By daftmunk
Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:41 am
some wise words by tutor.. which actually tie into some of my observations on Tempest, but more on that later..
First of all, i have to keep reminding Jah that Tempest purpose is not to be a sampling drum machine but an analog drum machine, so when comparing it, it is ridiculous to say "its not innovating cuz it doesn't sample" compare it to other analog drum machines, of which there are only a hand few in all of drum machine history, the most famous being the TR-808 & TR-909 (which are the "MPCs" of EDM if you want).
In that perspective Tempest is quite revolutionary as those machines allowed very little tweaking of their sounds except for tuning attack decay & tone. In Tempest you have access to hundreds of parameters with the most common ones assigned to knobs on the front panel. Like i said previously Tempest also doubles as a fully programmable 6 voice polyphonic analog synth, with up to 4 oscillators per voice, Sub oscillators, Analog Lowpass & High-pass Filters, 5 enveloppes, 3 LFOs, Modulation Paths & more.. that alone makes it more powerful then most analog synthesizers on the market! It is also a hybrid instrument with a digital section containing samples of early digital drum machines such as Linn's first efforts the LM-1/LM-2 as well as waveforms from the Prophet VS. you can do all kinds of things to these digital samples, layer them, process them through the analog synth engine, reverse etc...
What was said above is mostly Dave Smith's contribution, so let's get back to Roger Linn's influence. as he mentioned in the above video i linked, the most obvious thing he rethought was the pad design, he moved from the classic 4x4 grid to a 8x2. as shocking as this may seem to MPC fans, in real use this actually makes a whole lot of sense. First of all you can use your 10 fingers to finger drum or play the pads like a keyboard, it feels more natural. Second of all this is a much better layout for 16 step sequencing which enables 2 rows of 8 steps which is easier to follow then 4 rows. another design enhancement is the OLED display, not too common yet on synths/drum machines but you may remember seeing them on samsung & motorola phones right before the switch to full color. imo this is hands down the best screen technology for instruments. there is no "backlight" the background is dark, the characters are sharp,bright with a ultra fast refresh rate. Then you have the FX touch sliders. Again i haven't really seen some like these on any other product before as there are LEDs under the touch strip that follow your finger movement, very practical as they give precise feedback, the resolution on these is also extremely high and the range can be configured. you can assign any parameter to these including cool stuff like note repeat quantize settings or playback speed.. this takes the good old "note variation slider" which is one of my personal MPC favorites (very sad to see it disappear btw) to a complete next level, awesome real-time control feature!
Finally the sequencer & OS. this is where Roger hits a home run. I've already talked about 16 beats mode and how it's basically brought Ableton Live type clip launching to patterns made in traditional MPC fashion. that alone is a great feat imo. There is also a step sequencer that allows not only note entry but velocity, pitch, pan etc basically what you would expect form a fully fledged step sequencer (unlike the bare bones approach in Ren). The display also gives great visual feedback for every mode and every knob turn (automatically switching and reverting, no need to page around!)
One last thing and this is what ties up to Tutor's observations on the 4K. Tempest can do all the above in a record breaking small footprint, this is quite an engineering feat especially if you consider all the analog components which usually take up a lot of space.. the construction and attention to detail is also impressive, heavy black anodized textured metal chassis, gorgeous wood side panels, the best feeling pads ever (this often gets touted but i feel it's warranted in this case), high resolution knobs and encoders with adequate sizing and spacing.. i could go on & on so i'll stop here as there is too much to cover in one post but i think you get the picture.. Tempest is no regurgitated effort, especially when comparing it to other analog drum machines it's pretty much on another solar system level!
First of all, i have to keep reminding Jah that Tempest purpose is not to be a sampling drum machine but an analog drum machine, so when comparing it, it is ridiculous to say "its not innovating cuz it doesn't sample" compare it to other analog drum machines, of which there are only a hand few in all of drum machine history, the most famous being the TR-808 & TR-909 (which are the "MPCs" of EDM if you want).
In that perspective Tempest is quite revolutionary as those machines allowed very little tweaking of their sounds except for tuning attack decay & tone. In Tempest you have access to hundreds of parameters with the most common ones assigned to knobs on the front panel. Like i said previously Tempest also doubles as a fully programmable 6 voice polyphonic analog synth, with up to 4 oscillators per voice, Sub oscillators, Analog Lowpass & High-pass Filters, 5 enveloppes, 3 LFOs, Modulation Paths & more.. that alone makes it more powerful then most analog synthesizers on the market! It is also a hybrid instrument with a digital section containing samples of early digital drum machines such as Linn's first efforts the LM-1/LM-2 as well as waveforms from the Prophet VS. you can do all kinds of things to these digital samples, layer them, process them through the analog synth engine, reverse etc...
What was said above is mostly Dave Smith's contribution, so let's get back to Roger Linn's influence. as he mentioned in the above video i linked, the most obvious thing he rethought was the pad design, he moved from the classic 4x4 grid to a 8x2. as shocking as this may seem to MPC fans, in real use this actually makes a whole lot of sense. First of all you can use your 10 fingers to finger drum or play the pads like a keyboard, it feels more natural. Second of all this is a much better layout for 16 step sequencing which enables 2 rows of 8 steps which is easier to follow then 4 rows. another design enhancement is the OLED display, not too common yet on synths/drum machines but you may remember seeing them on samsung & motorola phones right before the switch to full color. imo this is hands down the best screen technology for instruments. there is no "backlight" the background is dark, the characters are sharp,bright with a ultra fast refresh rate. Then you have the FX touch sliders. Again i haven't really seen some like these on any other product before as there are LEDs under the touch strip that follow your finger movement, very practical as they give precise feedback, the resolution on these is also extremely high and the range can be configured. you can assign any parameter to these including cool stuff like note repeat quantize settings or playback speed.. this takes the good old "note variation slider" which is one of my personal MPC favorites (very sad to see it disappear btw) to a complete next level, awesome real-time control feature!
Finally the sequencer & OS. this is where Roger hits a home run. I've already talked about 16 beats mode and how it's basically brought Ableton Live type clip launching to patterns made in traditional MPC fashion. that alone is a great feat imo. There is also a step sequencer that allows not only note entry but velocity, pitch, pan etc basically what you would expect form a fully fledged step sequencer (unlike the bare bones approach in Ren). The display also gives great visual feedback for every mode and every knob turn (automatically switching and reverting, no need to page around!)
One last thing and this is what ties up to Tutor's observations on the 4K. Tempest can do all the above in a record breaking small footprint, this is quite an engineering feat especially if you consider all the analog components which usually take up a lot of space.. the construction and attention to detail is also impressive, heavy black anodized textured metal chassis, gorgeous wood side panels, the best feeling pads ever (this often gets touted but i feel it's warranted in this case), high resolution knobs and encoders with adequate sizing and spacing.. i could go on & on so i'll stop here as there is too much to cover in one post but i think you get the picture.. Tempest is no regurgitated effort, especially when comparing it to other analog drum machines it's pretty much on another solar system level!
I guess im an oldie and cannot get used to the new tech unless i see it as solid and feels confident to use(robust)A certain amount of computer tech on screen editing on the home computer will be needed for sure.Botton line as far as quality is concerned is money and not bringing down the price to consumer(cheap)level.No future in that.And just as important nukai need to be honest with the public and stop tricking us.Maybe then we can have a nice,progressive conversation..
