Cheetah DP5 Drum Kit

Crash

Franco Frey

BASH IT AGAIN, SAM The most expensive new Spectrum peripheral is Cheetah's DP5 drum kit, launched at The PCW Show. It's a steel-framed kit of live octagonal 'syndrums' - pads which you can hit to trigger drum sounds from any drum machine. The obvious partner is the Cheetah SpecDrum synthesizer, which has sold in tens of thousands over the last couple of years. The DP5 at the show was hooked up to a Spectrum +2 and a hefty amplifier (more news on how the Spectrum end works next issue.) It gave a resounding demonstration of two things: the quality of the SpecDrum sound, and the solidity of the kit. At £160 it's not a cheap Spectrum add-on, but it's a very cheap drum kit. The only snag, for professional drummers, is the lack of pressure-sensing; each drum sounds at a single, fixed volume when you hit the pad. Of course, this hardly matters it you always hit things as hard as possible!