SpecDrum - Latin Kit

ZX Computing

CHANGING TUNES Cheetah £3.99 This isn't actually a piece of hardware, but as it's a software add-on to Cheetah's Specdrum it seemed appropriate to mention it on these pages. The Latin Kit, which also includes a kit editor on the reverse side of the tape, allows you to program eight new 'voices' into the Specdrum. As the name suggests they are all Latin rhythm instruments, with names like Cabasa, Hi and Lo Timbale, Cowbells and so on. Using these new voices is quite simple: you just load the Specdrum software as usual, then when the 'Kit Loading' message appears on screen you remove the Specdrum tape and replace it with the Latin Kit tape. In no time at all you'll be samba-ing around the kitchen with a bowl of fruit on your head. The Kit Editor on the reverse side of the tape is a utility which allows you to compile your own kits of drum sounds. The Latin Kit and the kit which comes in the Specdrum software have got complete kits of eight instruments which have to be loaded into the Specdrum all at once. The Kit Editor allows you to pick individual instrument sounds and mix them up to produce your own combinations of sounds, so you could, if you wanted, mix some of the Latin instruments with the instruments already supplied, or pick out individual instruments from any further kits that Cheetah may produce. The editor also gives you the ability to play any sound in reverse and save this onto tape so that you can create new sounds out of the ones already provided (actually, a cowbell played backwards sounds a bit odd and I'm not sure what you'd want to do with it, but I'm sure that there are some avant-garde musicians out there who would be over the moon to have a backwards cowbell). The Specdrum has already had rave reviews in every magazine in the country, and if you've got one then for just £3.99 the Latin Kit and Editor is a cheap and useful addition to your 'kit'.