Back in the early '90s, this British beast from Cheetah delivered 16-bit, 44kHz drum samples when most budget machines were still scraping by on lower quality, packing 41 punchy percussion hits—from massive kicks and snares to quirky tabla, temple blocks, and acid flicks—right into its 1MB of internal memory.
Its desktop design centers around 16 compact, velocity-sensitive rubber pads that demand a precise smack for the best response, paired with a 2-line LCD and a cluster of 12 dedicated buttons plus shift functions to dive into deep editing menus. Each of the 16 voices lets you tweak pitch, reverse playback, volume envelopes, pan (including auto and roll variations), velocity curves, and even MIDI note assignments, with options for multi-samples per pad that layer up to three sounds based on hit strength. A built-in 16-track sequencer handles real-time or step programming across patterns, with global effects like shuffle, MIDI delay, descending pitch echo, and humanized random variations for pitch, start point, and gate time. MIDI In/Out/Thru connects it seamlessly, while the single stereo output (expandable via rear port for more samples) keeps things straightforward on a compact chassis powered by a wall wart.
Owners cherish its unmatched flexibility for warping sounds into wild, experimental rhythms—think auto-panning rolls echoing across pitches—but note the menu-diving can feel fiddly without mods, and the stock samples lean a touch thin compared to modern libraries. Still, in the right hands, it crafts beats with a raw, vintage edge that's tough to replicate today.
