Official Release OS Date

[Stoss]

The release of the firmware from DSI is a topic that was covered at length on the old forum. It's a complicated matter. Please read up on what has been written to properly understand what the situation is.

[Yorgos Arabatzis]

This was the answer from Chris on the old forum:

If someone invested in the tools to do the programming and was able to reverse engineer it enough to start coding, I'd certainly help them with some of the more difficult parts of the code process. I just don't have the time to manage an open source project, nor do we want to post the full code base at this point in time. Open sourcing things would not be less work for me, it'd end up being a lot more

[idm]

Which makes total sense. Open sourcing something after the fact is a lot harder than coding from the beginning with open sourcing in mind. There's so much that has to be explained, and the coding is probably not very intuitive for someone who  hasn't been through the process from the beginning.

[John the Savage]

DSI releasing the firmware source code would be the proper thing to do at this point.

Hey, I'm the first to encourage the rebel mind and the independence of cottage industry; but seriously, "the proper thing to do at this point" is for Dave Smith to simply allocate the time and resources needed to fix the remaining bugs in the firmware and be done with it.  That much is perfectly doable with a little time and focus.  We've proven that already.

Again I say, can we not just focus on making the machine, as it was designed, work as intended and be happy with that?

Cheers!

[dsetto]

John the Savage, I appreciate what you're doing to address the Tempest. I'm patiently looking forward to the resolution of the issues that you, RLD, & DSI feel are significant.

Thank you.

dsetto.

[John the Savage]

John the Savage, I appreciate what you're doing to address the Tempest. I'm patiently looking forward to the resolution of the issues that you, RLD, & DSI feel are significant.

Thank you.

dsetto.

Thank you, dsetto, I appreciate the kind words and the vote of confidence.

I promise y'all that the conversation between all camps is still moving in a positive direction.  I'm still hopeful that we will see more bugs addressed in the firmware before its final release.  And I encourage everyone to stay engaged.  Your voices are making a difference, at least as far as bug-fixes are concerned.  So if we can manage to keep focused on that objective, and ease up on the feature requests and demands for the code to be made public, we might just get the real issues fixed.

Cheers!

[muleskinner]

Hi John - I don't see anything on that list about the bug that stopped the Tempest from playing two sounds at once (via the pads). Was this addressed do you know? I can't see it on the changelogs and still run into it sometimes (though I am not on the absolute latest beta)...

cheers
 

[John the Savage]

Hi John - I don't see anything on that list about the bug that stopped the Tempest from playing two sounds at once (via the pads). Was this addressed do you know? I can't see it on the changelogs and still run into it sometimes (though I am not on the absolute latest beta)...

cheers

Hi muleskinner,

Yes, that bug was actually a malfunction of the arpeggiator, and it has been address in the latest beta.  See #2. below...

Main OS 1.4.4bb:

• Fixed Bug: SPP messages greater than 9 bars cause unexpected behavior.
• Fixed Bug: When roll mode is set to anything other than retrig, only a single sound may be played at one time.

Of course, if you do endeavor to update to the latest beta and happen to run into it again, please let me know.  To the best of my knowledge, however, it has been fixed.

Cheers!

[Yorgos Arabatzis]

Yep has been addressed on the latest beta..Make sure you reset system parameters though

Hi John - I don't see anything on that list about the bug that stopped the Tempest from playing two sounds at once (via the pads). Was this addressed do you know? I can't see it on the changelogs and still run into it sometimes (though I am not on the absolute latest beta)...

cheers

[muleskinner]

OK great - thanks. Looks like I need to update again!

[BTS.WRKNG]

Make sure you reset system parameters though

Sorry if I've missed previous discussion of this and not to derail the thread, but could someone please briefly explain why this is important? I've kept up with some/most of the betas but don't think I've ever reset system parameters...

[Yorgos Arabatzis]

Ooops my mistake no need to reset parameters that was for previous beta...Here's my conversation with Carson:

Yep for me the 2nd was the lucky one..Didn't encounter it again..If i'll update to a newer beta and still persist then it must be somewhere hidden and comes out with every update..Just a guess..

The issue with two sounds not being able to be triggered at the same time seems to be resolved by resetting the Tempest's system parameters.  Would users whom are encountering this issue please reset the system preferences and check whether the issue is still present?

I already spoke to Roger Linn directly about this; but just so everyone knows, I was able to get the Tempest back into this state, despite having reset the system parameters.  So the reset does work to solve the problem temporarily, but it seems this bug runs deeper and remains cause unknown...

Cheers!

This was the bug:

Main OS 1.4.4bb:

Fixed Bug: When roll mode is set to anything other than retrig, only a single sound may be played at one time.

[guy smiley]

John,
Until reading this thread I hadn't realised how much of the recent improvements to the Tempest were in no small part due to your concerted efforts. Like many more, I expect I am part of a silent majority who benefit from this, but don't participate.
Just to say thank you very much indeed. It's obviously a mammoth task, and the lack of active participants is not an accurate measure of the number of beneficiaries.

It would seem to me that a final 'push' from DSI to release a single stable version (even one with 'known bugs') HAS to be the only way to move forward. There are far too many people who would never run a Beta version of (any) software. DSI seem to think that having the only truly functional operating system for their brand defining product residing on a forum post somewhere is acceptable. It clearly is not.

DSI. get it together. Seems to me that the current Beta is such an improvement on the existing 'official' OS that it should be released properly and 'known bugs' published. Then work on releasing betas to squash those bugs.

[John the Savage]

John,
Until reading this thread I hadn't realised how much of the recent improvements to the Tempest were in no small part due to your concerted efforts. Like many more, I expect I am part of a silent majority who benefit from this, but don't participate.
Just to say thank you very much indeed. It's obviously a mammoth task, and the lack of active participants is not an accurate measure of the number of beneficiaries.

Well, I've been acting primarily as an intermediary, beta tester, and clerk.  And yes, it has proven to be a lot of work, and certainly has demanded my undivided attention at times; but it's Roger Linn that you have to thank more than anyone.  He's the guy with the influence.  Indeed he is the only person with the means to negotiate directly with Dave Smith to get these bugs fixed.

It has been an honor and pleasure working closely with Roger: isolating issues as they arise, prioritizing fixes, testing each new incarnation of the firmware before it is posted here; and discussing, not just the Tempest, but music tech in general.  And as I've said before, I did assume this role of my own volition, and I'm flattered to have ended up representing the community in the process.  So thank you.

Cheers!

[MisterHemi]

John,
Until reading this thread I hadn't realised how much of the recent improvements to the Tempest were in no small part due to your concerted efforts. Like many more, I expect I am part of a silent majority who benefit from this, but don't participate.
Just to say thank you very much indeed. It's obviously a mammoth task, and the lack of active participants is not an accurate measure of the number of beneficiaries.

Well, I've been acting primarily as an intermediary, beta tester, and clerk.  And yes, it has proven to be a lot of work, and certainly has demanded my undivided attention at times; but it's Roger Linn that you have to thank more than anyone.  He's the guy with the influence.  Indeed he is the only person with the means to negotiate directly with Dave Smith to get these bugs fixed.

It has been an honor and pleasure working closely with Roger: isolating issues as they arise, prioritizing fixes, testing each new incarnation of the firmware before it is posted here; and discussing, not just the Tempest, but music tech in general.  And as I've said before, I did assume this role of my own volition, and I'm flattered to have ended up representing the community in the process.  So thank you.

Cheers!

No, thank you and of course Roger Linn.

I know Roger is busy and hopefully he'll be back soon. That "push" is what seems to be needed to get things going again.

[bozo]

It has been an honor and pleasure working closely with Roger:

Other than our gratitude I guess thats your "paycheck" for the massive effort you've put in, and a "sizable one" imo.

As an aside, our band bought Linn 2 to replace our 808, and when I left the band a year or so later I bought a Drumtraks
Linn vs Smith = Solid Tempest OS?

[LucidSFX]

I can't believe we have been slammed with a final beta OS. That sucks. In my opinion, out of all the issues the LFO sync drift is brutal and should have been included in the final release.

Dave mentioned that he was happy with the creative ways to use the Tempest...etc...the LFO sync drift for play or beat is used specifically for sound design not only unplanned creative usage. Seriously, this just can't be left as is...

We should have a poll for which bug from the list above should be considered as the most important fix and try to get at least one more done. I only care about the LFO's...the foundation for any synth...

[tigerstylin]

Dave Smith is disgusting.  A one post F-U to us in a locked thread.  Cowards hide.

[dslsynth]

I have personally been looking at Tempest maintenance as an exam for DSI on how they handle their long term product maintenance. And well, the exam is in writing so it will be a while before the marks are in. But I think quite a few of us have a clear feeling of the direction its heading.

Tempest is of cause a little special because it was a project that was honestly at the edge of what they had resources to make. That is probably the reason why they decided to stop now: lack of resources. But no matter what it can easily develop into a PR disaster for DSI as people knowing of this will think: "Can we trust that our software quality problems with our instruments will actually be fixed!?"

Looking forward there are a number of lessons to be learned. First of all for DSI to make machines they are sure they can make and maintain well. Secondly instead of DSI making a new drum machine it would be much smarter to make a multi-timbral module that can be sequenced from either a DAW or a hardware sequencer. Thirdly DSI customers can benefit from testing their use cases for their synthesizers before buying them.

Going back to the initial BoomChik/LinnDrumII design concepts there were voice architecture ideas on the board that could very well be worth exploring in a new product. Think dual use drum synthesis and polyphonic duties. Features like very fast envelope times and AD modes would be great to have. Tetra style poly and voice-per-channel multi modes would be perfect to see in a new product.

Anyway, its time for popcorn! . o O ( )

[LucidSFX]

Think you'd mind posting your paper? I remember when software came out for audio...programs were buggy as hell. Hardware was the way to go but they were much simpler then. However, the concepts of build, sell, then fix is all too common place in this market. If this machine was $300 then ok but it isn't.