Octatrack or Tempest

Looking for advice from users who have extensive experience with both an Octatrack and Tempest.

Yes I know one is a drum machine and one is a sampler. I own 2 Octatracks and use 1 exclusively as a drum machine.

I was offered the potential to trade the Octa for a tempest, which I am considering, however have had no experience with the Tempest at all.

Let me now if you have any thoughts, comments or advice on this opportunity.

Thanks in advance…

I have both. While I can see the reasons behind having 2 Ocatracks, I would personally prefer 1 OT and 1 Tempest. More colour and contrast. You can sequence the Tempest from the OT and control “some” parameters (midi spec of the Tempest is poor), but you can do alot with sequencing it as it is.

The Tempest is more of what I would term an instrument, where I would class the OT as more of a programming / tweaking tool (as I also did with the RYTM which I recently sold). While the Tempest can be deeply tweaked too, it begs to be played live (and recorded as such) with the fantastic (best I’ve ever played) pads and 2 strips and instant jumping between beats / sounds / roll / reverse / reverting - it’s a blast to play.

Finally, the Tempest has no FX (other than a midi based delay, analogue distortion and compression) so it can be nice to send it into the OT for some verb / delay / other FX. You could also send the main stereo output into A&B and 2 other mono sends into the OT C&D too - lots of potential there, which IMO would result in more variety and a wider pallet of sounds than 2 x OT.

HTH

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thanks Sofine for the detailed response

Had it been a question of one over the other then it is a really tough call. But for someone who currently has two OT’s looking to trade one for a Tempest i’d say go for it.

I’ve owned both and of all the gear I flogged I feel that these are my most missed pieces. The Tempest is a lovely instrument to learn. Lot of knobs, intuitively (to me at least) laid out and while the o/s could have been so much more, it is very clear and understandable. What I loved most about the OT was how well it could flip from an excellent 6 part rhythm device to a cracking 6 voice poly synth. Honestly, some of the pads it could do sounded fantastic.

I’m very much a presets man. Much of that is pure laziness but The Tempest really encouraged me to learn sound creation a little bit and to learn how cool modulation can be.

You already know about the OT. I guess you could recreate much of what makes a Tempest/OT combo cool by forcing 1 OT into a synth/drum focussed device.

Other random thoughts:

Programme management/changing will be easier with 2 Elektrons
Even file management will be more straightforward
Can only midi control the Tempest on 1 channel I think. I’m sure it can only record monophonic (been a while since I got it…)
The Tempest has a tendancy to stop playback during certain loading/saving
You could get some great results using the mulit tempest outputs into the OT’s inputs - Tempest sounds great with FX
Live sampling of the Tempest to mangle and shit is great fun

This is making me miss my Tempest and OT… Sad times… haha

I used to have a Tempest and the OT at the same time.
In some roundabout way I ended up with the Dark Trinity.

After seeing some of these threads lately, I sure wish I had the Tempest instead of the A4.

The Tempest OT combo is fucking great.
I agree, if it was about having one or the other the conversation would go differently. I’d definitely trade one of 2 OT’s for a Tempest.

I could say a lot about how great the Tempest is, but you could just watch some videos and see for yourself.
It’s the yen to the yang with the OT.
The OT is the programming hub, where the Tempest is the hands on jam machine.

Some important things to know about Tempest are the awkward parts.
No banks
8 midi event limitation (only 8 notes can happen at once. So in an effort to maximize pattern potential, you might build a bunch of sequences on different pads and keep some muted, this is where you run into the 8 event limit fairly quick.
The touch sliders are fun, but not something I’d consider accurate.
If you save anything, or load anything, Tempest has to completely stop.
Midi IN to Tempest is very limited.
You can sequence 1 external instrument, using pitch, velocity, and duration.
Not everyone likes the way the voice stealing works, personally I loved it.

Thanks guys… really appreciated!

What all of these people said.

It’s a no brainer. Get the Tempest.

Funny thing though, when I did have a Tempest and OT, I really wanted a 2nd OT to jack all the voice outs from the Tempest.

Another q for tempest users…

I have been seeing a lot of complaints about the tempest’s ability to sync tightly both as a master and a slave.

Has this been resolved? does it sync nicely with your other sequencers?

I have no patience for sloppy drums…

thanks

Heard a lot about this too when I had a Tempest. Never experienced it myself, though. I’ve synced it with a Rytm, an Octatrack, with Ableton and some other random instrument which I don’t recall now.
Never had these issues.

Cant say I noticed any timing issues when sync’d either. Had it sync’d up with the Dark Trinity and Live and, I think, my iPad on occasion.

I’m not super anal about tight sync though. I’m one of the few who was happy with Live as master, for example. But having said that, I really didn’t notice anything at all with the Tempest

I never had sync issues with Tempest.

Never had sync issues here too…
I’ve got the Tempie/OT combo and IMHO they’re built for each other… :heart:
Just go for it you won’t regret it especially if you like designing your own sounds and having fun playing it like an instrument.One advice though…It’s a beast and you have to tame it first :wink:

Bought them both at the same time :astonished:

Tempest by a mile, as far as my usage goes. :heart:

I ceertainly dont buy into this “tempest cant do great drum sounds” BS
that just comes from people whos ambitions far outweigh their talent. :confused:

It is not without its glaring omissions and OS stupidity. :dizzy_face:

They are certainly both capable of producing great sounds and music, just one is far more inviting than the other, ymmv. :wink:

I’d swap my OT for a T in a heart beat (Id then have 2 :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: )

I have both and they are perfect companions. Never had any issue syncing them with either device as master.

The OT gives the Tempest the FX it needs, and having the OT to chop up Tempest patterns in real time is a ton of fun.

Do it!