Cheetah MS6 Polyphonic Analog Synthesizer SN 16914

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"The Cheetah MS6 is six-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer in a 1u 19” rack. It was launched in 1988 by Welsh company Cheetah who blazed a brief but glorious trail through the world of music tech in the mid to late 80s before imploding in 1993. The MS6 is based around a fairly conventional two oscillator > low pass filter > dual ADSR envelope architecture implemented on six Curtis CEM3396 chips, one per voice, which were also used in the Oberheim Matrix 6, 6R and 1000.

The MS6 is often compared to the Matrix 1000 because of its similar form factor and circuitry. I can’t comment on how valid that is sonically because I’ve never used a Matrix 1000, but it should be noted that, unlike the Matrix 1000, sounds on the MS6 can be created and edited from the front panel without an external programmer. Although you may wish to add one, for reasons I’ll go into further down.

I bought this particular MS6 in 2015 from EMIS music in Bristol and it was fully serviced and calibrated by Andy from EMIS prior to collection. He also changed out the original NiCad battery for a modern lithium one, which is an essential mod as the NiCads eventually fail and can leak nasty gunk all over the PCB. Andy is an excellent synth tech, now retired and greatly missed, and this MS6 has never given me a whisper of trouble during the time I’ve owned it.

This MS6 also has the third party V1.3 firmware installed, developed by Kristopher Maad who maintains a website devoted to the MS6 at maad.net/ms6 . The V1.3 firmware maps the synth’s parameters to MIDI CC numbers, so you can set up external control without having to delve into sysex. There’s also a few handy extra features like more waveform choices for the oscillators.

In his 2001 Retrozone review of the MS6 for Sound On Sound, David Harman says the front panel editing system ‘may at first seem arcane, but very quickly becomes second nature’. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, but this is fundamentally a fairly simple synth so editing on the front panel is a viable option with a little patience. Each of the 50-odd voice parameters is identified by a two digit number. You look up the number for the parameter you want, punch it in, hit Edit and change the value with the arrow keys. It sounds long winded and it is, but once you get a library of patches in memory you will find you’re often only making minor nips and tucks each time you use them.

As you can see in the pics, Cheetah have very helpfully printed all the parameter numbers in large font on the top of the unit. As many have pointed out this is no use if its rack mounted, so I’ve tended to have it on top of my rack for nice tight hand/eye co-ordination when programming. If this sounds like too much of a drag, there are several external programming options available. The Kiwitechnics patch editor will control the MS6, or you could get something like a Behringer BCR2000 and map the CCs yourself. There is a Cubase device panel for the MS6 and other DAWs probably have something similar.

Sonically, this is always subjective but bottom line is it sounds good. I find the MS6 has a deep, smoky midrange character that doesn’t always wow in isolation but generally works well in the mix. It sounds way nicer than any VA I’ve ever used and it can hang comfortably with most analog polysynths from its era. I’ve bought a few much more expensive and desirable polysynths since 2015, but I still found I was using it surprisingly often and creating some great sounds with it. Now however I’m downsizing significantly ahead of a house move, and I’ve decided it’s time for it to have a new owner."