I love how the title is Bad Gear, but it's always a really comprehensive and positive review of the unit, including two KILLER jams showing once more that you can make music with anything.
The best part of living in Australia is coming home drunk as shit at 2am on a Friday to a bad gear episode. Appreciate everything you do my synth king!!💖
Got one for a good price right after it was said they were to be discontinued. It's not for everyone, for sure, but I love hooking this baby up while having it sequencing a fat mono, and noodling some random noise in the back. It can sound exceptionally massive. But that doesn't make it easy to fit in a mix; the magic from this baby is gone by then, for me at least. I do love it minimal setups, where all fullness can be truly appreciated. And yeah, there's a lot to love, but it for sure isn't for your typical drummachine/sampler crowd; it's much more a drum machine for a synthesist; someone who likes to get lost into tweaking, instead of those who like to bang out beats. It's basically a terrific classic sounding poly synth with splendid envelopes that make it more usable for beats then your typical synth. And, as with everyone who owns one: yeah, I do hope they'll eventually get cracked to load up your own samples.
@@FredBloggs919 Nah, just a hobbyist knob noodler. 😅 Alongside a couple of decent synths and SQ1 and T-1 as sequencers, my only two beat machines consist of a Tempest and an MPC1000. This might clear up why I am so happy with it, while tons of others dislike it with a passion. For me beats are more of a supplement to what I do, not the groundwork. So for this, these two machines are perfectly fine. If percussion is where your heart is at, the Tempest might just be too cumbersome.
2 месяца назад+3
This is definitly not a bad gear at all but some of the most incredible and versatile drumsynth ever built. Amazing sound. Will never sell mine. The heart beat of my studio
I've had my Tempest for almost 7 years now and it's probably the one instrument in my studio that I'll never sell. I've played hundreds of sets with it, many of them improvised. It certainly does take some time to get used to but it's very rewarding and it sounds amazing
Agreed. I had one, sold it. Got another drum machine and sold that. Rebought a Tempest and now over 5 yrs later I have zero intention of selling. Its not a drum machine, its a percussion instrument to me. It shines by playing it, not programming it. What the Tempest does, can't be replicated. What the Tempest doesnt do... well, you gna have to just get over that sh*t. Love mine!
@@shanesplanetshane3795 for gigs I usually double it up with another proper drum machine and let the Tempest handle synth percussion, bass lines and arpeggios and stuff. You just have to find the right application for it, but "drum machine" is a misnomer when applied to the Tempest
If it had more onboard memory and the ability to load samples it would be the ultimate groovebox. Either way I'm still pretty happy with mine and made a full album with it a couple years ago.
My band mate and I have had our Tempests since it was released and absolutely love them. We have certainly spent hours discussing the machine's limitations and issues. The memory is the single biggest limitation and is just about the only legitimate gripe people could have, everything else is wish list stuff. There is a particular syndrome amongst synth enthusiasts; spending too much time focusing on what an instrument isn't rather than on what it is.
I was once at masterclass / Q&A by both Roger Linn and Dave Smith in Amsterdam, October 2015. Someone had their Tempest signed and I will never forget that day (and that it wasn’t me getting that machine signed) Great episode, bro 💙🎹🎛
The Tempest was Paul Hartnoll's drum machine of choice for many years on Orbital's tours in the 2010's. I still want one in spite of the price tag and the interface complaints. I think they're incredible machines.
Can all your bad gear mixes be heard in full versions? Maybe you should make a video with just an hour of jams made with different bad gear, since you rock them, this one especially the sounds was really dope.
Even while at DragonCon (Atlanta, Ga) I had to take a moment to find out the Bad Gear episode of the week! As usual I'm not disappointed. The tempest is certainly weird gear if nothing else!
I remember seeing the early boards for this, as I have good friends in the company that I would visit at night after work. I was soooo excited! I was working at Digi/Avid at the time, and was able to grab a few of them to bring to our offices to help test. It was around the same time that I got my eventide space, and hooking the two up together yielded some trippy stuff, to say the least. The Tempest is a pretty incredible machine, and it can do some truly unique things. The ability to bend the entire pattern in bizarre ways is pretty fun. It definitely had a lot of holes on release, but it was an incredibly complex machine being built be a relatively small team. It's a bummer that they haven't done a V2. As a concept, it is truly unique.. and sounds great. As always, you treat the gear fairly, and make the videos fun. :)
Well! Another gem of a video. I believe that we can safely say that the DSI Tempest belongs in the same category as the Alesis Andromeda A7. -They both could’ve stayed in the oven a little bit longer, I don’t think the breads quite done. And despite the incompleteness and frustration, there is something magical people find with them! Our xBase 999 is pretty magical as well! Something else ironic, DSI never made a another drum machine after this one. Alesis never made another Analog Synthesizer after that one. Both one of a kind original, whereas the DSI has the best display of any drum machine pretty much. I think this video went by way too fast :-)8 OK as you were!
The fact you trash someone like Gabe Miller all because a known troll does, but you wont actually say it to Gabe's face shows who you truly are, that and zero content pretty much equals a no life troll.
Had mine since the beginning. Still have it sitting here next to me. Love the Tempest. Its not really like other drum machines. I consider it an instrument in its own class. Lots of work arounds to use it for recording in the studio, but amazing to play and mix. My pads have long since yellowed, but no matter, now it matches the keybed on the voyager.
I had one of these and it broke so I went to Dave Smith office in San Francisco I think 2012, I walked into the office and Dave Smith came up to me, and told me this, and I will never forget it.... "Hey just put the machine down over there in the service area..."
There is no perfect gear, and Tempest is a bright illustration of this rule. Still sounds amazing abd falls into "only drum machine you need for a record" category
I love this drum machine. I’ve played on rytm mkii, 808 (and a few other Rolands), machinedrum, and some others, and personally I think this one sounds better than all of them. I’ve never minded the work flow, I love building from scratch.
OMG!! what a monster machine,i think that having a drum machine like the TEMPEST,limit will be only the individual creativity.Well done with the TEMPEST.
@@user-ui6ti6bl2v I’d recommend not getting it. If you’re going to spend that much money, i’d go for perkens or the pulsar 23. A lot of work goes into making a drum sound on the tempest.
I’ve got one and have been in love with it for eight years, it’s an investment which I get a daily return from the second I turn it on. In an ideal world I would have two, one for the drums and one for the wonderfully complex possibilities of sound and synth textures
Still one of my favorite boxes. There are a bunch of issues that are not covered in this video... but best to focus on what it does do... and that is sound unique and is fun to program and perform live with.
Many of the well-publicized "issues" are actually wish-list items. But you're right, there are indeed some things that should have been fully implemented but never happened. BTW Ken I don't know you but I want to say I'm VERY happy with my HS Deluxe. Well ... mostly. It is pretty much feature-perfect, but it has crashed on me for no apparent reason a couple times.
@@infindebula none of the issues I refer to are wish list . Though to be fair they did have certain wish list things on their faq long after it released but interviews contradicted those faq stating that those features would never be coming 🤷♂️. My only real gripes are the midi latency issue, lack of a polyphonic sequencing (for chords and a wish) and external midi sequencing is limited to one mono track. That all being said… it’s still one of my most fun drum machines. I sold the rytm twice…. The tempest stays . Thanks for the kind words :) as for crashing, be sure it’s updated. Can’t say that that’s a issue I’ve seen. Always good to shoot support an email if you have an issue ;)
Here we go again....one of my favorite synth I own going through the Bad Gear treatment......Most people don't know how to use it or take time to tame this monster, that's where most of the hate comes from. You're gonna need to build your instruments before playing them live and that takes some time. I actually play it with my Digitakt (as always the Digitakt is my main gear). BEST COMBINATION EVER. Keep on the videos, love it !
Roger Linn was from the future. If you are a menu diving guru, you have something great with this box. However, it seems that most producers will not spend that much time to figure out how to get the unique sounds that you got here. But you are some sort of master at this stuff, as well as the background videos so ...Thanks again.
Hey Pilz, finally you made one on a machine I still have! I have spend hundreds of hours with mine, and there are a lot of quarks that are nowhere to be found in the manual. I am always thinking of selling it, but then I turn it on for the "last jam" , and then I decide it's too killer to sell. There is a few things that I'll share with all the fans. I have mine with all six outputs in use, and you lose a few things, like the distortion and compressor, and the master volume. Also it took me a few years to figure out, that by default, all the oscillators and samples go through the filter at a 100 percent "pre" filter mode. the problem with that, is even with the filter wide open, there is still some filtering, and I could never figure out how to get really crisp snares and symbols. then I discovered the "pre/post filter" setting. If you have an oscillator or sample active, hit the right arrow under the "page down" button, and you will see it. Simply turn the knob all the way to the right into post filter mode, and the osc/sample will not have the mud sound anymore. It's night and day. Great review, I was wondering if you would do a vid on that machine, as it's a love/frustration machine. But some of my most epic stuff is off of that. And ya, it's really hard to sit in a mix with other machines. It does go well with the DSI Pro 2, as that is a thinner sounding synth, and the beefy tone of the Tempest doesn't conflict , as an example of how it will either sound good or not good with other machines. Also, the poly "mode" (there is no mode, you just have to figure it out) is not easy to get it to work. I've only got it to do it once. maybe it's because I have all the sounds going out to the 6 individual outs. but to have each sound on it's own is night and day vs the master out, except the compressor is really good on it.
Hello, Infamous Production, Thank you for the pre/post filter tip. It is definitely a game changer for the tempest sound. The only problem is that you lose the (cut off) filter... even in 16 beat mode....
@@RayessBekk ya of course. so then use an external filter for that output . but I'm only losing the pre filter for mainly drum sounds that I want to sound real and clear. the other weird synth stuff stays with it on. I'm hoping that the company that bought DSI will make a Tempest MKII. same basic design but takes samples, SD card, USB audio out, and patch points or pin style matrix. then it would be the Ultimate machine. I wish I knew how to hack that thing and put in my own mods and patch points. it would be insane! there should be independent filtering that can be bypassed with a patch cable
@@AudioPilz I can't really tell the truth about him without saying some pretty honest stuff that although it is the truth might lead me to defamation liability if I didn't have evidence.
its most unique feature: beatwide parameter tweaking. example: turning the decay knob would shorten ALL sounds of the beat in relation to their current value
Also, remember this machine took forever from Announcement to "It's Shipping." It was originally called the "Boom Chik" and was announced at NAMM a good 4 years before it was actually available. I love all my DSI gear, but this one is always a non-starter for me.
@@AudioPilz there was a rhythmic preset on the original mopho called the “boom chik” as well. Surprisingly, the t4tra is a really good percussion synth as it is 4 part polyphonic and the envelopes are actually quite tight.
Just imagining how cool something like this would be where instead of the sample-based & editing menu parts it interfaced with smartphone/tablet/laptop DAW (Dave Smith Instruments one perhaps), and for recording its analog part to DAW it could use in-built ADC... Simplified interface and anything that wasn't immediately accessible via buttons/knobs etc. could be more readily and intuitively accessed in DAW. Less discreet as it'd no longer be stand-alone but being more stripped-down & coupled with say a tablet it could prove to be quite the portable powerhouse!
when i was in the studio and someone brought one of these to "add to my beat" i had to tell him to turn it off because i couldn't stand it anymore lmao
This was a great video. I bought one in my early 20’s when it first came out but sold it because I lacked the commitment in learning the ins and outs. Special shout out to that funk track with snoop double g.
Yeah, that song is amazing; I hadn't heard something like this being done on the Tempest. I mean, knowingly heard... As it might be on tracks where I don't recognize it. It sounds timeless. Not modern, but classic even upon release, as Sequential tend to do. Then again, others hate them for exactly this. But as you can tell from lots of videos on Bad Gear, modern sounding gear have a good chance of turning useless and cliche (in a bad, not fun way). Sequential, like Moog and others in their category, will always remain relevant due to the market they cover.
I wish Arturia's Drumbrute had pads and a layout like this. And 5 minutes in I was thinking that a Behringer remake of this with memory expansion and an SD slot to add sounds would be awesome (without Kotoulas patches, please, lol) .
a "few hours to get used to" an instrument as deep as this is not a negative thing. you dont want an instrument you exhaust the options of in a day. and digital controls reflected on a screen is the only practical way to add that kind of flexibility to an analog instrument. the prophet 12 desktop feels great to program and is so deep you could never get sick of doing sound design on it. all elektrons use the same interface
Man I had to stop what I was doing. That intro this time sounded so fat. Best intro hands down. Clearly the tempest is not bad at all in sonic qualities. Immaculate.
Great episode! Hit the nail right on the head. I loved my Tempest but I had to leave it sadly. Next I want to see you get a Fairlight CMI. How much patreon $ to make that happen?
My gods, the compressor and distortion are quite good on this. Fine filters as well. I'm certain someone, someday will find a way to hack sounds into it.
@@AudioPilz but super anoying that when you want to tweak them live while playing with different sounds, they instantly change value when turning the knob instead of waiting for the original value... Also distortion is just on/off.. No way to have it gradually come in
@@fluim0102 I like how the matrix brute implemented this. You can choose 3 options to change parameters that are out of the original value. IMO this should be a must in every equipment as it makes a lot of difference.
I love the Tempest, but the lack of midi CC/SysEx drives me crazy. I could sidestep my inability to remember the menus if the controls were exposed via midi.
@@ClifBratcher Yes, and this always confounded me since Dave helped create MIDI. That always made me a little sore, but that didn’t detract from the beauty of the instrument.
I've always wanted one of these but the price has always put me off it. You mentioned the menu diving which is my kryptonite so you've definitely reduced my want for this device quite substantially lol.
I was helping at a venue one day and was standing over Mount Kimbie’s table before the show. They had a tempest and I gotta say it looks way better in person.
Spec wise, the tempest was really solid except with samples. The issue always was the UX/UI made it hard to figure it out. The crashes in the early firmware didn’t Help. Dave Smith and his staff demoed the tempest at a local event when it first came out. I met him and got to play the tempest. I think they undersold the machine as a “drum machine” and it had an over reliance on menu diving. It was brilliant but really flawed especially with the buggy early firmware. I ended up getting a Elektron Rytm and never looked back.
This is one of those things that is a super deluxe build of... a bunch of features I do not want at all. It's almost the exact opposite of things I want. Anything expensive with a bunch of drum samples is a no from me. I just don't get it.
I remember when it came out and I wanted one really bad but the price kept me away. I didn't follow it's community or anything at all, so it was surprising to see it on this channel, but then after hearing it released in alpha state firmware, then yes, I agree. I'm really tired of this electronics/computer software culture of 'always updating after releasing it unfinished'. It's highly depressing. It means no more enjoying something on day one, and hoping 2-5 years after it's been out and all of the suckers who gave the company money before have been listened to, THEN you can get the finished unit. *sigh* And people wonder why all my gear is mostly pre-2010's hardware. :P
Great episode. I loved my Tempest. I learned a lot about synthesis from it and it's a great groovebox. Eventually I sold it for less than I would have liked. Guess now they stopped making it, prices are going up. This video makes me miss it a tiny bit.
I love the Tempest for half of a year now! Amazing raw power and sound! Thanks for pointing out the potential! Please make an Episode about the Emu Commandstation series! (:::: Greetings from Leipzig, Piet
When this was announced, I was in the market for new drum machines, I was intrigued but I realized it was probably going to be too complex to learn and use and I may as well use Battery or something in that case. So I got the Vermona DRM Mk3 and the Jomox MBase11 and those were immediate enough you could just groove on the fly with them hooked to a decent sequencer. They also worked on day 1.
Damn those demos sounded good. I remember suggesting this machine as a topic and I have to admit I never made mine sound even half as good as you did here. In fact I never did a complete song on it - but the song mode didn't even work when I bought it, so I feel justified ;) Shows that in the hands of someone with enough patience this thing can be made to sound good. Something a bit sad I've learned about Tempest, is that because it has been developed a few years before cheap microcontrollers and flash memory became commonplace, it can't really be improved anymore - DSI has pretty much ran out of memory for firmware on it a few years ago. I can believe it, since even the update process is a chore, because the old microcontrollers can't keep up with the transfer speed OVER MIDI and you have to specifically setup your transfer program to make pause every few hundred bytes and experimentally find what value works for your computer. Took me a whole damn evening to get it to work. In fact the first message you see on the official firmware download page is "if you don't have to update it, don't". As for modern equivalent - Elektron Analog Rytm MkII is pretty much that. Maybe the Syntakt too?
Audiopilz: *slaps roof of YT channel*
Full Tracks, Extended Jams, Sample Packs: www.patreon.com/audiopilz
you'll see me there after i talk to my accountant
I love how the title is Bad Gear, but it's always a really comprehensive and positive review of the unit, including two KILLER jams showing once more that you can make music with anything.
Thank you so much!!!
Um.. dude there are three jams 😳
That’s why we love this channel! X
The poor workman blames his tools. The poor dancer blames the slope of the floor. Etc.
@@mattpierce1011 I thought the third one at the end was always composed on a Daw or something.
Or maybe I am confused about the format….
The best part of living in Australia is coming home drunk as shit at 2am on a Friday to a bad gear episode. Appreciate everything you do my synth king!!💖
Cheers!!!
I can concur!
Coming home for the weekend one hour after a fresh vid dropped is equally satisfying (germany) :)
For me it's the perfect lunch break!!
After fighting crocs all week long... :-)
Got one for a good price right after it was said they were to be discontinued. It's not for everyone, for sure, but I love hooking this baby up while having it sequencing a fat mono, and noodling some random noise in the back. It can sound exceptionally massive. But that doesn't make it easy to fit in a mix; the magic from this baby is gone by then, for me at least. I do love it minimal setups, where all fullness can be truly appreciated. And yeah, there's a lot to love, but it for sure isn't for your typical drummachine/sampler crowd; it's much more a drum machine for a synthesist; someone who likes to get lost into tweaking, instead of those who like to bang out beats. It's basically a terrific classic sounding poly synth with splendid envelopes that make it more usable for beats then your typical synth. And, as with everyone who owns one: yeah, I do hope they'll eventually get cracked to load up your own samples.
That sums it up nicely!
Are you Paul Hartnoll? ;)
@@FredBloggs919 Nah, just a hobbyist knob noodler. 😅 Alongside a couple of decent synths and SQ1 and T-1 as sequencers, my only two beat machines consist of a Tempest and an MPC1000. This might clear up why I am so happy with it, while tons of others dislike it with a passion. For me beats are more of a supplement to what I do, not the groundwork. So for this, these two machines are perfectly fine. If percussion is where your heart is at, the Tempest might just be too cumbersome.
This is definitly not a bad gear at all but some of the most incredible and versatile drumsynth ever built. Amazing sound. Will never sell mine. The heart beat of my studio
👍👍👍
I've had my Tempest for almost 7 years now and it's probably the one instrument in my studio that I'll never sell. I've played hundreds of sets with it, many of them improvised. It certainly does take some time to get used to but it's very rewarding and it sounds amazing
Nice! Great to hear that it works for you
Agreed. I had one, sold it. Got another drum machine and sold that. Rebought a Tempest and now over 5 yrs later I have zero intention of selling. Its not a drum machine, its a percussion instrument to me. It shines by playing it, not programming it. What the Tempest does, can't be replicated. What the Tempest doesnt do... well, you gna have to just get over that sh*t. Love mine!
@@shanesplanetshane3795 for gigs I usually double it up with another proper drum machine and let the Tempest handle synth percussion, bass lines and arpeggios and stuff. You just have to find the right application for it, but "drum machine" is a misnomer when applied to the Tempest
it doesn't do what others do.... it is its own thing... very juicy synth
If it had more onboard memory and the ability to load samples it would be the ultimate groovebox.
Either way I'm still pretty happy with mine and made a full album with it a couple years ago.
My band mate and I have had our Tempests since it was released and absolutely love them. We have certainly spent hours discussing the machine's limitations and issues. The memory is the single biggest limitation and is just about the only legitimate gripe people could have, everything else is wish list stuff. There is a particular syndrome amongst synth enthusiasts; spending too much time focusing on what an instrument isn't rather than on what it is.
True that! Polyphony was my major gripe with it...
I was once at masterclass / Q&A by both Roger Linn and Dave Smith in Amsterdam, October 2015. Someone had their Tempest signed and I will never forget that day (and that it wasn’t me getting that machine signed)
Great episode, bro 💙🎹🎛
Thanks bro!
The Tempest was Paul Hartnoll's drum machine of choice for many years on Orbital's tours in the 2010's. I still want one in spite of the price tag and the interface complaints. I think they're incredible machines.
If you don't mind spending a little time and dedication (and most importantly a few bucks) it's definitely worth a try
Can all your bad gear mixes be heard in full versions? Maybe you should make a video with just an hour of jams made with different bad gear, since you rock them, this one especially the sounds was really dope.
Thank you!!! Full tracks are available on Patreon (shameless plug;)
Yes! A season recap special remix epic in 20 minutes or less. Need to do it on a vintage sampler, too.
We need a Proto Humanoid Proton Postmortem Retro Industrial Funk: Too Fast for the Autobahn Dark Gabber Deep Ambient Break Core MEGA Mix!!!
@@ChiefExecutiveOrbiter that title is ticking all the boxes
Even while at DragonCon (Atlanta, Ga) I had to take a moment to find out the Bad Gear episode of the week! As usual I'm not disappointed. The tempest is certainly weird gear if nothing else!
Thanks for taking the time!
While waiting for my Happy Meal at the McDonald’s Drive-Thru I took the time to reply to your comment!
@@artisans8521 Of course they still do! Not sure about Ronald McDonald though.
I remember seeing the early boards for this, as I have good friends in the company that I would visit at night after work. I was soooo excited! I was working at Digi/Avid at the time, and was able to grab a few of them to bring to our offices to help test. It was around the same time that I got my eventide space, and hooking the two up together yielded some trippy stuff, to say the least.
The Tempest is a pretty incredible machine, and it can do some truly unique things. The ability to bend the entire pattern in bizarre ways is pretty fun. It definitely had a lot of holes on release, but it was an incredibly complex machine being built be a relatively small team. It's a bummer that they haven't done a V2. As a concept, it is truly unique.. and sounds great.
As always, you treat the gear fairly, and make the videos fun. :)
Nice!!! Thank you so much!
Well! Another gem of a video.
I believe that we can safely say that the DSI Tempest belongs in the same category as the Alesis Andromeda A7.
-They both could’ve stayed in the oven a little bit longer, I don’t think the breads quite done. And despite the incompleteness and frustration, there is something magical people find with them!
Our xBase 999 is pretty magical as well!
Something else ironic, DSI never made a another drum machine after this one. Alesis never made another Analog Synthesizer after that one. Both one of a kind original, whereas the DSI has the best display of any drum machine pretty much.
I think this video went by way too fast :-)8
OK as you were!
Thank you!!!
The fact you trash someone like Gabe Miller all because a known troll does, but you wont actually say it to Gabe's face shows who you truly are, that and zero content pretty much equals a no life troll.
Had mine since the beginning. Still have it sitting here next to me. Love the Tempest. Its not really like other drum machines. I consider it an instrument in its own class. Lots of work arounds to use it for recording in the studio, but amazing to play and mix. My pads have long since yellowed, but no matter, now it matches the keybed on the voyager.
👍👍👍
I had one of these and it broke so I went to Dave Smith office in San Francisco I think 2012, I walked into the office and Dave Smith came up to me, and told me this, and I will never forget it.... "Hey just put the machine down over there in the service area..."
Wow, great!!!
There is no perfect gear, and Tempest is a bright illustration of this rule. Still sounds amazing abd falls into "only drum machine you need for a record" category
True that!
I love this drum machine. I’ve played on rytm mkii, 808 (and a few other Rolands), machinedrum, and some others, and personally I think this one sounds better than all of them.
I’ve never minded the work flow, I love building from scratch.
Great when the workflow does the trick for you!
Dang, this thing sounds really good to my ears. This is probably one of the best intro songs.
Thank you!!!
My favorite part of this device was when DAVE/DSI said no further enhancements or bug fixes would take place....while they still were selling it new.
I don't wanna know how many hours went into refining that thing
From the beginning Tempest user, you nailed it. Thanks for reminding me that I still have stuff to learn.
Thank you so much!
the jam with all the multiple pedals is great demo of this machine, I have one and love it! nice work danke
Thank you!!!
Wow - I was expecting a much harsher review. Good to see people rocking it.
Yeah, it's very much usable with the latest fw
The loudest complaints have come from a very vocal few.
It is such a powerful and unique tool. Back in the day, two tempests covered all rhythm sections in my band
Best. Drummer. Ever. ;)
Great work as always. Love the references to what is the greatest batman ever put on screen.
Thank you!!!
OMG!! what a monster machine,i think that having a drum machine like the TEMPEST,limit will be only the individual creativity.Well done with the TEMPEST.
Thanks!
And the ROM/RAM
I never had such a love hate relationship with any other gear like I had with the Tempest. Sold mine after five years of frustration.
Yeah, it must have been really hard with the early firmwares
@@AudioPilz It most definitely was.
i’m thinking to get one. will i regret?
@@user-ui6ti6bl2v I’d recommend not getting it. If you’re going to spend that much money, i’d go for perkens or the pulsar 23. A lot of work goes into making a drum sound on the tempest.
@@channelite strongly agreed. perkons looks really nice thanks for your insight!
Sequential should send us a sequel sampling. :) I never had one of these, but I still want one.
Agreed!
I definitely wouldn't mind having one, but probably not at the price they are selling for.
Prices are stable for over 10 years now;)
I’ve got one and have been in love with it for eight years, it’s an investment which I get a daily return from the second I turn it on. In an ideal world I would have two, one for the drums and one for the wonderfully complex possibilities of sound and synth textures
I replaced all the Knobs on my Tempest with Prophet 6 knobs and it looks super cool.
As much as we hate it, we love the Tempest too.
Nice!!!
Still one of my favorite boxes. There are a bunch of issues that are not covered in this video... but best to focus on what it does do... and that is sound unique and is fun to program and perform live with.
👍
Many of the well-publicized "issues" are actually wish-list items. But you're right, there are indeed some things that should have been fully implemented but never happened.
BTW Ken I don't know you but I want to say I'm VERY happy with my HS Deluxe. Well ... mostly. It is pretty much feature-perfect, but it has crashed on me for no apparent reason a couple times.
@@infindebula none of the issues I refer to are wish list . Though to be fair they did have certain wish list things on their faq long after it released but interviews contradicted those faq stating that those features would never be coming 🤷♂️. My only real gripes are the midi latency issue, lack of a polyphonic sequencing (for chords and a wish) and external midi sequencing is limited to one mono track. That all being said… it’s still one of my most fun drum machines. I sold the rytm twice…. The tempest stays . Thanks for the kind words :) as for crashing, be sure it’s updated. Can’t say that that’s a issue I’ve seen. Always good to shoot support an email if you have an issue ;)
Florian, marking another wasted summer week by me, with his outstanding production, analysis, and tunes.
Thank you so much!!!
Here we go again....one of my favorite synth I own going through the Bad Gear treatment......Most people don't know how to use it or take time to tame this monster, that's where most of the hate comes from. You're gonna need to build your instruments before playing them live and that takes some time. I actually play it with my Digitakt (as always the Digitakt is my main gear). BEST COMBINATION EVER. Keep on the videos, love it !
Yep! Same here Digitakt and Tempest is a killer combo!
@@senormadkermit My man ! ⏯⏺
Thanks!!! Certainly great with the 'takt!
you are wrong, the hate comes from the fact that Roger Linn designed a $2000 drum machine with no sampling capabilities.
I use the same combo and offload extra drum sounds from the Tempest to the Digitakt!
Dude I haven’t thought about real simulated wood grain sides in 6 or 7 years. Those were the days.
I missed that one the first time around. Jejeje
❤️❤️❤️Akai Dan!!!
Roger Linn was from the future. If you are a menu diving guru, you have something great with this box. However, it seems that most producers will not spend that much time to figure out how to get the unique sounds that you got here. But you are some sort of master at this stuff, as well as the background videos so ...Thanks again.
Thank you so much!
Good to see the Moog filter making an appearance! Love that thing!
Yeah, it's kinda blasphemous to put it in a DSI jam;)
Hey Pilz, finally you made one on a machine I still have! I have spend hundreds of hours with mine, and there are a lot of quarks that are nowhere to be found in the manual. I am always thinking of selling it, but then I turn it on for the "last jam" , and then I decide it's too killer to sell. There is a few things that I'll share with all the fans. I have mine with all six outputs in use, and you lose a few things, like the distortion and compressor, and the master volume. Also it took me a few years to figure out, that by default, all the oscillators and samples go through the filter at a 100 percent "pre" filter mode. the problem with that, is even with the filter wide open, there is still some filtering, and I could never figure out how to get really crisp snares and symbols. then I discovered the "pre/post filter" setting. If you have an oscillator or sample active, hit the right arrow under the "page down" button, and you will see it. Simply turn the knob all the way to the right into post filter mode, and the osc/sample will not have the mud sound anymore. It's night and day. Great review, I was wondering if you would do a vid on that machine, as it's a love/frustration machine. But some of my most epic stuff is off of that. And ya, it's really hard to sit in a mix with other machines. It does go well with the DSI Pro 2, as that is a thinner sounding synth, and the beefy tone of the Tempest doesn't conflict , as an example of how it will either sound good or not good with other machines. Also, the poly "mode" (there is no mode, you just have to figure it out) is not easy to get it to work. I've only got it to do it once. maybe it's because I have all the sounds going out to the 6 individual outs. but to have each sound on it's own is night and day vs the master out, except the compressor is really good on it.
That sums it up nicely!
Hello, Infamous Production, Thank you for the pre/post filter tip. It is definitely a game changer for the tempest sound. The only problem is that you lose the (cut off) filter... even in 16 beat mode....
@@RayessBekk ya of course. so then use an external filter for that output . but I'm only losing the pre filter for mainly drum sounds that I want to sound real and clear. the other weird synth stuff stays with it on. I'm hoping that the company that bought DSI will make a Tempest MKII. same basic design but takes samples, SD card, USB audio out, and patch points or pin style matrix. then it would be the Ultimate machine. I wish I knew how to hack that thing and put in my own mods and patch points. it would be insane! there should be independent filtering that can be bypassed with a patch cable
at 7:51 when you hit the pad with the synth reverb/delay on it. It was haunting and made my hairs stand up. I had to go back and hear it again,
Thanks!!!! So happy to hear that!
you make our fridays awesome
Have a nice weekend!
Love coming home to find a new episode of Bad Gear!
😀
Love mine to death! The biggest problem for me is the limited memory for new patches….
True that!
Interesting. I always thought it was just a drum machine - your final jam sounded gorgeous, those were beautiful strings and pads coming from it!
Thank you!!!
The Tempest actually sounds great, but is a menu diving hell. This synth/drum machine helped send me to eurorack.
That's a quite expensive gateway drug;)
what would you recommend?
I have to call my sister and let her know her birthday is so close to nick batts 🙌🏼🙌🏼
😀😀😀
I was working for Akai as their MPC expert when this was announced. I always wanted one. BTW _ I USED TO WORK WITH AKAI DAN
Nice!!! How's Dan?
@@AudioPilz I can't really tell the truth about him without saying some pretty honest stuff that although it is the truth might lead me to defamation liability if I didn't have evidence.
You are the man thanks for finally getting this together very grateful and a wonderful surprise this morning!
Thank you so much!!!
Arguably the best machine if you are writing a score to a Shakespeare screenplay
Shall I compare thee...;)
@@AudioPilz It's Summer soon in Australia...just wait.
I can wait till then.😂
I love the Cyber City Oedo 808 animation used in that last bit.
Thanks!!!
its most unique feature:
beatwide parameter tweaking. example: turning the decay knob would shorten ALL sounds of the beat in relation to their current value
True that!
Some elektron machines can also do that with the “control all” parameter
@@delux.4692 nice, i didn't know the digitakt can do that, can be cool with beats combining hi pass + low pass
The Tempest grew on me , the longer I’ve had the more I’ve come to Love it , you really need to put the extra effort to get to know it
Also, remember this machine took forever from Announcement to "It's Shipping." It was originally called the "Boom Chik" and was announced at NAMM a good 4 years before it was actually available. I love all my DSI gear, but this one is always a non-starter for me.
The original name didn't age so well;)
@@AudioPilz there was a rhythmic preset on the original mopho called the “boom chik” as well. Surprisingly, the t4tra is a really good percussion synth as it is 4 part polyphonic and the envelopes are actually quite tight.
Started out as a Boom-Chik ended up as a BaDump-Tiss
It was so hyped, and so anticipated, that they pulled this one out of the oven before it was fully baked.
I felt so dumb when I first tried to use the Tempest, but the sounds are so undeniably good that I'm determined to make it bang.
That thing can be really challenging
Just imagining how cool something like this would be where instead of the sample-based & editing menu parts it interfaced with smartphone/tablet/laptop DAW (Dave Smith Instruments one perhaps), and for recording its analog part to DAW it could use in-built ADC... Simplified interface and anything that wasn't immediately accessible via buttons/knobs etc. could be more readily and intuitively accessed in DAW. Less discreet as it'd no longer be stand-alone but being more stripped-down & coupled with say a tablet it could prove to be quite the portable powerhouse!
Great idea!
Thanks! :)
Great video with the most demanding drum machine ever created! The demo tracks were excellent!
Thank you!!!
when i was in the studio and someone brought one of these to "add to my beat" i had to tell him to turn it off because i couldn't stand it anymore lmao
Lol
His poor broken heart
This was a great video. I bought one in my early 20’s when it first came out but sold it because I lacked the commitment in learning the ins and outs. Special shout out to that funk track with snoop double g.
Thank you!!!
Sounds great but sooo expensive. Please do a episode with the sythstrom deluge. Go on you know you'd love to 🤩
Great suggestion, thanks!
@@AudioPilz Also there's the much-maligned original Spektralis.
Mega like for the cyber city oedo cuts :)
Thanks! Fantastic movie
I haven't been this impressed since Uli Behringer invented MIDI!
He also built these fancy violins from Cremona, Italy
😂😂😂💀
And he invented the Eurorack! ;)
You mean MULIDI don’t you?
Your videos continue to be amazing. I watch every single one the day it releases. And the memes are fuckin killing me.
Thank you so much!!!
If the Tempest is anywhere near "bad gear", I would consider all of my gear an actual pile of garbage.
RIP Dave Smith.
Dave Smith is one of the OG synth gods!
@@AudioPilz by "god" do you mean he makes things the average human can't comprehend..? 😃
The mopho was a great sounding pain in the ass.
Damn, that last song tho 🤌
Your montage of pictures is so funny everytime, never get tired of it 😆
Thank you!!!
Yeah, that song is amazing; I hadn't heard something like this being done on the Tempest. I mean, knowingly heard... As it might be on tracks where I don't recognize it. It sounds timeless. Not modern, but classic even upon release, as Sequential tend to do. Then again, others hate them for exactly this. But as you can tell from lots of videos on Bad Gear, modern sounding gear have a good chance of turning useless and cliche (in a bad, not fun way). Sequential, like Moog and others in their category, will always remain relevant due to the market they cover.
Man, you literally review all the gear that I actually own or planned to buy. The Tempest is a fascinating machine, thank you for this vid. Thumps up.
Thanks for watching!!!
I wish Arturia's Drumbrute had pads and a layout like this. And 5 minutes in I was thinking that a Behringer remake of this with memory expansion and an SD slot to add sounds would be awesome (without Kotoulas patches, please, lol) .
Midi pack! It's awesome 😂😂😂
If that’s your idea of “I have no idea what I’m doing tempest jam”. Then I better retire. Awesome jam man!!
Thank you so much!
a "few hours to get used to" an instrument as deep as this is not a negative thing. you dont want an instrument you exhaust the options of in a day. and digital controls reflected on a screen is the only practical way to add that kind of flexibility to an analog instrument. the prophet 12 desktop feels great to program and is so deep you could never get sick of doing sound design on it. all elektrons use the same interface
Bit like the Medusa.. two months later and I have it half sussed.
Agreed! There are some unnecessary inconsistencies in the workflow tho.
Man I had to stop what I was doing. That intro this time sounded so fat. Best intro hands down. Clearly the tempest is not bad at all in sonic qualities. Immaculate.
Yup, I liked that one quite a bit too
The ultimate techno drum machine 🔥 I always wanted one…
Yup, that one's great for the dancefloor
HELL YEAH! I've been waiting for this one for a long time! Yeah baby!
Great episode! Hit the nail right on the head. I loved my Tempest but I had to leave it sadly. Next I want to see you get a Fairlight CMI. How much patreon $ to make that happen?
Thank you!!! Fairlight CMI is quite a challenge;)
My gods, the compressor and distortion are quite good on this. Fine filters as well. I'm certain someone, someday will find a way to hack sounds into it.
Yeah, filters are gorgeous!!!
@@AudioPilz but super anoying that when you want to tweak them live while playing with different sounds, they instantly change value when turning the knob instead of waiting for the original value... Also distortion is just on/off.. No way to have it gradually come in
@@fluim0102 I like how the matrix brute implemented this. You can choose 3 options to change parameters that are out of the original value. IMO this should be a must in every equipment as it makes a lot of difference.
You made the Tempest shine, I simply cannot be arsed to learn how to use this monstrosity so thanks for that! HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!
Thank you so much!!!
Cyber City Oedo 808. Nice!
Classic!
When I'm out at the beach all day, the first video I watch when I get home is Bad Gear
Nice!!! Thanks!
I love the Tempest, but the lack of midi CC/SysEx drives me crazy. I could sidestep my inability to remember the menus if the controls were exposed via midi.
Haven't tried tweaking it via midi - I thought it was fixed in an update...
@@AudioPilz There're a couple of performance-type parameters available through midi, but most of the things are sadly not.
@@ClifBratcher Yes, and this always confounded me since Dave helped create MIDI. That always made me a little sore, but that didn’t detract from the beauty of the instrument.
אחד הסרטונים היותר טובים שלך מעולה. אני מת לבדוק את הכלי הזה בעצמי.... תודה בנאדם!!!
Try the proteus 2000 or mo phat sometime.
Great idea, thanks!
Keep up the goods man! I love your videos!!!
Thank you!!!
RIP DAVE SMITH.
The man. The legend.
Its Friday, it's Bad Gear time 😎
Have a nice weekend!!!
I've always wanted one of these but the price has always put me off it. You mentioned the menu diving which is my kryptonite so you've definitely reduced my want for this device quite substantially lol.
A lot of important features are hidden in menus, yes...
Not as bad as the tr8s menu
I was helping at a venue one day and was standing over Mount Kimbie’s table before the show. They had a tempest and I gotta say it looks way better in person.
Yeah, impressive-looking machine
Spec wise, the tempest was really solid except with samples. The issue always was the UX/UI made it hard to figure it out. The crashes in the early firmware didn’t Help.
Dave Smith and his staff demoed the tempest at a local event when it first came out. I met him and got to play the tempest. I think they undersold the machine as a “drum machine” and it had an over reliance on menu diving. It was brilliant but really flawed especially with the buggy early firmware.
I ended up getting a Elektron Rytm and never looked back.
Yeah, hybrid Groovebox would have been more fitting
I was away this past weekend so I couldn't start my weekend with Great Gear ... BUT I'M STARTING MY NEW WEEK WITH GREAT GEAR YOU BET
Welcome back;)
I legit thought this was another Novation groovebox, lol.
Lol
Hahahaha, Niko the MIDI melody merchant + Uli would be the best combo ever.
Lol
This is one of those things that is a super deluxe build of... a bunch of features I do not want at all. It's almost the exact opposite of things I want. Anything expensive with a bunch of drum samples is a no from me. I just don't get it.
Not my preferred workflow either
There's a beautiful analog sounds in there too. Jusr curious: what do you want from machine?
You’ll survive
Yeah who would want a 6 voice analog multi timbral poly synth/ drum machine with built in delay, distortion and compressor.
@@almostghosts I know hey? Such a waste of space 🫠
Loved your phonkiest 2nd jam ! And overall a great show as always !
Thank you!!!
I remember when it came out and I wanted one really bad but the price kept me away. I didn't follow it's community or anything at all, so it was surprising to see it on this channel, but then after hearing it released in alpha state firmware, then yes, I agree. I'm really tired of this electronics/computer software culture of 'always updating after releasing it unfinished'. It's highly depressing. It means no more enjoying something on day one, and hoping 2-5 years after it's been out and all of the suckers who gave the company money before have been listened to, THEN you can get the finished unit.
*sigh*
And people wonder why all my gear is mostly pre-2010's hardware. :P
I bought a half made house and I'm still waiting for my toilet 😒😒💩😃
I try to use stuff older than at least 1 year exclusively;)
@@AudioPilz I feel like 2 y ears is probably a better rule of thumb these days. They like to trickle out features pretty slow now.
Jam 2 just woke me up harder than the three cups of coffee I've already had this morning.
Mmmmmmh, coffee... Thanks!!!
Oh awesome, it's on bad gear. Hopefully this will crash their price and I can get one!
Oh who am I kidding. This'll only double the price.🙃
;)
You make all the bad gear sound great, I always look forward to the jams!!
Thank you!!!
This tempest is not bad gear...
One person’s Bad Gear…;)
Last jam is a gem! Would love to hear a full version.
Thank you!!! Full tracks can be found on Patreon (end of plug;)
Great episode. I loved my Tempest. I learned a lot about synthesis from it and it's a great groovebox. Eventually I sold it for less than I would have liked. Guess now they stopped making it, prices are going up. This video makes me miss it a tiny bit.
Thank you!!!
I love the Tempest for half of a year now! Amazing raw power and sound! Thanks for pointing out the potential!
Please make an Episode about the Emu Commandstation series! (::::
Greetings from Leipzig,
Piet
Great suggestion, thank you!!!
the paul mccartney animation killed me
😂😂😂
Another review that makes me wish you'll have a go at the Synthstrom Deluge one day. :-)
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have a closer look!
1:05 ....Perfection.
😀
Nooioooo, this too?
I had never wanted this drummachine to expansive 😬
Yes, it's quite costly
When this was announced, I was in the market for new drum machines, I was intrigued but I realized it was probably going to be too complex to learn and use and I may as well use Battery or something in that case. So I got the Vermona DRM Mk3 and the Jomox MBase11 and those were immediate enough you could just groove on the fly with them hooked to a decent sequencer. They also worked on day 1.
Damn those demos sounded good. I remember suggesting this machine as a topic and I have to admit I never made mine sound even half as good as you did here. In fact I never did a complete song on it - but the song mode didn't even work when I bought it, so I feel justified ;) Shows that in the hands of someone with enough patience this thing can be made to sound good.
Something a bit sad I've learned about Tempest, is that because it has been developed a few years before cheap microcontrollers and flash memory became commonplace, it can't really be improved anymore - DSI has pretty much ran out of memory for firmware on it a few years ago. I can believe it, since even the update process is a chore, because the old microcontrollers can't keep up with the transfer speed OVER MIDI and you have to specifically setup your transfer program to make pause every few hundred bytes and experimentally find what value works for your computer. Took me a whole damn evening to get it to work. In fact the first message you see on the official firmware download page is "if you don't have to update it, don't".
As for modern equivalent - Elektron Analog Rytm MkII is pretty much that. Maybe the Syntakt too?
Thank you!!! Yeah, jokes aside, Elektron is the cool kid around when it comes to stuff like this
Can you retrofit the Tempest with a modern Pi Pico or ESP32 microcontroller, like the Phob team have been doing with GameCube controllers?