Forum for all other samplers & synths such as Maschine, MVs, Akai S & Z series, Roland, Korg, OP-1, analog synths etc.
By NastySlice Tue Jun 26, 2012 8:58 pm
I've had one for many years now, never actually used it tho, i can't get it to boot up (might be that it's missing an OS or something, i don't know... or maybe it's just plain broken)

Any tips on what to do with it/ where to look for some more info?
I'm honestly just thinking about throwing it away.
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By mr_debauch Wed Jun 27, 2012 5:19 am
sound on sound wrote:• CHEETAH SX16
The Cheetah SX16 is a low-cost sampler that can be found in the Reader Ads of almost every issue of Sound On Sound. Despite meeting with equivocal reviews on its release in 1990, the original retail price of £800 (pretty much a breakthrough at the time) was enough to secure this rackmount module relatively buoyant sales. There are still quite a few knocking around, hence the current second-hand price, which can be as low as £300. So, what do you get for your money?

It's a bit of a mixed bag really. On the plus side, the SX16 offers 16-bit stereo sampling, a wide range of sample rates, and the ability to read Akai sample disks up to and including those for the S1000 (a real bonus given the size and quality of the sample libraries available for Akai samplers). Last but not least, it's cheap!

The minuses include the difficult operating system, the inadequate display, the restrictive 512K of sample RAM on the basic machine, and the sound quality, which isn't really up to 16-bit standard. Furthermore, in a strange internal work-around, Cheetah made available four polyphony modes, the best-sounding of which were the so-called 'filtered' modes, but these resulted in a mere four-note, or even two-note, polyphony.

Some of these negative points were addressable by spending more money. Cheetah produced a video modulation board (for connecting a video monitor, as with the Roland S-series), and the RAM could be expanded to a more respectable 2Mb. Expanded machines are fairly easy to come by second-hand, but expect to pay towards the upper limit of our price guide.

The SX16 was undoubtedly a budget sampler, and this shows in certain design compromises and the less-than-hi-fi sound quality. Nevertheless, if you're just getting into hi-tech music, or are happy with the reduced sound quality of the lower sample rates (which will give you a decent amount of sample time), the price of this unit, and its ability to read Akai disks combine to make it well worth considering.

The SX16 manual was not entirely clear on all points, but a third-party SX16 user guide is available. Nigel Brown's Cheetah Cheater is a nicely-designed home brew booklet that clearly explains all operational aspects of the SX16, as well as revealing a number of hidden functions. It stands to reason that if you pick up an SX16 second-hand without the manual, Nigel's book is an essential purchase. Cheetah Cheater is available from Nigel direct -- phone 01992 588334, or email [email protected].
CHEETAH SX16

• Sample Time: 2.7 seconds stereo (5.4 seconds mono) at 48kHz (43.2 seconds mono at 6kHz).
• Sample Rates: 6kHz, 8kHz, 12kHz, 16kHz, 24kHz, 32kHz, 48kHz.
• Polyphony: 8-voice maximum.
• Multitimbrality: Up to 8-part.
• Keyboard: None.
• Outputs: 8.
• Target Price: £300-400.
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By mr_debauch Wed Jun 27, 2012 3:32 pm
NastySlice wrote:I think that article is from 1995 :-D


yeah, but you made a thread about a sampler I certainly never heard of.. I am positive many other forum members have never heard of it either.... putting up that article not only lets people coming into your thread know a bit of info on the machine in question, but it may strike some interest and have people looking into it... maybe they will come across an answer... this site is filled with people who are into samplers.

for your problem.. I dont own one, but why not shoot a little video of what it looks like booting up.
By NastySlice Wed Jun 27, 2012 9:47 pm
Yeah yeah

I wasn't trying to be negative, I appreciate every response I get regarding the matter. I just found it funny what peoples was prepared to pay for this thing back in 1995 - 300 quid is a helluva lot of money!

When I try to boot it up nothing happens. Lika nada!
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By mr_debauch Thu Jun 28, 2012 5:37 pm
NastySlice wrote:When I try to boot it up nothing happens. Lika nada!


well I dont have this sampler but since it's an electrical piece of gear .. maybe you could try some of the basics to see what happens.. try opening it up and reconnecting all the cables and connectors.. if there are ram chips.. try disconnecting those and reconnecting them too...

if you have a multimeter, check to make sure power is coming from the power supply..

make sure it isn't just the screen that is burned out or not working too...

300 bucks in the early/mid 90's was cheap for something like that... computers were barely able to play 16/44 wave files... when your computer probably only had between 8 and 32 megs of ram if you were lucky.. I can see how that might have asked that much cash at the time.. hell, in 1997 the mpc2000 classic came out and costed like 3 grand.
By bernie Mon Nov 17, 2014 8:23 pm
i've got two of these..

any other users out there?? maybe with a manual

or maybe other info from the dead web-sites that where out there..

seems impossible to find a manual for this thing..
( i can use it.. tho with obscure stuff like this there are always things verry unclear)
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By Star One Wed Nov 19, 2014 4:13 pm
bernie wrote:i've got two of these..

any other users out there?? maybe with a manual

or maybe other info from the dead web-sites that where out there..

seems impossible to find a manual for this thing..
( i can use it.. tho with obscure stuff like this there are always things verry unclear)


Sometimes what you have to do is do what those people on the dead websites did.

I've done this for a lot of things where I couldn't find any information. Just dedication if your that interested, and you figure it out, start posting information on it, pics n video.

Always takes someone to figure something out for it to be posted :nod: Honestly I find it a lot of fun. Instead of just getting whats tried and proven. You can hunt down stuff getting crazy slept on. Finding it has tricks n ting you can do that nobody else got. That type of fing ^.^


Edit:

This site here - http://www.web-sharp.com/tonypenn/cheetah/

Does not work. Gone. You can use the Internet Wayback Machine, and view it here. This is a link to a snapshot of 2002, and the links are clickable.

http://web.archive.org/web/200203060545 ... n/cheetah/

Maybe this can help you also. Not specifically this site, but just any link pages you find with nothing but dead links.
By bernie Mon Nov 24, 2014 8:08 pm
Sometimes what you have to do is do what those people on the dead websites did.



Thank you, you are absolutely right!

Here we can find the full Nigel Brown's Cheetah Cheater:
https://web.archive.org/web/20001101235 ... xcont.html

Supposedly this booklet is way better than the owners manual (i am convinced that it is, because of the other cheetah manuals i've seen.) it can provide anyone enough information on what it is and can do, and if its something you want!



NOW first of all WHY YOU SHOULD BUY IT .!!!! :nod: and why i like it.


When in 8 voice polyphony mode, supposedly unfiltered mode. It does something undesirable with the general sound of the thing.

it sounds kind of digitally processed, (almost like a mod/bend of the circuit.)

This doesn't necessarily make it low fi.. maybe think of it as if it sounds warped,
but instead it makes the sound almost sonically more interesting, compared to a warp where you loose allot of character and quality.

Sorry this is very hard to explain. But if you are into ''sp-12 low-fi grittiness??'' you'll find this a very interesting way of processing sound.

I am convinced it must be some cost efficient way to make it 8 note polyphonic.
in short it does something really weird but very interesting!!


anyways, what i can tell you about the thing??


It is basically a sample player, with some editable functions.

setting loop points is pretty precise, but don't expect to much of it.. no release looping etc.. I geus you can see it more as a ''drum sample player'' in that way!


Like the Cheetah md16 it has some velocity response curves, more like envelope presets you can choose. you can then assign a second envelope preset to the aftertough.. YES AFTERTOUGH!

Kind of wish the second envelope would respond to the release of a note.. makes more sense. Thinking about this makes me wonder if the cheetah midi keyboards have polyphonic aftertouch which is very cool!

Release time is available.

Keyboard mapping is possible but you need a instrument with midi to do this.
like on every other sampler i geus?.. also this is very basic.
You can assign more samples to one note or a range of notes, this makes crossfading possible with the envelope presets(if for some reason you want to do that :wink:).


it reads akai s900 and s1000 disks. although it can only read the samples.. off course.
so no loop points, or other parameters.

this is about it..


IF you see one for cheap.. GET IT!

Also, it has a really weird 6 pin din power supply.. it is about the size of a brick/small lunch box. the specifications are:

5volt dc -- 2amp
+ 12volt dc -- 5amp
- 12volt dc -- 5amp

if somebody needs info on the power supply, i'm willing to try to determine the pin order.