Elektron-Users

Had a Tempest for about a year - but also was a bit disappointed by the unfinished OS and there was not much progress on further development. Since I already owned a MDUW, I traded the Tempest for an A4 and never looked back....

A lot of people complain that the MD tends to sound cold, but I've never found that to be the case. I traded my 909 for an MD and haven't looked back and have never lamented a loss of analog beef.

The only thing I find tricky to program on a MD are clones of TR-XOX cymbals, but I have samples of those at the ready for when I need them.

The sheer variety of sounds (drum and otherwise) you can coax out of the MD are just mindblowing to me. In terms of sound design, I don't think you'd be at a loss over the Tempest. Sounds like the biggest obstacle might be convincing yourself that going non-analog is ok. Don't worry, it is....in a few rare cases.

The Tempest is probably a good drum machine but i have been extremely disappointed by DSI about OS update and workflow in general. I told myself i will never buy an other DSI synth until the OS is finished.

Thanks everybody for the viewpoints. Totally agree about the "instrument to be played" factor and would not like to lose that. I think it comes down to the sound. I can go deep with the programming and know my way around it well, but I remain not quite inspired. Sort of hard to concede after so much invested time.

Now I'm thinking either get a Tanzbaer and free the Tempest from primary drum machine duties, or Tanzbaer + trade for an MD.

I was an early Tempest adopter, and I must say I left extremely disappointed in DSI and their support on the software side, and would be very reluctant to buy anything from them again.

The Machinedrum-UW has a powerful, smooth workflow for sequencing, synthesis and sample mangling and I think is far more versatile than the Tempest. I do like the two strip controllers and velocity sensitive pads of the Tempest though.

For the MD to be any better it could draw from elements of the OT and A4. OT-class sample management and storage (the whole snapshots/MIDI thing can be tedious) would be great, as would the A4's analog synth and digital effects.

"For the MD to be any better it could draw from elements of the OT and A4. OT-class sample management and storage (the whole snapshots/MIDI thing can be tedious) would be great, as would the A4's analog synth and digital effects."

Better sample management over USB (because they'll sell more packs that way) is a given for the (hypothetical) next MD. But too much sample memory and it steps on the OTs toes too much.

As for Analog, it would be the other way around (the way the Tempest should have been)- Samples come in through (maybe a simple bit down-conversion possible up front choose between 8 and 12? a man can dream) ---->DCOs--->Hybrid mod matrix. Why? Because when you put analog oscillators in a drum machine with sampling capabilities, it simply becomes a synth limited only by it's polyphony- why would you get an A4 when you could have a fully analog polysynth? This could be the reason the Tempest ended up disappointing- Dave Smith realized the "perfect drum machine" is also just a polyphonic synth WITH sampling capabilities- making it hard to sell a Poly Evolver or a Prophet 12 (both with DCOs) when you could have an analog monster synth for $1,500 less....

I say this as a very happy owner of the P12, but man does the Tempest's software and internal memory suggest that Dave Smith saw big money slipping away once people realized a Sampling Tempest with a MIDI keyboard was going to cut into the rest of his business.

none of you guys that have had issues with the DSI tempest ever had an early OS on a Spectralis did you

I havent updated my tempest sense i got it, still love it, but to each their own.

I had an MD-UW, then bought a tempest. I thought it could replace the UW but it didn't. After some time, I only used samples on the uw because I got bored by the internal sounds. I swapped the UW for an octatrack and kept the tempest. I loved the UW first but I don't miss it at all. Most sounds just didn't cut it for me. Especially when listening on earbuds, most kicks of the MD sounded really plastic. But the sequencer is fun, so that gap was nicely filled by the OT.

It took me quite a while but now I can get very satisfying analog kicks from the tempest. The rest of the percussion is often sample based or a mix. I use it as a poly synth often which I really love. It does need a mixer where you can EQ individual channels and add some FX. Leaving the tempest dry just sounds too... euhm, dry.

What you might miss is the velocity and pressure sensitive pads, the project structure (as opposed to the kits+patterns on an MD), the filter and of course the synth engine.
What you gain are internal fx and eq, a better sequencer and a finished OS

Everytime I get to play a Tempest the one thing that alway stands out to me is the build quality. The knobs and such just feel so small and flimsy, I'd be afraid to gig with it a lot. The MD you can toss around all over the place. (not that I would).

Interestig to hear the OS isn't done yet either, I stopped following news about it awhile ago.

For whatever reason, I haven't been bothered by the OS update issues. The build quality hasn't been a problem either, except that the Stop and Play buttons' paint rubbed completely off and I had to replace them.

I'll definitely miss the pads and sliders, and I've gotten some way-out timbres with beatwide parameters, but at the end of the day, it's the overall sound for DRUMS that's not happening for me. It doesn't sound "bad", and I've programmed the hell out of it, but as a previous poster said, if it hasn't lit me up in a year and a half, it's time to move on.

Having six voices is a BIG deal for me. I've put way too much effort into voice allocation and planning ahead when making beats; I feel the limits constantly and it drives me nuts. I built the proper cables to take full advantage of the voice architecture and panning tricks, and it's just too much fiddling about. (It also took up damn near every input of my humble live-set mixer...)

The Tempest is super-powerful and that's why I bought it, but the sound just ain't doing it for me. It's an expensive lesson.