Tempest Love

van · 2014-06-24T22:01:26.000Z

interesting thread for me. i still don’t know : tempest or ar…

TRSC2015 · 2014-06-24T23:52:38.000Z

""Elektronot"":

The RYTM is ultra fun and functional, but the sound is lacking

Sound is lacking?

Explain.

Elektronot · 2014-06-25T01:05:41.000Z

It lacks analog convention. Its clean and docile, its not versatile enough to go hard, dirty, and aggressive. Ideal for club, lounge, downtempo and soundscapes, but what else?

Elektronot · 2014-06-25T01:11:05.000Z

""van"":

interesting thread for me. i still don’t know : tempest or ar…

Depends on if you already have/like a AK or A4. I don’t own a Tempest, but i’ll be buying one now.

TRSC2015 · 2014-06-25T02:03:51.000Z

""Elektronot"":

It lacks analog convention. Its clean and docile, its not versatile enough to go hard, dirty, and aggressive. Ideal for club, lounge, downtempo and soundscapes, but what else?

What else?

Well, I guess it depends on sample selection, one’s knowledge of musical genres, analog sound processing and of course the device itself.

Theoretically, RYTM should allow us to create any type of beat or musical style.

Elektronot · 2014-06-25T02:22:45.000Z

""TRSC2015"":

[quote=“Elektronot”]It lacks analog convention. Its clean and docile, its not versatile enough to go hard, dirty, and aggressive. Ideal for club, lounge, downtempo and soundscapes, but what else?

What else?

Well, I guess it depends on sample selection, one’s knowledge of musical genres, analog sound processing and of course the device itself.

Theoretically, RYTM should allow us to create any type of beat or musical style.

[/quote]
I mean yeah i guess… Of course. You can process anything and get what you want or maybe close. That could potentially fight your workflow.
Samples. eh… I dunno, samples don’t always hold my attention.
Its not a sampler.

gihaume · 2014-06-25T05:41:21.000Z

""Elektronot"":

The RYTM is ultra fun and functional, but the sound is lacking

I often find awesome what we can read on the internet regarding gears!

I think that Elektron brought the drum machine that many people dreamed and anyone including DSI didn’t designed. And that including the sound aspect, very notably.

The tempest is not really a drum machine , it’s a traditional multi-synth and it’s only its sequencer which is thought to do drums. If you want to design your drum sounds, you have to do it like on a synth, not a drum machine (A4 would almost be comparable). I think that point is very notably against workflow… So for analog drums you always use the presets and hum… limited-to-internally samples. AR is not a sampler? Tempest so much even less!

PlayRecords · 2014-06-25T07:25:12.000Z

[quote=“” Elektronot""]

[quote=“TRSC2015”][quote=“Elektronot”]It lacks analog convention. Its clean and docile, its not versatile enough to go hard, dirty, and aggressive. Ideal for club, lounge, downtempo and soundscapes, but what else?
[/quote]

What else?

Well, I guess it depends on sample selection, one’s knowledge of musical genres, analog sound processing and of course the device itself.

Theoretically, RYTM should allow us to create any type of beat or musical style.

[/quote]
I mean yeah i guess… Of course. You can process anything and get what you want or maybe close. That could potentially fight your workflow.
Samples. eh… I dunno, samples don’t always hold my attention.
Its not a sampler. [/quote]
Its not a sampler your right there, that’s elektrons own word but the samples are there to compliment and enhance with plenty of manipulation possibilities (tempest will frustrate you in this regard if you want to use samples) take any sample (as dirty/hard as you like) import into AR and see how close you can get with AR synthesis alone… Odds are the sample will have been compressed/saturated in some way so add some from AR.
I agree with what’s just been said if you want versatile/original drums from tempest you need to know drum synthesis and be prepared to invest some time. I also agree A4 is a better comparison as they share similar synthesis.

mosthigh · 2014-06-25T17:21:36.000Z

Since getting Rytm, I haven’t so much as looked at my Tempest. I’ve fleshed out probably 15-20 tracks with Rytm at the center.

dionysiananarchy · 2014-06-25T19:02:27.000Z

i have a tempest,

its really good in a lot of ways, but weak in others,

like just about every other machine.

the ar has killed the resale value, not really cause its better, its new and has a lot of buzz, so what,

the kicks on the tempest are good, but they arent dance orientated drums
and i think that most of what the argument is, “good” means a compressed thwack drum, tempest is terrible at those.

it can make very far drums with tons of low end,

but since the resale isnt even worth the effort,

i suggest getting a vermona kick lancet or m-base 11, those sound better to me than the ar anyway.

the ar sequencer is much better, but i have an ot and a4, so its not an issue with me, i can already do weird percussion on those, i dont need a bassdrum to modulate or change in any way,

if anyone says adding gear defeats the point, well, fuck off, who wants to use the ar alone? or the tempest? adding an mbase to the tempest
is no different than adding a synth to the ar, cause it isn’t very good at that,

the a4 is a synth, the mono is too, you might have heard of others, there are several on the market (using synth to refer to the non-drum orientated ones, i know the ar is a synth,)

as far as sampling goes, its useful if want it, but these machines are really not about that,

yea u can put long samples in the ar, so what? if you wanna do that get an ot, or mpc, its easier and better at it,

i already have sampling and sample planning with the ot, i dont need more prep time,

the kick gets way too much attention, yes the ar has a much better one,
there are other sounds that are usually used, the snare and hats are just as important, in those areas and most the other , the tempest is as good, better in some, not as good in others,

both are really good machines, just depends on the sound u want and workflow preferences,

for the price i think the at is a bit too much, the tempest has the synth features, so as a 6 voice poly, its not as bad., it is missing a few synth features but nothing too big, the 4 oscs and sub make some really good sounds.

Purusha · 2014-06-25T19:15:33.000Z

Got an AR and a Rytm.

Not planning on getting rid of either.

monocon · 2014-06-25T19:55:55.000Z

""dionysiananarchy"":

i have a tempest,

its really good in a lot of ways, but weak in others,

like just about every other machine.

the ar has killed the resale value, not really cause its better, its new and has a lot of buzz, so what,

the kicks on the tempest are good, but they arent dance orientated drums
and i think that most of what the argument is, “good” means a compressed thwack drum, tempest is terrible at those.

it can make very far drums with tons of low end,

but since the resale isnt even worth the effort,

i suggest getting a vermona kick lancet or m-base 11, those sound better to me than the ar anyway.

the ar sequencer is much better, but i have an ot and a4, so its not an issue with me, i can already do weird percussion on those, i dont need a bassdrum to modulate or change in any way,

if anyone says adding gear defeats the point, well, fuck off, who wants to use the ar alone? or the tempest? adding an mbase to the tempest
is no different than adding a synth to the ar, cause it isn’t very good at that,

the a4 is a synth, the mono is too, you might have heard of others, there are several on the market (using synth to refer to the non-drum orientated ones, i know the ar is a synth,)

as far as sampling goes, its useful if want it, but these machines are really not about that,

yea u can put long samples in the ar, so what? if you wanna do that get an ot, or mpc, its easier and better at it,

i already have sampling and sample planning with the ot, i dont need more prep time,

the kick gets way too much attention, yes the ar has a much better one,
there are other sounds that are usually used, the snare and hats are just as important, in those areas and most the other , the tempest is as good, better in some, not as good in others,

both are really good machines, just depends on the sound u want and workflow preferences,

for the price i think the at is a bit too much, the tempest has the synth features, so as a 6 voice poly, its not as bad., it is missing a few synth features but nothing too big, the 4 oscs and sub make some really good soun
ds.

Nice Post!

AR really has a nice Kick but Tempest Kicks can sound more organic just like a natural instrument.
I also like the little changes of the sounds when cycling through the voices.

dionysiananarchy · 2014-06-25T21:15:35.000Z

thats kinda my point,

it has a different goal in mind, its judging a non-dance orientated machine vs a primary dance one, then saying it sucks for not being something it wasn’t supposed to e anyway,

i liked the tempest when i first got it, i thought the drums sounded almost, new wave 80s, as in its not all about punch and compression to the detriment of everything else,

just like you could make country music with the mono, its a lot harder, as it wasnt really geared twords it,

you can make most types of electronic, and not so electronic percussion with the ar, some better than others, same with tempest,

drums in the electronic music generes that most do, have very specific drums, a machine can either get it, and if not its always lacking for someone who makes that style… the ar makes those heavy pounding drums very well, its who they make the machines for so it makes sense…

i dont think dsi was trying to swindle anyone, i just dont think it was made for the same thing, saying that, they coulda made it a bit more drum focused, it is more difficult than it has to be,
but once u learn it, not an issue.

i think it showed that dsi is not very experienced in the drum machine world,

they did almost everything wrong from a marketing point of view,

Anigbrowl · 2014-06-25T21:40:30.000Z

""gihaume"":

The tempest is not really a drum machine , it’s a traditional multi-synth and it’s only its sequencer which is thought to do drums. If you want to design your drum sounds, you have to do it like on a synth, not a drum machine (A4 would almost be comparable). I think that point is very notably against workflow…

Exactly. It is a very nice synth although it has a few bugs and shortcomings (mostly to do with voice allocation and/or limited memory capacity), and a very ice set of pads, but those don’t add up to a good drum machine for everyone. I mean, i’ts not that I find it hard to program, I also like to get great drum sounds out of a Virus or a Nord Modular or Analog Four. In fact the first thing I do with any new synth is try making a kick drum to get a feeling for the low-pass filter and the envelopes.
But…I decided to get a drum machine for drums, rather than as a general synthesizer. And I have been finding that I still make more drums in my OT and on the A4 than in the Tempest, which I have used instead for basses and pads. It sounds great, but to be honest I could have saved money and got the same/more functionality with an MPC1000 running JJOS and a Tetra or Mopho X4.
It’s like I wanted a motorcycle and ended up with a truck…of course it’s much more powerful, but at the expense of agility and speed. If you like driving a truck it’s a wonderful machine, but for drums I prefer a different approach than from other instruments.

Acidfever · 2014-06-25T22:03:37.000Z

""dionysiananarchy"":

i think it showed that dsi is not very experienced in the drum machine world,

they did almost everything wrong from a marketing point of view,

Based on the fact that the godfather of the LM-1, MPC60 and MPC3000, Roger Linn, co-designed the Tempest this explanation doesn’t make a lot of sense. We are talking about three drum machines that revolutionized the drum machine market here…

The character of the Tempest is more likely to be determined most by the re-use of existing DSI voice architecture (which has never been well known for it’s drum synthesis capabilities) than anything else…

I think one issues with the Tempest might be that it tries to be too much at the same time to excel in everything. I don’t own a Tempest but from what I’ve heard it’s an interesting synth/percussion unit but a much less interesting drum synth. Being marketed as a drum machine that does seem a little weird but the TB303 was originally designed as a bass guitar emulator and look where that ended up.

dionysiananarchy · 2014-06-26T00:40:31.000Z

""Acidfever"":

dionysiananarchy:

i think it showed that dsi is not very experienced in the drum machine world,

they did almost everything wrong from a marketing point of view,

Based on the fact that the godfather of the LM-1, MPC60 and MPC3000, Roger Linn, co-designed the Tempest this explanation doesn’t make a lot of sense. We are talking about three drum machines that revolutionized the drum machine market here…

The character of the Tempest is more likely to be determined most by the re-use of existing DSI voice architecture (which has never been well known for it’s drum synthesis capabilities) than anything else…

i dont think linn had much to do with the voices,
the sequencer is good for regular use, it does what i usually need, like lay back sequences…

but doing the same thng wont work, clearly, thats why it was partly a letdown to some, i dont think dsi knew all issues that would come up, almost all of it different than the issues a synth would have,
people expect a lot, and even more so when big names did it,
,
its all just a guess though, i don’t work for them,

samples with analog filters can be nice, and the tempest sounds good just using them,
but the analog side is harder to get good bass-drums out of it, i can get ones i like, but the fact it, it isnt the best at um,
they should of done better in that area, i shouldn’t be as hard as it is, its not optimized, in any way,u can usually get there, but it takes a while,

thats one area i think there was a lack of understanding how important the kick is to most electronic music these days, the ar clearly went the other way, focused on the kick and made a good one, the analog of the tempest can be really good for other drums,

i have played the tempest with the other gear, the sound generally is more hi quality than that of elektron,… but there is more to it than that, the a4 and other machines are great cause of the synergistic effect of everything.

the tempest, the sequencer basically, plays the sounds,
the elektron the sequencer is part of the sound in the way an lfo is, but much more,

i still might sell the tempest because i am a bit lazy about sound design,

i would probably get a vermona drm, cause it sounds soo good,
or an ar, cause i know the elektron way of doing things, and it sounds good easy,

my only real motivation to post here was that most the reviews seemed to be a bit too dire, or based on it not getting a sound it wasn’t made for,

the tempest is usually judged too harshly and ar too easily, i think in time it will even out and and a more accurate judgement can be made, without the people mad at the os wait times , or the old speculations with a million features,

Anigbrowl · 2014-06-26T01:31:44.000Z

""Acidfever"":

Based on the fact that the godfather of the LM-1, MPC60 and MPC3000, Roger Linn, co-designed the Tempest this explanation doesn’t make a lot of sense. We are talking about three drum machines that revolutionized the drum machine market here…

Yeah, but when you actually use one the MIDI sequencing is quite limited, and it doesn’t play so well with other gear (eg you can’t sequence CCs from a DAW or individual parameters in general, only patch modulators). There have been a lot of excuses made for why, about the lack of processing power and memory and so on, but then you look at the specs of the MPC60 from 1987 and the Tempest sequencer looks pretty weak

The character of the Tempest is more likely to be determined most by the re-use of existing DSI voice architecture (which has never been well known for it’s drum synthesis capabilities) than anything else…

I do like the drum sounds I’ve got out of it and think it often gets a bad rap in this area. But it sure slows things down.

Being marketed as a drum machine that does seem a little weird but the TB303 was originally designed as a bass guitar emulator and look where that ended up.

Sort of. It’s not that unusual of a synth architecture, quite close to the Mopho basically. It is a little bit slower to program than usual as a synth because of some drum machine things, eg there are only two knobs for attack and decay in the envleope section, you have to press a button to get at the Sustain/Release parameters. And there’s no free-running LFOs, they retrigger every note-on.

Elektronot · 2014-06-26T02:43:03.000Z

""dionysiananarchy"":

as far as sampling goes, its useful if want it, but these machines are really not about that,

the kick gets way too much attention, yes the ar has a much better one,
there are other sounds that are usually used, the snare and hats are just as important, in those areas and most the other , the tempest is as good, better in some, not as good in others,

Thumbs up, thank you

Elektronot · 2014-06-26T02:45:58.000Z

Thank you for your comments everyone.

Wherever your ears and motives take you, ENJOY.

bonkks · 2014-06-26T03:13:17.000Z

It’s like I wanted a motorcycle and ended up with a truck…of course it’s much more powerful, but at the expense of agility and speed. If you like driving a truck it’s a wonderful machine, but for drums I prefer a different approach than from other instruments.

That really sums up how I feel about it. I end up using it now basically because I feel obligated to since I have so much money sunk into it. I just with they would take a cue from the AR and implement some kind of “machine” system. The screen with the encoders around it would be a perfect fit.