So i finally pulled the trigger on a Tempest… it arrived yest… this morning, I am late for work. Why why why did I not buy this sooner?!
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I made some drum sounds on the A4 it is really awesome and can give cool results, if you load the sounds to the bank, and do sound locks per step.
I thought its also cool that i could make a bass drone, and lock various envelopes over time.
Is something similar possible on the Tempest? I.e. lock various envelopes, to a step ? I can try it at home, but i would find it interesting if it could be done assigning it to one of the midi FX slots.
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I think A4 shines and is way better than Tempest for drums (tempest has nasty buggy digital drum waveforms and attack inconsistensies), but the Tempest is waaaaay better than A4 for synths, so emotional and characterful.
I think this 2 synths are complementary and both fantastic. both are at best but not on their primary target use…
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The digital drum sounds aren’t buggy. It’s the VS synth waves which don’t have proper loop points, not the sampled one-shot percussion sounds.
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I meant that the drum samples are not correctly reproduced, which gives that lo-fi sound to it (not lo-fi in a good way i think).
I has been pointed out on dave smith instrument forums, and i am pretty sure that the developpers agreed that the sample playback engine was not perfectly working as it was intended in the first place (but still usable). i’ll try to find out that thread and share the link
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I think the elektron devices are missing some essentials, like violet and pink noise, which are very usefull for drum synthesis, and the drum pads make the tempest very playable, its currently my most used instrument. But that does not make the A4 or RYTM bad, they are both fantastic, they complement each other very well.
I reckon I know what you’re talking about and I think you’ve misunderstood the issue. It’s the VS waves, not the one-shot percussion samples.
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“In short, when the digital waveforms were loaded onto the chip that contains them, for whatever reason a few of them ended up one-sample shy, but otherwise with the correct loop length (or at least that’s one theory anyway). The result is that a handful of the affected waveforms have a slight buzz to them. A little noise on but a few of the VS wave samples, that’s it.”
https://forum.davesmithinstruments.com/index.php?topic=1122.0
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I sold mine after a couple of months. I had a pretty cool live set build in the unit, but the drums, especially the kicks, just weren’t snappy enough, even with all the matrix mod tricks on the envelope to change curves. It’s a shame because it had so many possibilities, but the inconsistent transients killed it for me after a while.
I used it mostly as a poly synth near the end, and it’s beautiful for poly sounds, but again, the envelopes weren’t made for poly sounds, so that was also a limitation that started bugging me.
Great sound, and they almost nailed it, but didn’t imho.
I’ve only had it for 24 hrs and will test it extensively this wknd but must say am quite impressed with the raw sound. The pads and also wonderful too - very inspiring
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thanks for clarifying!
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Just wanted to say downloaded @Yorgos_Arabatzis Tempest packs and the man’s got some mad talent… 
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I’m in this situation right now, found a good priced Tempest but it will have to fight for desk space with A4.
I might keep both and alternate them on my desk as needed, while the MPC keeps holding centre stage. Mpc and IPad effects plus Tempest should kill it.
Well I had one for a while but always found it to be better if you considered it a synth Groovebox rather than a drum machine. The way voice routing works is a bit annoying but If it had a built in reverb I’d still have mine.
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I still fondly remember your demo of it at a pub meetup.
I would use the MPC for drum duties, the Tempest would act a source of samples and as a synth box.
I’m a bit concerned about its dryness, but I hope my routing can make up for it.
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i could never get any useable drums without using samples.
Sold mine and bought an AR…never regretted it
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Yeah it’s great for synth tones and general distorted wierdness. If I bought it again I’d probably use the Nord for all the drums.
I think the envelopes are very snappy at least to my ears. The longer i use the Tempest, the better are the sounds i am getting from it. I use the samples as transients, and the analog synth engine as body. Works very accurate.
I can get very interesting results if i delay envelopes, and trigger samples /waves at unexpected time intervals.
I’ve done that too. I got some results I loved but in the end it wasn’t versatile enough for my taste and still not snappy enough. I used all the possible tricks, and created a pretty nice live set completely with Tempest.
Most of the problem is the click you get when locking a sound to a voice and if not locking the voice, the transients weren’t consistent enough. Using an attack at around 4 on envelopes helped a bit but took some power away as well. All in all it took too much effort to get it right imho, and the sweet spot for really good hard techno kicks was too narrow.
I think it really depends on the genre music in which the tempest shines or not.
Not to be negative about the Tempest. It’s a very cool machine with great sound. It just didn’t gel with me and the way I work.
Ok,i lock the voices, but didn’t notice the click, maybe because i masked it with transient samples. I agree that the tempest needs a lot of effort. Its not an easy machine. There are several sweetspots but one has to invest a lot of time to make it your own. (And i think its a good Techno Machine.)
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