Oh most definitely.
I love that thing, I would still use it for kicks and snares. Kicks can seem soft, yet they have this really sweet warmth.
Sculpting leads, basses, pads, and weird sounds is just a breeze, and over time I liked it more and more for that. The UI is pretty fantastic in most cases. If pym gets rid of bugs and moves forward with half his ideas in the “Sequencer Discussion thread,” it would be hard not to get one again.
I would have kept it if I was in a position to collect high end synthesizers.
I got really familiar with sequencing on the Tempest, and abusing the roll and arp in 16 tunings mode. However I got the Octatrack an I was just having more fun programming patterns and I was blown away how deep that goes and stays fairly intuitive.
The Tempest can be a simple instrument and sound good, the “Tempest as polysynth” video has a bunch of great examples of samples only, and simple patches.
The Tempest also provides the opportunity to get lost in a modulation black hole.
For me the AR became more attractive because it strips away the black hole (limits parameters), but offers more in sequencing plus fx.
I’ll probably be an active participant on some forum of whatever I am into. I find it a great place for learning.
Yeah the case I was working on is scrapped. I took it out a couple times and got real about the fact it was more than I wanted to be hauling by myself. I’d rather be hauling more speakers. I liked the idea of having this crazy mash up rig, yet the ascetics are important too. So I am still trying to figure it all out, but I know I am starting with AR, OT and a Slim Phatty, and maybe another Slim Phatty. I also tell myself I may build a small modular, I’m prone to denial.
Anyways my AR is supposed to be here tomorrow, the wife will be out of town for a few days. Super excited.[/quote]
Cool For Drums I find the Rytm much better than the tempest !
Even if you have lots of time - sound still won’t be professional.
Mmm, I don’t really agree. If you want to emulate another Famous Drum Machine exactly, you’ll be disappointed, but I have had no problem getting wonderful sanres, claps and so on, that are very dynamic and responsive to playing style within a specific range. Havng said that I probably only use a small subset of the available samples, and agree that many of them are useless (eg the VS waves don’t seem to be properly truncated and as such are mostly unusable).
Analog oscilators…they aren’t working well.
This is a point. At the thighest frequencies something goes very wrong with the tuning, they don’t behave right past about C6 whereas the Analog 4 can go up to where only my dog hears it while still being clean. On the other hand the Tempest oscillators deliver a bit more in the bass department - for my taste anyway. I can get good basses from the A4, it’s just more work than it is on the Tempest.
I think it all depends on what you’re really looking for. If you want a synth that can double as a drum machine, get the Tempest. If you want a drum machine that has limited capabilities as a synth, get the RYTM.
I mean, I don’t have vast experience with either of these machines, but I think the Tempest is really terrific-sounding synth. I just wish it had a lot more presets that I could use as a building block to create my own drum sounds. The RYTM on the other hand, has tons of beautiful presets, many of which don’t even need tweaking. But based on my experimentation with it (which, admittedly, has only been a couple of hours), you’re really going to struggle to get good, usable synth sounds out of it. And those you get will be fairly limited, at least compared to what’s possible on the Tempest. I like the pads on the Tempest a lot better than those on the RYTM, too.
As far as workflow, because I’m an A4 user, I picked up the RYTM and started creating beats almost immediately. I’ve barely had to look at the manual. The Tempest is a bit tougher to learn than the RYTM (although, again, it’s hard for me to say because I had already learned how to use the very similar A4). The sequencer on the RYTM is really subperb and much more user-friendly than the Tempest. Although, to its credit, the Tempest has this visual-editing feature (sort of like using a DAW) that I really love. It allows you to do complex editing on the beat using its very nice OLED display. Nice touch.
The Tanzbar is out of the question. MFB’s build quality is far too dicey for me even to consider it. I’ve owned a few of their machines, and they feel pretty darned cheap, especially given their premium, boutique pricing.
Not meaning to crash the party, but if you have an octatrack, you might as well go for something half the price, and combine the two.
I.e. Nord drum 2 or tr-8. They might be less sexy, but way more reliable than these complex analogs and/or hybrids will ever be.
If it has to be analog (why?), i would even prefer a volca beats for reliability in a live situation, than any of the current states of the “big three”. Btw. The volca kick will shrug off a tempest kick like a whiff of methane.
Don’t get me wrong, i’ve been pining for tanzbär since it came out, and am likely to eventually buy an AR, (never got into the tempest workflow and sound though), but currently they seem so much more status symbols than a reliable component of a live setup. Nd2, tr8 and volcabeats certainly are up to the task, within their respective limitations.
So please stop the “toy” references, because they are simply not based on facts.
Tanzbar is a terrific sounding easy to use bread and butter drum machine. Everything is ready to go. Kicks and claps are the best I’ve heard out of everything on the market, build quality is fine. I own one.
Tempest was my worst purchase ever. An absolute joke of poor customer service and unfulfilled promises, and it sounded weak as a drum machine. Glad I sold it, massively glad,
AR looks good so far, more complex and more features than the tanzbar which it would complement nicely I feel. Kicks etc don’t sound as good to me as a tanzbar but without it being hooked up on my system I can’t say for sure.
no… tempest is a good, special machine - i’ve heard a few people who really took it to a good spot, sound-wise. it’s just that for that price i’d rather get two or three other drum machines/perc synths which are good at something specific. But that’s admittedly a “feed my octatrack” point of view!
There’s a fair amount of both praise and criticism, often from the same people. If you’re looking for hate you might be better off trying the DSI forum, where you can enjoy comments like this:
All whiners, buy a f#cking AR and f#ck off instead of spending time whining here.
My 2cts on AR, it sounds cold, hollow and it’s probably a decent sampler, but the analogue and FM machines are utter shite. No density, no groove, no swing and parameter lock sucks bigtime,
There you go, now F#ck off and do your Elektron appraisals on the Elektron forum, bunch of whiners.
…which is pretty sad considering that there’s a lot of people who own both machines and like them for different things. This discussion ha stayed both substantive and civil so far, so please don’t derail it with troll bait type comments.
There’s a fair amount of both praise and criticism, often from the same people. If you’re looking for hate you might be better off trying the DSI forum, where you can enjoy comments like this:
All whiners, buy a f#cking AR and f#ck off instead of spending time whining here.
My 2cts on AR, it sounds cold, hollow and it’s probably a decent sampler, but the analogue and FM machines are utter shite. No density, no groove, no swing and parameter lock sucks bigtime,
There you go, now F#ck off and do your Elektron appraisals on the Elektron forum, bunch of whiners.
…which is pretty sad considering that there’s a lot of people who own both machines and like them for different things. This discussion ha stayed both substantive and civil so far, so please don’t derail it with troll bait type comments.[/quote]
Wow, did this guy ever get everything wrong about the AR (he was even wrong about the only thing he praised: it’s not a sampler!)
That’s an important point. He has commented about how this as got easier as he got more experience with/understanding of the compiler, which is cool, but it is still a bit strange to me how they seem to have painted themselves into a bit of a corner with the hardware design. Then again you look at the specs of a 1988 MPC60 and you wonder what the problem is.
I opened mine up, and there’s a 32-bit microcontroller, some mysterious DSP chip, and a very well specified synth-on-a-chip (which I believe serves up the digital oscillators and the envelopes and LFOs) as well the analog circuits and FPGA. It’s like a Ferrari engine with the gas tank of a Mini or something. I had a half-hearted go at reverse-engineering the operating software but decided not to go forward after I found I’d have to spend >$1000 on chip-specific software tools and SDK licensing fees in order to hack on it, and it’s not likely that I could improve upon it without years of work.
That the majority of the list John the Savage wrote was not ever going to be implemented I was out.
I hadn’t seen that until now - thanks for posting as it’s pretty critical information. It’s great to get such detailed feedback from the developer (I sometimes wish Elektron were a little more communicative), but some of those decisions are hard to get past, eg his explanation of why he doesn’t plan to implement knob pass-through, or change the digital oscillators switching off if the VCA value hits zero (eg by modulation). I understand his rationale, but I’ve come to feel like programming and performance are treated as two quite separate activities at the design level of the machine and it’s not a good fit with the way I like to play which involves a lot of improvisation on the synthesis side. I like having it around and playing on it, but I don’t do any work in it
Edit: The dev (Pym) did say that he’ll be back to full time on Tempest development starting in a couple of weeks.
Yeah, I saw that too - but then I thought that’s what he had been doing for the last 2-3 months (per Dave Smith’s Reddit comments), whereas it seems they have some new product coming up for Summer NAMM first? Maybe I misunderstood.
I’ve thought seriously about going that route, as I already have a Nord Modular and like ‘the clavia sound’ in general, and I think the TR-8 is a great little machine. Even the Volca is a neat little thing! If I had abundant space I’d be delighted to have 4 or 5 cheap and distinctive drum machines, but a couple of years ago I decided instead to have a few specialized devices that I would use all the time rather than a bunch of eclectic ones. Getting the Octatrack was a game-changer for me, as the sequencer and track-based sampling was something I had been looking for for years. So compatibility/workflow congruence with that is a big deal for me.
Besides that I do care about having a performance machine that I can interact with, having breakouts for the individual voices, and a few other factors. I actually still find the Tempest the winner in terms of the physical design - the pads, the large clear screen, and quite a few aspects of the user interface. But workfloww-ise, it’s been a struggle. By contrast, I already know I enjoy the Elektron approach to programming and sequencing and really enjoy doing drums on the OT, so moving sideways to the AR seems the most obvious solution. Plus I like >90% of what I hear from it, which is not a trivial thing
That’s an important point. He has commented about how this as got easier as he got more experience with/understanding of the compiler, which is cool, but it is still a bit strange to me how they seem to have painted themselves into a bit of a corner with the hardware design. Then again you look at the specs of a 1988 MPC60 and you wonder what the problem is.
I opened mine up, and there’s a 32-bit microcontroller, some mysterious DSP chip, and a very well specified synth-on-a-chip (which I believe serves up the digital oscillators and the envelopes and LFOs) as well the analog circuits and FPGA. It’s like a Ferrari engine with the gas tank of a Mini or something. I had a half-hearted go at reverse-engineering the operating software but decided not to go forward after I found I’d have to spend >$1000 on chip-specific software tools and SDK licensing fees in order to hack on it, and it’s not likely that I could improve upon it without years of work.
That the majority of the list John the Savage wrote was not ever going to be implemented I was out.
I hadn’t seen that until now - thanks for posting as it’s pretty critical information. It’s great to get such detailed feedback from the developer (I sometimes wish Elektron were a little more communicative), but some of those decisions are hard to get past, eg his explanation of why he doesn’t plan to implement knob pass-through, or change the digital oscillators switching off if the VCA value hits zero (eg by modulation). I understand his rationale, but I’ve come to feel like programming and performance are treated as two quite separate activities at the design level of the machine and it’s not a good fit with the way I like to play which involves a lot of improvisation on the synthesis side. I like having it around and playing on it, but I don’t do any work in it
Edit: The dev (Pym) did say that he’ll be back to full time on Tempest development starting in a couple of weeks.
Yeah, I saw that too - but then I thought that’s what he had been doing for the last 2-3 months (per Dave Smith’s Reddit comments), whereas it seems they have some new product coming up for Summer NAMM first? Maybe I misunderstood.
I’ve thought seriously about going that route, as I already have a Nord Modular and like ‘the clavia sound’ in general, and I think the TR-8 is a great little machine. Even the Volca is a neat little thing! If I had abundant space I’d be delighted to have 4 or 5 cheap and distinctive drum machines, but a couple of years ago I decided instead to have a few specialized devices that I would use all the time rather than a bunch of eclectic ones. Getting the Octatrack was a game-changer for me, as the sequencer and track-based sampling was something I had been looking for for years. So compatibility/workflow congruence with that is a big deal for me.
Besides that I do care about having a performance machine that I can interact with, having breakouts for the individual voices, and a few other factors. I actually still find the Tempest the winner in terms of the physical design - the pads, the large clear screen, and quite a few aspects of the user interface. But workfloww-ise, it’s been a struggle. By contrast, I already know I enjoy the Elektron approach to programming and sequencing and really enjoy doing drums on the OT, so moving sideways to the AR seems the most obvious solution. Plus I like >90% of what I hear from it, which is not a trivial thing
[/quote]
Thank you
Somebody can make a sane post about these machines
imo to many want everything served to them on a plate and are not willing to put the effort in,
some of these guys should go buy a violin and see how long it takes just to make it not sound horrible, little own good.
I like just about every bit of gear, mostly buy stuff that has “depth”, I want to be finding new things in years
not hit the wall in weeks or months, (hence no TR-8 purchase).
The Tempest has depth, I cant say on the AR as I’ve never played one, but based on others comments its synth engines are basic
though when you add in user samples, p-locks and effects it takes it much further.
That said I’m waiting for “our” OT update before anymore Elektron purchases.
Same with the Tempest and DSI, I do have high hopes for the next update and think DSI will hit back strong
(they have said that they are cleaning up a lot of stuff and freeing up memory, which seems to have been the big problem
with moving it forward)
cheers
I wish i could say the same. DSI has a huge reputation of empty promises. It happened to the tetra, PEK, and big time to the tempest. I’ve been refreshing the tempest forum every day for 3 years waiting for stuff to get fixed, it never did. Sometimes we went 2 steps forward but sometimes 3 steps back at the same time. Most of the new releases got paired with other things broken that were working before. Then you had to wait another 3 to 6 months for the next minor release. The OT might have a few shortcomings and the AR some bugs, but they both feel much more finished then the state the tempest is in now imho.
It’s a fair comment but I think one of the main reasons many long-term users are pretty annoyed with the Tempest is that we thought we were buying a drum machine, but got something else - a kind of “rhythm synth”.
In contrast the Analog Rytm might seem “limited” but it’s a drum machine first, with drum machine specific parameters i.e. what Tempest users originally wanted.
So it would be fair to say this might be a problem with user expectation, but given one of the main designers is (Roger Linn - famous for drum synth design), what we got was something entirely different to what was expected.
Also, if it’s not meant to be a “drum machine” why are most of the samples oriented towards drum sounds? Doesn’t make sense, unless you consider that the samples are there to make of the lack of “easy” drum programming.
Finally (as Anigbrowl hinted at) some of the hardware design decisions are mystifying - and it’s evident that the main developer has had to pick up the pieces and make so with that, which has made the process much more difficult.
In that respect Elektron appear to have a much more modern, solid hardware design that is more easily extended with software (less strain on CPU and RAM resources, for example).
Peace,
Andy.
Over time I got the feeling Tempest was designed more as a stand alone instrument.
Sure one might add fx and a mixer or something, but when it’s the ONLY thing your hovering over and jamming on, it’s pretty incredible.
It’s seems that was DSI’s intention and the hardware limitations don’t seem to hinder it that much when using it stand alone.
I do think Dave Smith and Roger Linn proposing a modern day analogue machine, at the time they did, created a lot of room for expectations.
If it was intended to be a standalone machine, shouldnt they have included reverb/delay at least? The only way i was content with its sound was when i hooked it to a mixer with fx.
If it was intended to be a standalone machine, shouldnt they have included reverb/delay at least? The only way i was content with its sound was when i hooked it to a mixer with fx. [/quote]
Agreed. I had the Tempest before I got any Elektron gear. It requires a pretty deep knowledge of sound design to program drum sounds from scratch. Electron simplifies things for you, so while you don’t get as many parameters to tweak, you get the most meaningful ones. With regard to the Tempest not having a ‘professional sound’, I disagree - Like any analog synth, it’s got a personality. If you don’t like that personality, that’s fine. I think the AR will probably be more useful to me than the Tempest, but it does have a different personality.
