How BAD was the DSI TEMPEST Really??!? 

Wow that intro jam would hella sell tempests if they were still being made. Absolutely wonderful.

The Tempest is like a Ferrari from the 80s, not perfect, too expensive, but has endless power. I love my Tempest ❤️

Man, was I surprised to be watching this video and it turns out I get a shoutout in it lol. Great stuff, you really summed up the mystique of the Tempest! Learning the machine, crafting your own sounds, and processing it with external FX go a long way

I would absolutely never hate an analog groovebox :) we should have so much more analog/hybrid grooveboxes on the market !

Two things made me fall back in love with my Tempest: 1: realizing that I could emulate a bunch of classic grooveboxes and save them as Beats so that I can make a pattern in Ableton and then cycle through those emulated grooveboxes to get a starting point, and then start customizing for my track. This is really essential, because the biggest downside of using a Tempest is that it's an inspiration-killer to build a kit from scratch while trying to write music, it just takes too long. 2: Realizing that the "VCA modulates its own decay time" trick is an incredibly powerful tool that's essentially a built-in transient shaper. This trick is so powerful that it's actually in the manual, which I have, but I didn't actually ever try it until watching Adam Schneider's 808 videos.

Ohh man you are so spot on about all that Tempest drama, and your intro music is amongst the best Tempest demos!

The vibe you have in your videos is always sooo good! As is its contents! Nice homage to the Tempest!

Hey Mr ! Thx for this awesome tribute video. Such a unique instrument. Never get rid of mine. We would both go on the same desert island with Tempest haha. Keep rocking 🎶🖤

Thanks for the shout out man! Really appreciate it and love the video. The Tempest is one for the history books for sure!

I appreciate you including a super-cut of your mouth moving faster than your brain at the end. I could never do that with my scripted videos because the bad language is very "not ad friendly".

Good content, really enjoy your stuff!

Very insightful, well done!

You did a great job at giving me the idea to one day buy one as a learning project. Great vid, thank you

For anyone that said it can’t do 808/any other drum sound, the correct statement is, YOU can’t make whatever drum sound. Complaining you can’t make x drum sound when you don’t understand drum synthesis is like picking up a guitar for the first time and complaining it sounds shit because you can’t perfectly play your favourite tune.

I've been a drummer using drum machines of all types since the late 70's. The day I got my Tempest I also took delivery of a 1940's Gretsch snare in need of attention. I split my time between experimenting with the Tempest and reconditioning the snare. It dawned on me during this time that the Tempest really is the closest any drum synth or machine (I've tried) has come to how real drums work and the ethos of playing them. So I'm still using, enjoying and being surprised by my Tempest (whilst the snare is now stored away and unused). Also, what no-one really mentions is that you can just pick a Tempest, plug your cans in, sit with it for while, just dabble with the sounds sounds, mess about, experiment , put it down the side of your armchair, pick it up again, take it with you, use it anywhere and anytime. This is a playable machine to jam with just like a traditional instrument . It might not be 100% easy to use but it's 110% easy to spend time exploring and having fun for the sake of it.

I enjoyed my time with Tempest. I picked one up second hand several years ago. While it appears to be this amazing must have for all electronic musicians, I wound up finding it a bit more niche than I originally thought. Its beautiful. It has a great feel to it. I was VERY familiar with DSI designs and workflow at the time, but never found the UI to be that great or easy to understand. Like you, frustrated with what I wasn’t getting out of it, I decided to dive deep into it. What I really wanted it for, were gritty, undeniably analog drum synth sounds. Ultimately, while its great for performance, I found it to be a detriment to getting studio work done. I had every channel hooked up to my interface, and was seeking to multitrack Tempest using it for all of my percussion. It just took too long, of course maybe it would have been faster had I stuck with it for many months, but TBH, as a huge fan of synth drums, what I was getting out of tempest was good....but not exactly $1500 better than what I could make with a $50 drum synth plugin, or even Logic’s really old and much maligned Ultrabeat. ITB, I can have a string of 8 processing plugins to get the sound of a two layer snare, JUST how I want it. As a poly it was fine.....but lacked the features and ease of use of P08. So I let go of it, actually sold it for a profit. Now, five years later, and many drum machines later, I still prefer synth drums ITB. The flexibility, automation, MIDI processing, etc.....it just works better and easier for me. So easy to save hundreds of custom made hats, snares, kicks, etc. i can call them up in an instant and tweaking is very easy on the fly. I’m an analog guy. I love synthesis and sound design. You just don’t hear any difference between analog hardware and software when your sound is only a couple hundred milliseconds. Like there isn’t some special thud to a DCO sine wave kick compared to full digital. There was no special sizzle to my noise hats. Yeah, tempest has that distortion and compressor, but it wasn’t anything to write home about for me. Its very cool, but just wasn’t for me. TBH, I thought we would see a lot of live performances using Tempest. I’ve seen some on youtube but it just never really seemed to catch on.

Love my Tempest, and it also took me a long time to get it. Apart from being a wonderful synthesiser, it can also replicate the sounds of old drum machines so well and can make the hugest sub sounds ever!❤️ Thanks for the video man🤘🏽

Sufjan Stevens uses the Tempest really well. His newest album has some incredible drums sounds/patterns on it. Also I'm pretty sure Nicolas Jaar uses it a lot.

Outstanding video. First time here and subscribed!

Sir you are fantastic! Thank you for your brilliant insights and entertaining tutorials.

Man... a Poly Evolver in drum machine form sounds amazing to me. This thing's jumped up in my long list of things to buy lol Great video!

I’ll never get rid of mine. That said, I’ve definitely had my moments of wanting to throw it out my window. I had to do a deep dive as well to truly appreciate it. I still struggle with it at times, mostly with making new drum sounds (takes me while to find sweet spots I like), but not with navigating my way around it. Definitely developed some muscle memory with this thing. The pads are so nice to play. The 4th encoder above the screen still glitches on me, and I have to recalibrate the voices from time to time, but it’s one of my top pieces of gear I’ve ever purchased nonetheless.

love your content. fantastic video.

Fantastic video fam! As usual. The Tempest has a lot of character. At times it’s quirky ness makes it feel more alive IMO I love mine! When I’m looking for inspiration I just fire it up 🔥 and boom I’m good to go.

great show, love the way you present ! Spectralis comes to my mind, you may have heard Another attempt to be everything. even though its more of a Groove Box

Your bloopers at the end of your videos give me flashbacks of when I did game reviews. I stumbled repeatedly on the same lines more times than I can count lol. By the way, I really liked the track you made with the Tempest.

Your videos are awesome. Thanks for all of it!

5:15 I kind of feel that after I get a new synth, or machine I need to let it marinate in my head before I dive into learning it. It took me about 1 year of marinating on the Digitone. lol This is really nice to see

Purchased cheap 4 years ago, it’s now my main song writing tool. Yes, it has a couple of silly limitations but there’s no escaping the fact that every time I touch it, something awesome happens.

A nice topic, nicely covered. I’ll never own one, but it’s in my top handful of older synths that I am confident would be worth having and mastering.

Waiting in anticipation and slight trepidation for the postie to drop off my recently purchased Tempest! Wish me luck!!

Thank you for this video. I bought a Tempest early on but never wrapped my head around it. I had a log of fun playing with some of presets and using the Roll and Reverse buttons and the sliders. I never did wrap my head around creating patches on my own. Never had the time to dedicate to it and later picked up and Analog Rytm. Maybe someday I'll have the time to give it the attention that it needs. I have to see if there was ever an editor for it as a shorcut for menu diving.

Awesome intro! I was a Tempest owner for a quite few years and got one early on - such a deep and powerful machine! When it was first released DSI did say that the firmware wasn't fully developed and that they would use a lot of the feedback from users to develop it further. I think a lot of buyers weren't aware of that. In the end I did decide to sell it, I got tired of the tedious menu-diving on that little display and I just didn't use it enough to justify having a machine of that price sitting around.

Bro, I love your channel and your vids. Top notch and your knowledge and dedication is inspiring. I was changing out all my pad trigger points today. I had been wanting to do it since I got it 4 + years ago, and did it today. now I can trigger the pads with my keyboard (with ease) . I didn't put them in order, it's kinda mixed up, so it will be more unpredictable . (this is for using a midi keyboard to play the drums. the pads still play properly) . I sometimes hate using it, (but now I can easily trigger the pads!) but I mostly love it. every one of the voices is a full stand alone synth. it's insane! And I'm always taking it further . in fact. I learned a crazy thing today , hours before spotting this vid. I'll bet you all want to know heh heh. .. If you put a (in the matrix) LFO at max 127 to the VCA Level, it will re trigger it forever. If any of you are interested in the killer self playing sound I made, I'll get all the settings on a text, or put it to a library file. Thanks Noir, you make great music.. and was that going through a strymon? and IM NEVER SELLING MINE

I've always wanted one of these. I hope I still get to pick one up one day.

I remember wanting to get one of these years ago, but ultimately never did due to the many issues users reported. Is funny, because I thought it was discontinued ages ago... But glad Dave stuck with it and seems to have resolved what they could. Always up for a solid drum machine, and I could see eventually grabbing one of these at some point. Thanks for your perspective!

sounds wonderful to my ears, don't really get how anyone could hate on this machine

Really nice video, thanks!

It's an amazing machine. As a 6 voice poly it's great and the drums are unique and creative. Top machine. Thx for the great video!

Feel the exact same way. Bandmate bought it when it came out and we both didn’t understand synthesis as well back then. Years later now it feels like every time I get into it new inspiration strikes and the features open up more. Love being able to assign LFO2 to the OSC 1/2 mix on hats and percussion. The delay taking up voicings really threw me for a loop recently but glad to have figured that out.

I’ve been going back and forth on doing a video on this exact subject for years. For the most part I agree with what you say here. There are a few missed points that should be touched on. Midi being an especially sore spot imho. There are some other maddening issues... maybe I should do that video lol . That being said it’s still a fantastic device. But like you said, you need to treat it as it’s own instrument. Very nice video.

Would you consider releasing a drum kit and or 808 pack with your homemade tempest sounds?

Hey Noir, great video! I had one and it was very frustrating, because the memory always seemed to be full as soon as you got some something awesome going. The side chaining aux function was where is was at with the unit fantastic fatness. It did have an amazing sound that beat anything else in what you could get out of it. It was a real rival to the Elektron Rytm but, I still have that one. Ease of use and very comparable drum sound is were that one won out. Incredible machine, just failed where you needed it to work (saving you stuff).

A ridiculously powerful unit once you learn and understand the limits of what it can do. Learning about Voice Priority and Assignments can open this unit up greatly for a user. On its own, it is impressive; tied into a studio's worth of gear, it becomes an indispensable toolkit. Like you, it took me a while to sit down with it and really get to know the Tempest, but once I got my head around it, I felt greatly rewarded for the effort.

Had mine for around 8 years, still use it at least once a week. Sounds soooooo good!!!! It's actually easy enough to use if you use your brain and don't expect a digital synth.

Cool machine and video, man

I had nearly the exact same experience - I had preordered the Tempest, because I was so excited about the possibilities it presented. And when I received it, the presets were about as appealing as a wet fart. I played around with making my own drums a little bit, but it was just playing. On the shelf it went for a couple of years. It was when Roland announced the TR8, I considered picking one up - but I had spent all this money on a Tempest. What if I sat down - like, really sat down, and learned how to use it. Practice it like an instrument. 45 minutes a night, five nights a week, for a month or two, and it opened all the way up. I built out emulations of the Roland sounds I wanted, so I didn't need a TR-8. In fact, I sold my TR-606 and DR-110 because I built their sounds (except those hihats) on my Tempest - indistinguishable in a mix (and a free download if you go looking), and in the process, learned enough about drum synthesis to start building out amazing kits that shaped my music. Now it's my desert island synth - the last thing I'd sell if I had to.

the price is steep for an amateur/hobbiest like me in the world of synthesis, but I've wanted one for a while - learning curve and all.

Love the review from someone who's clearly taken the time with the tempest, "may never be equalled with built in kryptonite." Mines coming back from the shop and I had to grab some inspiration. Thanks Noir.

Orbital has used the Tempest in their production and live gigs since its release and remain big fans of it.

Love mine, hang onto them. They’re gonna skyrocket in value in about a decade.

Love your presentation style.

Hello from Tallinn 🇪🇪🙌 You have a lot of experience in making tracks on synthesizers. Tell me please your opinion if has a synthesizer or groovebox from modern systems, which is very well suited for wooble and reese sounds and making dnb genre? Would be so cool. Thank you

I love the tempest. I bought it 2 years ago and first wanted to get an Analog Rytm. But the fact that the tempest is soo confusing is what I love about it. I needed a gnarly raw and dirty machine to create rough samples and that's what I got!

amazing synth and groove box

Dear Noir et Blanc Vie, I discovered you because of the TEMPEST. I found your videos to be amazing, engaging, and very useful. I was wondering if you have any other videos that have the TEMPEST being played, just to hear what it can do. I really want to learn mine now, thanks for all you have done on u-tube. You are amongst the best on here, in my opinion.

I bought a tempest last year. This tempest was sitting on my local music stores shelf for like probably 8 years. I think I spent a good 40 -50 hours designing sounds on it, and I have to say it really is an inspiration killer. Doing things on the tempest felt like doing a pre-calculus assignment. The OLED had burn-in from years of sitting on the shelf. The output was kind of noisy. Considering it was the most expensive "drum machine" you could buy at the store it really didn't feel like it was worth the money. Sure it can do everything you want, but when it comes to hardware I prefer things that you can get up and running with quickly. Take the Sub 37 for example. If you know the basics about synths you pretty much just walk up to one knowing nothing and are able to tweak and get your sounds instantly. However, where the tempest gets it's best points in my opinion is it's sound. It's kind of a gritty, dark analog sound that I like. Anyways, I returned that Tempest, it got marked down and still is sitting on the shelf at that store to this day. Overall for a grand I feel like it would be a good price, but where it's at, all I can think of is how many other better things I could buy and use all the time for that same amount of money.

Wow, found it! may I ask, is the nightsky on your main outs of the tempest? so it affects all the sounds, also the kicks, or only the synthparts?

Have you tried Jomox Alpha Base?

I’ve been back and forth on getting a Tempest for years...now I’m even more undecided. Will it add unique sound or capability that I can’t already get out of my Analog Four and Machinedrum UW+ ?

Yaeh, the Tempest is great! I also love the randomizer that some guy on the sequential forum did!

I saw it the first time in your video about volca fm or kind of video, and thought wow, I want to have one sometime, but I was younger no job, a little bit of money, and I started to "collect" instruments, after 2 years passed, three weeks ago I realized, I finally got money to get it, and now I'm proud user of Tempest and it will be long journey

True and excellent review / opinion / update.

Where can I hear this track in full? I'd pay good money!

Dude. Now it's going to be a shit ton more expensive. I saw this used recently by an L.A. DnB artist called Basek. It was pretty amazing.

I remember the first Tempest video you made was how I found the channel. I really wanted a drum machine, and I'd always wanted a Linn 9000, but realized the Tempest was something else entirely. I think the biggest issue with the Tempest for me is that it's too complex and I have little to no experience with electronic instruments. I ultimately decided on the Digitakt and never looked back. This is a great bookend to the Tempest saga, Stephen. No doubt it is an amazing machine; as you hint at, I think anything that polarizes people this much is a testament to that. Cheers and I hope you're doing well

The Tempest has taught me SO much about sound design! It takes ages to know all the knocks and crannys but it was well worth it! I still don't understand how the filter sweep of the whole beat does what it does, hard to explain...

I love how you show the more synth part of the tempest, beyond the obvious drum machine.People complain about the tempest, but this video just shows that in the right hands it can shine.Thanks.Two pieces of gear I will never sell, are the tempest and the vermona perfourmer.

Did they ever make a midi implementation chart like they promised or is it still absent of one?

Had mine for three years now. My take: -excels as a standalone instrument for writing/arranging/dawless performance -huge headache in a recording environment The sweet spot for me came after I set up a handful of favorite sounds/kits in a project. Then I stepped back from the task of sound design and let those choices be my limitations. Once I started combining that with other instruments and started arranging further, the fun really began. The opposite is the case when I have it in the studio and I'm trying to record things to tempo. Aligning all the onboard settings with DAW settings via its convoluted menu system is the ultimate buzzkill for my workflow. So I typically go with a different synth when I'm tracking unless it's a unique one-shot sample or something else not locked to tempo.

I've had mine for about a year after a tonne of forum reading and video watching/listening so I had full knowledge of the issues and quirks and I think in part that's what drew me to it in the end... knowing that I'd need to work at it and get in deep but that maybe I would be able to make some reasonably unique sounds because of it's relative rarity. I must admit that I still haven't given it the love and attention it needs but it's definitely a keeper.

I've had a Tempest since it first came out. I've been happy with it,, and have even used it as an external synth on gigs. But I agree the lack of memory is frustrating. I hate having to delete projects to make room for more. When I recently added some new sounds, I spent a few hours deciding which sounds should get deleted. With MPC's I like to use "song mode" to construct songs, but the closest thing in the Tempest are "playlists". And with only four playlists it was hard to use the Tempest for live gigs. Who does a gig with just 4 songs?

tblv9300 posted a video 7 years ago called Tempest as a 6 Voice Polysynth. Blew up and from what I know was the first video to really go viral showing the synth side of Tempest. Look it up. Wonderful demo!

Hi. Is there a link to your music somewhere that I'm missing?

My writing partner has owned one since it was released. He knows how to use it pretty well and it's sounds amazing. I've never spent the time to learn it beyond the most basic functions. If you have the time, it's well worth your effort.

This is very much how I felt about my Analog Four mk2. I bought it for full price and then listened to the factory sounds... I thought I’d made a huge, expensive mistake. Almost two years later, as I continuing to learn its secrets every time I use it, it’s now my favorite synth alongside the the Virus. I’ll never get rid of it. But it demands deep learning and experimentation... which leads to happy accidents, and general mastery of the hardware :) it’s worth the journey and the time spent.

My buddy had one for a couple of years. Every time I tried to program some drum sounds all I got were synth tones and I couldn't actually figure out how to use it has a drum machine. I didn't spend much time with it, but I think that is the crux: It's really a complex synth in a drum machine-shaped package, that is not easy to use as a drum machine.

I feel there is a lot of love here for the Tempest. I had a Machinedrum and wanted to switch to Rytm or Tempest. Went for the Rytm because I could get to the sounds I wanted quicker which is more fun to me. I guess your own musical approach is what matters most when choosing any musical instrument, any machine sparkles in a certain field.

I'm glad I picked one up new before they were discontinued. I looked around at all the offerings, and the Tempest was the only high end analog at the time. Professional patch makers or those that wish to learn how to program a synth will be very pleased IMO. It's a drummers synth that does so much more than drums. I look to it for the envelopes, and the oddities, or when in the mood to use pads instead of a conventional keyboard. It's a great sounding piece of gear.

The analog oscillators have SUBS??!?! Omg, I've had one of these since they shipped. Thank you. I really need to sit down and go through it deeply still.

The price will go up soon... I don't sell mine! LOVE IT!!! Thanks for the video...

The price of used Tempests shot up to ~$2K almost immediately after it was discontinued. I've been wanting one for a long time so I wish I pulled the trigger earlier, but I still might buy one at some point. Really hoping for another Sequential drum machine at some point.

One of my favorite devices EVER! Once you take the time to figure it out its unbelievable. It speaks its own language but like many languages it is derived from other languages you can borrow from when using it.

TRIGGERED. Great video. Great machine, probably one of the better DSI/Sequential products tbh.

Very inspiring and beautiful

I definitely perked up with that opening sound. That pad with the sort of metallic rustling. When I saw the $2k price on Reverb, I thought, "this is cool, but not $2k cool," for me any way.

Life is too short to learn this machine.

Well, I can answer the question about whether I'd pick up a Tempest "today" (more or less). I'm the one who literally bought the last Tempest from Sweetwater. Went out of stock permanently the day my order shipped, and the product page disappeared and started redirecting not too long afterwards. Wouldn't trade it in for anything at this point.

Bad? WTF? Who thought it was bad? I loved mine. All it really needs is patience and a decent reverb and it is godlike.

What a wonderful song !!

Nice Content, I still love mine...One of my fav drum synth. I live in Nairobi Kenya so there's a chance I'm the only 1 who owns 1 in Kenya..Now that they are out of production. The six anolog outs are ideal for tracking out...

I love my Tempest and I'm never getting rid of mine! I just wish it had more than two LFOs per sound, but there are some tricks I've used to get around it

A friend of mine has that synth and in a few months his display screen stopped working, the use he gave to his synth was minimal, too expensive to have a failure so quickly

Tempest sounds so beautiful like no other drum machine out there. I need to pick one even when mastering it is a challenge.

Boomchic! Bought mine when it first came out. Was Excited about an analog drum machine. At first I was frustrated with it. I felt like it lacked something, but with Time I slowly fell in love with it. Still learning new things from time to time. Some people don’t approve, but that’s bc like with any machine/synth, you have to put effort into it to fully understand what you’re dealing with. I feel like I have a good understanding of it though. It’s a keeper for me, especially now that it’s discontinued.

I absolutely want to spend some time with one, but I don't want to pay the current price to do so. I'll definitely check out those Adam Schneider and Vøsne videos

bought it like 3 months ago... filled up 3 projects so far because it's an absolute joy to program if you know the layout. If this thing pisses you off, you need to check yourself. It's a songstarter for sure.

with the ease of assignments to velocity sensitive envelopes we can create highly dynamic percussive pads. the beat-wide FX allows you to 'sqeeze' the whole beat or loosen it up, same as a drummer would do on a drum-set, for example by increasing the attack / decay of all sounds.

These patches are awesome. Could you share some of them on midi.link?