Yes you can change the beats, according to the manual.
It’s very unlikely that I buy it from what I understand of the weird (factually really poor and bad) midi implementation.
Anyway case almost closed : it’s a machine with a great sound and wonderful sound design workflow, but with huge design flaws that narrows down the spectrum of potential usage.
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Lol why are you asking then
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They look the bomb … worth it for the decorative value alone
I only got my info from the manual section, and it’s not exactly clear, that’s why.
I may have missed something, and since the way MIDI input works seems really stupid, I’m trying to get someone to confirm that there’s no way to control both Beats and Sounds with MIDI at the same time, without having to change the MIDI mode on the hardware.
You can’t really control sounds at all. I think it’s basicslly triggering sounds and changing the beat wide effects.
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Yeah, I mean triggering sounds not to change their params (I know it’s not possible).
From what I understand, the Tempest only listens to the same 16 notes, and they can EITHER trigger Sounds OR change Beats.
Which is a problem since I want everything to be automated by the DAW.
I’m watching this miscommunication going down 
If an external sequencer is playing notes on the Tempest…
While that is happening…
Can you also tell it to change “beats” or “presets” via MIDI notes “At The Same Time”?
I think that’s what he’s asking.
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Not to my knowledge.
But really, if you’re not getting the Tempest for what it does best, then don’t get it. When you go all in on what it does do well, it’s a treat.
That’s it exactly. Thanks for clarifying my request.
(I’m cursed when writing in english, I always end up misunderstood. Not my native language as you might have guessed !)
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No worries, your English is fine. I got what you’re wanting to do.
It’s actually not asking a lot of a machine. Considering the amount of MIDI notes available, it could have been spread out on note ranges.
If you were using something like a Multiclock, you could stop the clock on only the Tempest. Then switch “beats”, and start the clock again in play mode or whatever it’s called.
Still, it seems better for studio work with one set of sounds vs live performance and switching on the fly.
To be clear, I don’t own a Tempest. I’m just curious about it. No plans to get one either.
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It’s actually worse than that, from what I understand. You have to change the mode that defines what midi notes do on the device itself. So basically, if you’re playing sounds from midi, you have to change ‘kits’ on the Tempest itself. (Or change the mode on the Tempest, then send the note that corresponds to the Kit, then
Set the mode to trigger sounds again. But that doesn’t make any sense).
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I owned one for a couple years. As others have said it really is an instrument. I did learn to play it too. In the end the raw sound did nothing for me… even though the osc and filter are based on the prophet line, it felt colder and duller.
There is no plasticity in that box. It always sounds the way it sounds. It’s kind of hard to describe. I’ll always miss those performance controls and how many sounds and patterns are available and how fluid pattern changes are. But doesn’t like to play with friends either… it is it’s own thing in its own playground.
I’m really on this thread because one popped up at a decent price and I won’t fkn bite. Nope. No way.
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One thing that’s not being said enough about it, is it’s six stereo outs. Run this through a mixer with external effects and you got quite the sound design beast.
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No doubt about that. And it can sound huge! It can slap hard af when dialed right. But I found those configurable outs a bit tedious to set up at times… and sometimes a lot to manage, especially when combined with other gear, but it definitely shined brighter routed to a mixer. And it must be said the on board compression is… meh, so I always used mine with one or two on mixer inserts… things can get hairy when messing with performance effects until you set the ranges right.
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Yeah, it’s downright sloppy in the sweet spot department. Some instruments are just rowdy by nature, most of Elektron’s kits can go south pretty quickly if you get lost, but the Tempest just has no borders. I know it’s been said that it’s part of its charm and part of the reason you can get it to sound so unique, but I think that’s bullshit. You can set some boundaries and still be very flexible, especially Sequential stuff which really knows their way around sweet spot design, and it seems like in this area, they were just kind of lazy when it came to Tempest sound design limits or lack thereof.
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Well said man… that resonates with me and was definitely part of my experience though I could quite articulate it. And it IS the nature of this wild device that forced me to work too hard to get things to behave the way I wanted. Took me a long while but I accepted it and moved on… and I wanted to love that machine probably more than any other purchase I’ve made since I was a much younger man.
It’s one of the clearest examples of a designer not being a user of the product. Big props to @JohntheSavage for helping coordinate with Roger in getting most of the bugs quashed.
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Was just reminded that they put all the Prophet VS waves in there, messed them up in the transfer process, and just left it that way. Classic Dave Smith.
Another howler was not allowing oscillators to sync to triggers, making it impossible to make a basic analogue 808 sine kick as you’d get random transients when the wave hit in a bad spot. Side product of simply lazily importing a synth engine in there and doing nothing to adapt it to the stated use case. So you’d invariably go for the on-board samples for reliable transients instead. And then to go all-out marketing this crap as an analogue drum machine, lol.
Before anyone asks, yes it does feel good to hate a bit of gear this much.
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Well, some of my best loops and clips, I did on the Tempest. So it will always have a special place in my studio heart.
But in the end, the work to get there wasn’t worth the payoff - obviously, since I sold it. I did consider for some time to completely devote myself to it, but an instrument that’s so raw on its own can never be a principle foundation for track work, at least not for me. Even those who have proven that it can carry a piece more or less on its own, do it as an exception rather than a rule.
I mean, I see artists travelling with the Octatrack as their primary weapon of choice from album to album, live show to live show. The Tempest could never be that kit even in the hands of a skilled musician, which is why I eventually left it.
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I can’t say I hated it. It’s just was sort of too much but not enough on its own. The price and questionable interest in its development the ultimately made it not right for me personally.
Oscillators 1 & 2 --> Page 3 --> Wave Reset --> ON
Any other perceivable variation in the transients can be blamed on the Amp and Filter response from one voice to the next, and that can be averted by simply assigning the offending sound to a single voice (though I would argue that it’s these subtle, random inflections that make analog drum machines feel alive).
Cheers!
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