If there was some kind of arrangement for these two wonderful gentlemen to be financially compensated for their time, then I would be perfectly willing to revise this statement and my take on the situation, however, from where I am sitting, Dave Smith Instruments is run by someone who is completely comfortable with allowing other people to do their work for them.
People had to waste time testing and documenting bugs.
People had to waste time requesting updates, over, and over, and over.
People had to waste time starting a petition.
People had to waste time signing a petition.
Specific people (Roger and John) had to waste time convincing DSI to do something.
People had to waste more time testing, and documenting more bugs.
I still waste time checking this forum for a final update that may never come.
Dave Smith has never taken the time to respond in even a single forum post (unless I missed this somewhere).
No transparency. No accountability. No more of my money on DSI products.
Ya, Dave, where’s my gratuity? A man cannot live on integrity alone (smirk).
At any rate, you’re entirely right, tigerstylin. This whole agonizing process has been an unfortunate waste of our time, and we have every right to be pissed about it. We live in an era where companies don’t care and regularly mistreat us. That notwithstanding, the fact is that if someone takes your money, they are obliged to stand by their promises, stated or implied. The burden of Tempest development and maintenance should never have fallen on the community. As customers, we should never have had to do DSI’s legwork for them: having to prove to them repeatedly that bugs exist, having to keep track of every word and every detail in order to hold them accountable. There’s no other way to see it than they created our frustration. People only get angry and raise their voices when they are misled or otherwise not listened to. The obvious solution to angry customers is to simply listen, closely and accurately, then take action.
A great and principled man once said those exact words to me, but he will remain nameless (wink).
May I ask though what these remaining major issues are? Haven't been able to find one so far. Only minor issues (which are still issues, but no deal breakers).
Well, what constitutes a “major issue” is certainly subjective; however, this is as good a time as any, I suppose, to re-post an updated version of the bug-list for y’all...
Bugs remaining as of Feb. 15, 2017:
· If you accidentally hit the 16 Beats or 16 Mutes button first, when trying to enter 16 tunings or 16 Levels mode, the Roll function automatically disengages – mode changes should happen upon the button’s release in order to prevent this.
· In 16 Tunings mode, when the sequencer is stopped, both adding and releasing notes interrupts the Arp causing it to reset and fall out of sync.
· In 16 Levels mode, when the sequencer is stopped, the Arp allows notes to be triggered outside of the selected quantize value, which creates undesirable flams when trying to depress multiple notes at once, or when adding new notes to the arpeggio. Also, both adding and releasing notes interrupts the Arp causing it to reset and fall out of sync.
· When recording with the Arp in 16 Levels mode, the held pads blink in succession with each note trigger as expected; but after the first pass of the sequence is recorded, only pad 16 blinks. *In all other Arp modes, the pads continue to blink in the order they were depressed/recorded as expected.
· When switching beats on-the-fly, the first step of the sequencer-out is consistently late; so if you're triggering a sample loop on the one, every time you switch beats on the Tempest, it will be out of sync for the first pass.
*This is an invasive fix.
· Tempest starts one midi clock late or early depending on various conditions of the sync source or Tempest modes.
*This is an invasive fix.
· If you hold 'Shift' and turn the Compressor knob to get into the compressor menu, you can no longer get back to the Mixer screen.
· Compressor Envelope 'Amount' only goes from -64 to +127 instead of -/+127.
· Regardless of what value is set and saved, every time the Tempest is power cycled the Compressor Envelope 'Peak Hold' parameter changes to match the value of the 'Amount' parameter.
· After a power cycle, all the Compressor Envelope parameters display at the correct value as saved
(*with the exception of 'Peak Hold' – see above); however, in actuality they are zeroed, and will otherwise remain that way until each parameter is revisited and its value is moved by at least one increment.
· When Slider Mode is set to 'Real-time', only FX1 Slider is affected. FX2/3/4 sliders are always 'Step' regardless of this parameter setting.
· Using Mod Paths for external MIDI sound control results in intermittent affect on the sound. *
Causes are unclear, but the bug occurs more frequently on playback of a Beat with many sounds.
· When playing a Beat containing held notes of an ADSR sound, if you turn on Bank B while 1) a note is playing and 2) a different sound is selected, the playing note's pad sticks on.
· LFO sync drifts when set to either 'Beat' or 'Play', and dotted eighths remains missing from the sync options.
· The sequencer-out still doesn't trigger notes in real-time: i.e. it only sends trigger information after the sequence is recorded, which essentially means that you're recording deaf.
· Beat roll still doesn't swing.
· A sound folder is still need to correspond with the pad name "Synth".
· When adding or copying steps via the Events Screen, the Pad lights do not correlate correctly in 16 Time Steps mode.
· In 16 Mutes mode, on the Pads screen, although you are still able to select a sound (holding shift and hitting a pad) it is not reflected graphically on the display. This could be fixed if the display matched the style of the Mixer screen.
· The Mute/Solo/Delay buttons should perform their functions in both the 16 Mutes/Pads and 16 Mutes/Mixer screens.
· Mutes “All On” should be available on the mixer screen in both 16 Mutes and 16 Sounds Mode.
· In the System Menu > MIDI Remote Pad Play > when 'Pad To Note Mode' is set to 'Mutes', if a note number is received that is one of the 'Bank B' assignments on that page, it is treated as the 'Bank A' assignment of the same number. For example, if Pad B1 is assigned to note# 80, and Pad A1 is assigned to note# 69, sending Tempest note# 80 will toggle the mute of pad A1.
· The “Undo All Sounds” functionality needs to be better implemented or otherwise removed. It is currently awkward, buggy, and a liability on account of the fact that it uses the 'Undo Rec' as a 'SHIFT' function.
· When you set System > UI Preferences > Solo/Mute behavior to 'Seq only', if you mute a pad that contains a sequence and then attempt to play that same sound
live in 16 Tunings mode, turning the Mixer Level knob causes the sound to cut-out.
· If you edit a project and then attempt to do a RAM dump via the 'Save/Load' screen: 7. Export Project over MIDI, the Tempest freezes.
· In '16 Beats' mode, when trying to copy/paste beats by holding the 'copy' button, nothing happens if you attempt to 'paste' into the beat that is currently selected; whereas pasting into an unselected beat works as expected.
· If you toggle the 'Reverse' button on and play a beat, it plays correctly in reverse. However, if you then select a different Beat, the newly-selected beat does not play in reverse even though the 'Reverse' light is on.
· While a sequence is playing, in '16 Time Steps' mode, on the 'Events' screen, disengaging the "Loop Screen" function causes the tempest flip-out for a second: i.e. all the pads light-up in rapid succession and the beat stutters. Sync, however, is maintained.
Okay, the above list should accurately represent the Tempest’s status as of
Beta OS 1.4.4bb. I’ve removed any bugs that have recently been noted in the change-log as “fixed”, and have added any bugs that have been reported and confirmed since the last time I updated the list. If I’ve missed anything, or if I’ve removed anything that has in fact
not been fixed, please let me know.
Keep making noise, y’all. We’re almost there. And by “almost there”, of course, I mean
hopefully we'll see these remaining bugs fixed within, say, a couple years or so, given the precedent that DSI has set…
Ahem!Cheers!
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