Tempest - the dream machine from Dave Smith and Roger Linn 

Hey Joshua I have to check that out thanks

so underrated.. ahead of it's time not so much.. awesome? definitely!

I truly believe this will be the case

Great comment Adam! And yes you are 100% correct. I wish Dave Smith would put the firmware and any tools they have on GitHub...... Manufacturers should consider doing so when they stop supporting instruments...

I've concluded the same thing (I don't own one). If one looks at the entire ecosystem of a hardware+DAW studio, a lot of those shortcomings you bring up are fairly easily resolved in the _rest_ of your studio. This leaves a raw machine that is impressive and fosters creativity with what it actually can do.

sample upload was never promised by DSI, I remember the forums back in the day as I was an early Tempest owner and the forums were full of people requesting it all the time but it was NEVER promised, DSI basically said the samples are on eproms so it could "theoretically" be done but you'd have to get clean eproms and an eprom programmer and do it that way but it was never going to be something they implemented for general use.

Hey thank you! I didn't know if I had a proper episode on my hands with what I had to work with. INDEED the learning curve is steep, but part of it is that it is very easy to figure out enough to make great music (to me!) on day 1... And then, you can have endless fun without ever truly diving in. For me it was literally years. The segments in the video capture this well I think. Every time I thought "okay let's explore deeper" I got to new places. Now... The interface is actually not crazy hard. It's a bit like riding a bike, unlike many other coveted boxes that IMHO have insanely complicated user interfaces. I don't think the Tempest is one. The final OS update is really good. One issue was that it came out 10 years ago, and I heard it had a TON of bugs and missing features. Enthusiasts got mad and got rid of theirs, and made sure to talk negatively in the future to anyone who would listen. I understand that, and I am happy I didn't get one until later. Thanks again!

@@ManoOne-Music-Production That's good you got it after the bugs were worked out! 😁👍

I should make more

It's definitely worth just opening tree manual on page 1 and go through the whole thing. Use every feature.

Thank you! Check all of my videos 👋

I remember you mentioning this before, so I watched some videos. To me it seems quite different. Impressive nonetheless. Maybe it depends on what you are looking for. I'm years past the honeymoon phase, and I'm still feeling impressed by the Tempest. Also, it's a piece of history, as all projects Roger Linn has had his hands on. I suspect that the sequencer alone is something Roger poured his passion into, as in... What he had wanted to make since the MPC 3000 project. No sampling is craaazy, but there was some things happening with the two different versions Roger and Dave had first announced... The analog synth one came out (the Tempest), but not the LinnDrum II Digital (I expect it was like the tempest but with sampling at the center)

@@ManoOne-Music-Production sure, in the end I was just disappointed by the core sound of the Tempest once I got into more proper fully analog gear without compromises-those DCOs with modern Curtis filters are pretty boring sounding, just not very lively. Of course you can still do great sound design on it, and the sequencer was fun, but a bit buggy. I will say, even after having a largeish eurorack system, the Spazedrum is one of the most amazing and well thought out instruments I’ve ever encountered or had the pleasure of owning. As far as electronic percussion devices, I don’t feel I need anything else. And it has samples. BUT I did recently get a linnstrument and so far I like it! Mostly using it with eurorack for MPE midi to cv and with my Motas-6, quite interesting.

@@NickHchaos There are no bugs on the Tempest sequencer, nothing I encountered. I appreciate you may have used a Tempest prior to the final update, I just want to make anyone aware who might be reading this that it's not a buggy sequencer at all, it's smooth and incredibly flexible while allowing for a huge amount of expressivity.

@@Claidheambmor Shame about those lame sounding DCOs in everything though. Go modular and you'll never look back. Other drum devices that I much prefer to the Tempest that knock it out in terms of sound: DRM MkIV, Jomox Alpha Base..etc

I have both ( tempest and spazedrum) and I will sell NONE. To me the comparaison is not relevant , except they are both drum machines . But the workflow is completely different and they sound also different . The tempest is deeper in term of synthesis , and the spazedrum is more direct and intuitive . at the end the music I make with one or the other is a type of music , but there is no better music on tempest or spazedrum 😋. Just different music ! Darker on spazedrum , and happier on tempest ❤ In term of tools for editing , and live performance I also prefer the tempest because in that field it is more direct than spazedrum . But spazedrum is so weird in terms of sound , I am in love with all the happy accident you get in such a very short time ! Amazing machines

Hey thanks for your message and being here. No name of that piece of improv music, just recorded on the spot for an Instagram clip

Best kept secret 😊