it isn't for absolute beginners - you need to couple it with something else first. Either a 128K or 128K+2 Spectrum and Cheetah's own Midi interface.

This useful little device used the Midi Out socket on the back of the keyboard to connect to your 128K Spectrum. You load some driving software and voila - you can play three-channel sound using the Spectrum sound chip on the MK5.

The software also allows you to edit your own sounds but mostly they are going to sound like bleep, blop, nahp beeeeeeeep. Nevertheless, being able to play the sounds on a full (five-octave) keyboard is a revelation.

Even better is the Pitch Bend wheel - you can connect this device up to the Spectrum and, gasp, bend them weeowwwwwwww (become a sincere Jan Hammer/Stevie Wonder type Jazz musician and do great solos).

The Midi interface has some other nice features: mixing tones and noise and dividing two sounds over two halves of the keyboard.

It could have more features than it does - sequencing, screen composing and so on - but that's really to criticise it for what it isn't and Cheetah is promising to produce all those sorts of music composing tools as add-on software for the system.

Using the MK5 with a Spectrum and Midi is really only the thin end of the wedge as far as what it can do is concerned. As a five-octave Midi compatible keyboard with large keys it's ideal for being connected to other synthesisers and computers.

For £99.95 (that's a hundred quid in real money) it's just about the cheapest 'slave' keyboard around. You could, for example, hook it up to a wonderful Casio CZ101 synthesiser which has very small keys to get a powerful synthesiser with big keys and five octaves.

The keyboard also has a program function. This enables you to change the octave range and to send instructions to other music instruments. For example you can, from the MK5 keyboard, send messages to your Casio CZ101 to change the current sound selected. Having this sort of Midi-based control from a dummy keyboard is a sophisticated feature usually associated with keyboards costing £400 or more.

Ultimately you could end up with a system consisting of the MK5, Casio CZ101, Spectrum, Cheetah Midi interface or Ram Music Machine and maybe some Cheetah driving system software like an on-screen composing program.

In fact, Ram Music Machine, MK5 and Spectrum would give you a sampling keyboard, with some music editing facilities as well as a drum machine. That's serious musical power.

The keyboard itself? it's nicely made of plastic and metal, with a playing action about as good as you'd expect below £500. The Pitch Wheel is located oddly at the back of the keyboard, around one octave up. In fact this proves to be quite a sensible playing position but posing-wise isn't as good as the 'I'm deeply emotional' far left alongside the keyboard, usual position.

The program select feature is economically done, where a single button moves into programming mode and the top few keys then act as switches. A large LED shows the current state of Midi channels or program locations. There are 128 programs which is enough for most Midi keyboards.

In short it's a very appealing package. If you are just getting into mixing computers and synthesisers then the MK5 and Midi interface is a good first step (especially with a Ram Music Machine). A winner.

MUSIC SCORE

Tony Sacks examines a MIDI music system designed by Cheetah Marketing for Amstrad and Spectrum owners. It offers good value for money.

The boundaries between the worlds of the computer enthusiast and the musician are becoming increasingly blurred. Many musicians, especially those playing electronic instruments, are beginning to regard the computer as an indispensible part of their equipment. Similarly, computer buffs are finding that their micros can be transformed into powerful musical instruments by coupling them to relatively cheap hardware add-ons.

No single product illustrates this cross-over better than the new Cheetah MK5 musical keyboard. At first glance it looks as if it could be a synthesiser of some kind but closer examination reveals that it has no sound-generating circuitry of its own. It is helpless without the aid of a micro or an electronic musical instrument.

Cheetah was originally commission by Boots to develop a keyboard and software to drive the sound chip built into recent versions of the Sinclair Spectrum - the 128K and Plus 2 models - and the Amstrad CPC range of micros. Not only has Cheetah met this brief with the MK5 but it has gone much further by producing a keyboard which can be used to control almost any modern electronic musical instrument.

The key to this versatility is Midi - the Musical Instrument Digital Interface - the electronic Esperanto of synthesisers, drum machines and other electrons instruments. For the uninitiated, Midi is hardware and software standard drawn up originally by the major electronic instrument manufacturers to allow their various products to communicate with each other.

Most electronic instruments now sport the tell-tale Midi DIN sockets. Simply by connecting one instrument's Midi Out socket by a hifi-style lead to another's Midi In socket, a musician play both instruments simultaneously. The instrument being played emits a string of digital codes which the stave instrument deciphers to sound the same notes almost instantaneously.

SOFTWARE CHANNELS

Midi can carry other types of information. For example, data can be assigned to one of 16 software channels so that only those instruments tuned to that channel will respond to the data. Another Midi is to change the voice being generated by a remote instrument.

The sole purpose of the MK5 is to churn out Midi data of this type. In Midi parlance, it is a "mother" keyboard. This may seem like an extremely limited capability but, as we shall see, this is not the case.

The MK5 has five octaves of full-sized keys with a pleasing action. Although the keyboard has a professional feel, its origins as a home micro peripheral can be seen in its lack of an on/off switch and its use of an external power supply even though there is sufficient room for a built-in supply.

Controls are limited to a knurled wheel marked "pitchbend" and a button switch entitled "program/play". This switch toggles between the keyboard's two modes of operation. Not suprisingly, the play mode allows you to coax any Midi-equipped instruments connected to the MK5 single Midi socket to generate sounds as you run your fingers along the MK5 keys.

When you switch into the program mode, most of the keyboard goes dead while seven keys near the top of the keyboard take on new roles. Two of them shift the output of the keyboard up or down by one octave, effectively giving you a seven-octave range from the five-octave keyboard. A second pair selects on which of the 16 Midi channels data will be transmitted. The third pair, marked "program", chooses a voice number from the range 1 to 128. When the seventh key, marked "transmit", is pressed, the chosen value is sent on the selected Midi channel to any instrument tuned to that channel.

Light emitting diodes show which function is being altered, while a three-digit display indicates the channel number, octave of program number.

OCCASIONALLY CLUMSY

Although the dual role of some of the keys is a clever way of keeping down the price, it is occasionally clumsy in use and prevents you hearing immediately the effects of program changes. You have to interrupt the flow of your music-making to change voices or channels and until you learn which voice corresponds to which program number it can take a fair amount of flipping between the play and program modes.

The pitchbend wheel, mentioned previously, generates Midi codes to shift the notes slightly up or down in frequency. For best effect, such a shift should be a whole number of semitones up or down at its extremes. The MK5 does not really achieve this.

To meet Boots original objective of using the keyboard to control computer sound chips, the MK5 Midi port is connected via the Cheetah Midi interface to either a 128K Spectrum or a CPC Amstrad. A program called Mini Synth translates the incoming Midi codes into frequency information to drive the sound chip. The software also lets you meddle with the character of the sound produced by the chip.

To get you started, about 20 examples of the type of sound you can produce are included with the package. You can tinker with them to produce variations or generate new sounds from scratch. Up to 64 sounds can be stored simultaneously in the micro memory and dumped to tape, Microdrive or disc as required.

The software allows the MK5 keyboard to be "split" so that different sounds can be played simultaneously on the top three and bottom two octaves. The three-channel limitation of the micro sound chip means that only three notes can be played at a time across the whole keyboard; if you play a fourth, the first note you played disappears.

A variety of screens and sub-menus let you adjust almost every aspect of the sound chip performance. For example, the "edit sound" screen lets you define seven "envelope" parameters including attack, decay and release rates and a sustain level. As you alter the values, their effects are shown on a graphical display of the envelope. You are always at least two key-presses away from hearing the effects of changing the parameters. This makes it a tedious process to "fine tune" a sound.

Among the many aspects of the sound which can be altered are tremolo delay and rate, and noise modulation. An eight-stage pitch selector allows you to generate some violently non-musical sounds. You can switch the pitchbend wheel on or off but you cannot vary the range over which it works.

A few times during testing, notes "stuck", remaining on after a key had been released. Although pressing the space bar can give a deliberate sustain effect, the jammed notes seemed to indicate a bug in the Mini Synth system which does not occur when the MK5 is being used as a Midi controller.

£400 SOPHISTICATION

The Mini Synth software seems to stretch the sound chip to its limits but those limits are sonically rather narrow. Using the MK5 just to drive this chip is like putting a moped engine in a Porsche chassis and it is unlikely that anyone would buy the MK5 if this was the extent of their music-making ambitions. After all, the combined keyboard and interface package costs almost £130, which is plenty to pay for an instrument which will play only three thin-sounding notes at a time.

It is as a controller of Midi instruments that the MK5 comes into its own. There is nothing like it on the market, certainly in its price range. Existing Midi mother keyboards tend to be rather more sophisticated and considerably more expensive. These up-market keyboards can usually sense the speed and strength with which the player hits the keys and can use those parameters to control the dynamics of the sounds for such sophistication you would have to pay at least £400. The MK5 costs just £99.95.

CHEETAH FOLLOW UP THE SPECDRUM WITH SOME MORE MUSICAL ADD-ONS.

At £99 the MK5 keyboard is the cheapest of its kind on the market, and in order to make it inexpensive several features have had to be sacrificed.

The keyboard is a set of plastic piano type full sized keys covering five octaves (61 keys). It has a pitch bend wheel, a multi function single click key, four indicator LEDs and a three digit display panel.

the keyboard itself does NOT produce any sounds but sends signals in MIDI code out of its single MIDI OUT socket on the back, there is one other socket and this is for the 9V power supply. The idea of this keyboard is that it controls a range of other devices, a synthesizer, a synth module (like a synthesizer but without a keyboard) or a sound unit via MIDI Interface (such as Cheetah's own MINI interface) linked to a computer.

Unlike many modern keyboards this one's care is made of metal which is dark grey and solid. The keys themselves have a very positive feel and give the impression that they will last a long time.

I am not a great fan of the increasing use of the 9V mains adaptor plug connected by a typical Spectrum plug to supply power, but it works OK and didn't give any problems, though trying to plug several of these large plugs into a socket board can cause problems at times.

The MIDI socket is the standard five pin DIN unlike the odd type fitted on the 128/+2. Through this socket you can transmit the obviously necessary note on and off codes and, as you may have surmised, pitch bend data. The channel that it is transmitted on can be selected, a program change and the octave range can also be specified and sent.

OPERATION

At first the means of operation seems rather complex. Even though there is a single button to control all the functions this is used in conjunction with seven of the keys themselves. These are the top seven and are marked above each key with the function it controls - Channel, Octave and Program. Two keys are assigned to each, Up and Down, and the final key is the Transmit command.

The four LEDs are marked from Channel, Octave, Program and Program Mode. When simply playing then the keyboard is in Program mode and that LED is lit.

To use one of the other features the Program/Play switch is clicked and the required up/down key for the function you want is pressed. The corresponding LED lights and the display panel cycles up or down through the numbers in the range of that function - 1 to 16 Channels, -1,0,1 for Octave and 1 to 128 for Programs. Once the desired number is displayed then pressing the transmit key sends that instruction to the device in use.

An interesting decision was to fit the pitch bend wheel on the top of the keyboard with a left/right action rather than the more usual side location with up/down action. I suspect that this was dictated by the case design rather than choice, but it actually works well and once I got used to it I preferred it to the customary system.

Obviously the keyboard had to lose certain features to be produced so inexpensively and whether these make this keyboard viable or not depends on your intended use for it.

If you have a MIDI equipped keyboard with mini keys and less than five octaves then this is an ideal way of expanding it. I used it with my Casio CZ101 and it was like playing a different machine, the playing "feel" was much improved and the sound range enhanced with some really deep bass or very high top notes. It was a perfect match.

However, the keyboard has not got 'velocity' or "after touch". The first provides a means of altering the sound depending on how hard/fast you hit the keys and the second allows variation in a sound depending on the pressure with which you hold the keys down. The second tends to be implemented only on very expensive machines, but most sound modules provide for velocity and it is very useful for expressive playing.

Used with some computer software this need not be a disadvantage, the XRI Micon Interface and Step Time program allows for individual setting and editing of velocity. So if its prime use is with this, or similar, then it is not a real disadvantage.

The system of sending program and channel changes takes several seconds, and this might be a disadvantage in live performances, usually it is desirable to alter a sound in mid-song by a quick, single key press. This is not possible with the MK5.

Though limited by fiddly function change operation and lack of velocity I am impressed by this product and can see it being a valuable addition for many people's systems.

MINI INTERFACE

If you haven't got a synth, or synth module, and you want to play music but don't want to spend a further £150+ on top of the MK5 then your answer could be the MINI interface from Cheetah at £29.95. This plug in upright box and software for the 128/+2 will allow the MK5 to use the 128/+2 sound chip to play three note polyphonic music in addition, the interface's built-in software provides a key split option (where the lower part of the keyboard can play a different sound to the upper part), facilities to edit sounds and create your own, adjust pitch and add or control a tremolo effect.

The unit is certainly not up to professional standards, but as a cheap alternative to real synthesis or as an introduction to it or as an improvement over the standard sound features of the Spectrum then it may be worth your consideration.

SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM

Yeah, right. You know when the band's really cooking and the drums are beating fast, the bass is thumping like a heartbeat and... yeah! Woooh! Yee har! Phil South's got this amazing new Cheetah MK5 MIDI master keyboard and he's plinking away. Take it away Phil... Oi! Come back!

Heyyy! Worra sexy piece of kit, eh? A master MIDI keyboard for under a hundred quid... what? What's MIDI? Oh come on, you must know! No? Okay, let's start at the very beginning (A very good place to start...)

The Cheetah MK5 is a long metal box with a piano keyboard on it, and no actual sound-making capability of its own, for £99. If you'd have tried to market something like this five years ago, people would have stamped on your foot and told you where you could put it, and not even supplied the shoe horn. But in 1987 the self same box will sell like hot taters in winter and, at the price, knocks spots off the competition. Why? The answer lies in a simple four-letter word... Before you start getting naughty, (tut tut), those letters that put a silent rattly keyboard to the top of every musos wish list are M-I-D-I.

MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital interface. This allows any digital synthesiser (or similar MIDI equipped device like a drum machine) to communicate with any other MIDI device or computer. Although this may sound irrelevant to making any kind of music, in practice it's extremely useful. The Cheetah MK5 keyboard is a fully equipped MIDI device, and with it you can control a number of MIDI sound producing devices, known as 'sound sources'. It's called a 'master' keyboard, because you can use it as the central controller for other instruments.

THE MIDI'S TOUCH

The Cheetah 'master' keyboard can be linked up to a number of sound sources, allowing you to play all of them from the keyboard itself, simply by selecting a different MIDI 'channel'! Alternatively, you can plug your MK5 into a 'synth expander module'. An expander module is a synthesiser without a keyboard, usually added to a synth to expand its sound making abilities. If you plug a master keyboard into a expander, you can play the sounds on the expander as if it was a normal synth! Compare the probable cost of around £1400 for a Yamaha DX7IID synth, the biggest and best one they do, to the cost of a Yamaha TX7 expander module (£600ish) and the Cheetah MK5 (£99). The two things do exactly the same jobs but the TX7/MK5 combo costs 700 quid less!

The beauty of MIDI is that it's so adaptable! Using your Cheetah MK5, you can play not only the various synth modules, but any other kind of MIDI synth. For example, say you have a Casio CZ-101. It's a fantastic little keyboard, with great sounds that are easy to edit, but it suffers from one big drawback. The keyboard is one of those titchy tiny ones that you find on home organs, which makes you play like you've got a bunch of overripe bananas for fingers. So all you need do is get a Cheetah MK5, and you can play a reasonable sized keyboard, and add another octave of playable pitches to boot!

A further use of the MK5 keyboard comes to light in the form of Cheetah's MINI interface, available separately at £29.95. Connect this between your MK5 and a 128 Speccy, and you can play and edit the sounds from the 128's sound chip! Cor! A minisynthesiser for 30 quid! But this is as nothing to what you can do with it if you use Cheetah's new MIDI interface!

ACE 'FACE

With the MIDI interface, you can use your computer to send MIDI information (like sounds and pitches) to a number of keyboards at once using Cheetah's own sequencing software. This means that provided you have enough MIDI devices (synths and drum machines) you can compose, arrange and PLAY a piece of music on loads of instruments at once! So there's no need to worry about using multitracking tape decks to write tunes on. Just do it on all your synths!

You can compose tunes in Step Time, by selecting the notes you want to play one at a time at your leisure, or in Real Time, playing them live at the keyboard. Either way you get eight tracks of music... provided you've got eight MIDI sound sources to play them on. (Yamaha's FB01 and TX81Z are very good for this, as they have eight synths all together in a little black box the size of a hardback book!)

The rhythm elements of a tune can be triggered from a MIDI compatible drum box, and the effects on the voices can be changed in mid warble if you have a MIDI reverb, like Yamaha's Rev 7 or Alesis' MIDIVERB, or a multi-effects unit like Alesis' MIDIFEX or Yamaha's SPX90. The mixing can even be done for you too, if you have a MIDI mixing desk. Akai make a heinously expensive one called the MPX-820, which at £1399 prompts the quip "Great, I'll have two!" This means that you can control the faders of the mixer, using MIDI to pull them about electronically.

As MIDI gets more and more complex, and the technology to make computer music becomes more affordable, devices like the Cheetah MIDI system will be very welcome. They're cheap, but the quality of their performance is very high indeed. Watch this space for further developments.

Okay lads, from the top. A-one, a-two, a-one, two. three, four...

CHEETAH MK5 MIDI KEYBOARD

FAX BOX
Game: MK5 MIDI Keyboard
Price: £99
Publisher: Cheetah Marketing Ltd

The biggest surprise when you first pick up your brand new MK5 master keyboard is the sheer flippin' weight of the thing. And how strangely cold it is... then you realise the reason is that it's made of metal.

On the back of the machine are its contacts with the outside world, the power plug (yes it needs its own power supply) and the MIDI OUT socket. There's no MIDI THRU or IN, but these aren't really necessary because you aren't going to want to pass MIDI information to it, only from it. On the top there's a little notched wheel for pitch bend, a button marked 'Program/Play', and a three-digit LED. Above the keys on the top octave of the actual keyboard are the words CHANNEL, OCTAVE, PROGRAM and TRANSMIT.

The button on the top of the device is the most important key on it. Pressing it activates Program Mode, where you can use the top keys on the keyboard to change a sound, select a new synth to play, shift the octaves up and down and transmit all this info to the synth in question. On our sample unit, the button was a bit erratic, sometimes switching on program mode, sometimes not. Although this fault could just be due to the newness of the unit we tested, it could be a teensy bit annoying if you happen to get one that does it; you have to press the button two or three times before it realises you're trying to change modes.

Altering the patches and channels is achieved by pressing Program Up/Down on the top octave keys, effectively stepping up or down through the settings, whilst watching the program names on the LED.

The only small niggle I came across whilst using the unit was the pitch bend wheel. It didn't bend the note as far as the wheel on the Casio did, which if your musical taste runs to extreme bending and warping of pitches, could prove a bit of a pain.

You remember I said MIDI was a standard and you can connect any MIDI instrument to any other? That's not strictly true, 'cos sometimes you get small differences of opinion between some makes of synth and your controller. Happily none of these annoying inconsistencies raised their ugly heads in our test of the Cheetah MK5. It changes channels and patches like a good'un, and the keyboard plays like a dream. Considering the nearest alternative to buying a MK5 is lashing out for something like Yamaha's v. swish but v. pricey KX5 Remote Keyboard, the Cheetah runs away with it!