You know, Jinsai, you've expressed this rather hard-line opinion about the digital oscillators before; and although I don't blame you for feeling this way fundamentally, I can't help but compare your observations to the reactions of other users, who have listened very carefully to those very same oscillators and failed to hear the anomaly at all. Never mind that the Tempest comes preloaded with many well-designed sounds and sequences, from many a respected and accomplished sound designer, that extensively utilize the VS waveforms. And as a career producer, recording artist, and sound designer myself, I have to say that I've never found any of them to be "unusable" or otherwise "indistinguishable from each other".
You're entitled to your opinion of course, and I respect that. I do, however, feel as though we should make an effort to keep this in perspective for those, perhaps less discerning, audio engineers among us (wink).
It is entirely possible that whatever problem exists varies from unit to unit, or that there is something else wrong with mine. Perhaps we should post some audio samples for comparison. Or perhaps it's my ears that aren't very good, since you and others don't seem to think the waves are as bad or unusable.
I will also stipulate that it is not much of a deal-breaker for me as Tempest goes, because I didn't buy it for those waves or really expect to use them. But as I said, it's disappointing, because they would increase its flexibility.
I am clearly a "fan" of DSI gear -- I have a Poly Evolver, a Prophet 12, and a Tempest. I wrote the Evolver guide, and I'm working on one for Tempest as well (albeit slowly).
Since I have an Evolver, I know what those waves are supposed to sound like when looped properly.
And of course, even if Tempest has some incorrectly looping waveshapes, there's nothing stopping people from making things with those incorrectly looping waveshapes. Many musicians love the idea of working with "broken" things or getting glitchy sounds. But that wasn't the intent of the design, and I don't know how many flavors of high-pitched buzzing are useful.
Tempest is a quirky and weird beast. I have had mine for several years now, and I still don't know how I feel about it!
Hey, for the most part I agree with you; and as I said earlier in this thread, I'm certainly not defending DSI on the matter, or saying that it's ideal. They absolutely should have noticed this anomaly before printing thousands of chips; expecially considering that they've used these very same wave samples in previous instruments without issue. But see, I don't own an Evolver, so I have nothing to compare the Tempest's digital oscillators to. As such, I've simply used them for what they
are rather than what I expected them to be.
Oh sure, if you're making high-passed whistle noises in the 8th octave with the lowpass filter wide open, using one of the damaged waveforms is bound to thwart your efforts; but come on now... There are still countless warm, woody, reedy, otherwise useful sounds to be had with these samples, to which the inherent noise is of no consequence, and in some cases even beneficial. That's all I'm saying.
My Taylor 614 rings like a bell when it's played finger-style, but it sounds like shit when it's flat-picked. That's not to say it's "unusable" - in fact it's one of my favorite guitars - it's just not a Gibson J-200. You have an Evolver already, so you could look at it as having a two sets of the same digital oscillators in two flavors: broken and unbroken... Perfect (smirk)!
Anyway, Jinsai, I've appreciated your informative posts on the other forum over the years, and I'm sure I've acknowledged you there a few times. No ill will, my friend. Each to their own, as they say.
Cheers!