Tempest Main 1.5.0.2 and Voice 1.5 - Bug Reports

[grunes]

Main OS 1.4.5.1
Fixed Bug: Exporting certain projects over MIDI DIN cause freeze
Fixed Bug: Sending SPP and Continue when playlist active causes wrong beat to play in playlist
Fixed Bug: Sending SPP and Continue with playlist off does not locate to correct measure in loaded beat

I believe those two "Sending SPP and Continue ..." bugs were the issues I was having. I do believe they were fundamental. I am grateful to see they have been addressed. Eager to assess.

Thank you for the instrument and for addressing what you guys consider are its core functions.

Thank you to John the Savage, Roger Linn, Chris and everyone else for you time in trying to fix and advance the Tempest OS.

In regards to the SPP bugs in the latest version. I was originally having problems with Tempest in Playlist mode and slaved to LogicProX. The Tempest would have MiDI sync issues, jump ahead to other bars, and also occasionally freeze. I resolved these issues and achieved a solid foundation by reworking all Logic files and/or removing all redundant artefacts. I also did the same with the Tempest files and I also removed the USB cable and switched to MIDI DIN only.

I was happy to see any SPP bugs were supposedly fixed in the latest version. However, upon installing Tempest OS 1.4.5.1 my problems returned. Were as previously the Tempest would occasionally freeze, it now ocassionally hangs for a brief period before jumping ahead usually by 2 bars in advance of were it should be, or just jump ahead without hanging. I have had to once again return to Tempest OS 1.4 to achieve a stable environment.

[Stoss]

Hi "The Dave".

In your first and only post ever on this forum, you said:

"Though some of you continue to request new features and offer useful suggestions for improvement, we’ve reached what we consider the limits of the instrument's available memory and processing ability. For these reasons, we consider this release (OS 1.4.5.1) to be our final Tempest OS release."

Can you please explain the business logic behind dedicating company resources and the "memory and processing ability" of the Tempest to adding features no one even requested? For example, I don't remember anyone asking for the compressor envelope or for the arpeggiator functionality, yet they appeared out of nowhere. Meanwhile, things written in the manual remained missing and other small bugs went unpolished.

I've gone out of my way to let you know that I love this instrument and I've shown that by doing what I could to help you. I think an explanation of the above decision is owed to your "loyal Tempest users".

[Yorgos Arabatzis]

Hi Stoss,
Can you please also post this to the complaint box (http://forum.davesmithinstruments.com/index.php/topic,1157.0.html) cause this is the bug report thread?
Thanks

Hi "The Dave".

In your first and only post ever on this forum, you said:

"Though some of you continue to request new features and offer useful suggestions for improvement, we’ve reached what we consider the limits of the instrument's available memory and processing ability. For these reasons, we consider this release (OS 1.4.5.1) to be our final Tempest OS release."

Can you please explain the business logic behind dedicating company resources and the "memory and processing ability" of the Tempest to adding features no one even requested? For example, I don't remember anyone asking for the compressor envelope or for the arpeggiator functionality, yet they appeared out of nowhere. Meanwhile, things written in the manual remained missing and other small bugs went unpolished.

I've gone out of my way to let you know that I love this instrument and I've shown that by doing what I could to help you. I think an explanation of the above decision is owed to your "loyal Tempest users".

[tigerstylin]

Hi Yorgoz,

You should stop being a forum Nazi for a company that refuses to follow through on what they promised customers. At this point, let people post what and where they want. DSI won't respond anyhow, so none of this matters.

There are many people unhappy with how this project went, as evidenced by the petition. Have you ever seen anything like that for an electronic instrument? Everybody coming here to say the Tempest is fine because they may not be experiencing something that happens to effect their use of the instrument is missing the point of all this, showing an unbelievable amount of disrespect to the people who have put in a ton of time over the last few years just to get a product with features in the original manual.

"This problem doesn't effect me, so everything is great!"

No.

[LucidSFX]

Then why post Tigerstylin?

[tigerstylin]

LucidSFX. 

I am not going to soften my words for you like John the Savage did.

Moderator edit: no personal attacks. Your opinion is no problem but personal attacks are not tolerated.

After all the time people wasted here, they have the right to say whatever they want.  Deleting threads, censoring people, and telling them where to post is just a further slap in the face for anyone trying to express legitimate frustration or at least create a bit of humor around a crappy situation.

[LucidSFX]

...totally ignorant post and incorrect understanding of John's or my response. This guy should be banned...

[tigerstylin]

As for the ban, I'm waiting for it.  (Taking us back to censorship)  "Oh my god he didn't use soft language.  Ban him!"

As for incorrect understanding of your and John's response, I don't even know which response you are trying to claim I don't understand.  I was one of the first members of the original Tempest forum and can guarantee you I have more of a comprehensive understanding of the history of this situation and John's continuous battle than you ever will. 

[Stoss]

Hi Stoss,
Can you please also post this to the complaint box (http://forum.davesmithinstruments.com/index.php/topic,1157.0.html) cause this is the bug report thread?
Thanks

Hi Yorgos.

I'm painfully aware of how a bug report thread works. If my thorough testing and bug reporting on this thread was not enough to show you that, then you could just truck on over to the old forum and remind yourself what kind of a contributor i've been to this effort.

I'd like to take a second to remind you that 4 years ago, I had no interest in talking with people on a forum. I contacted DSI support because I genuinely believed that my brand new Tempest was broken. Carson sent me to the forum to download the "beta" software, and ever since then I've never really had what I expected when I ordered my brand new Tempest online based on videos and reading the user manual. Here I am, still downloading betas, waiting for fixes.

My post was related to this thread in that it addresses the issue of bugs still remaining and seeking a better understanding of why those bugs were not fixed while features never requested were added even though they were not really related to making the Tempest a better performance oriented drum machine.

If you have an opinion you'd like to express that addresses your judgement of how my thoughts are related to a topic on this forum, please post it to the complaint box (http://forum.davesmithinstruments.com/index.php/topic,1157.0.html) cause this is the bug report thread... unless you're thinking by posting there it 1) becomes less relevant as it is not in proximity to what you feel is related and 2) it is immediately undermined because the topic is titled "complaint box".

Thanks

[idm]

As for the ban, I'm waiting for it.  (Taking us back to censorship)  "Oh my god he didn't use soft language.  Ban him!"

As for incorrect understanding of your and John's response, I don't even know which response you are trying to claim I don't understand.  I was one of the first members of the original Tempest forum and can guarantee you I have more of a comprehensive understanding of the history of this situation and John's continuous battle than you ever will.

You're just wasting people's time and polluting a once constructive topic. There's a complaint topic for a reason. You're not doing anybody any good with your egocentric replies.

[dsetto]

I believe our greatest group focus should be assessing what has been communicated to work, works.  ---
I wish all of us forumites, and the developers an easy, effective jog to the finish.

[dsetto]

Main OS 1.4.5.1
...
Fixed Bug: Sending SPP and Continue when playlist active causes wrong beat to play in playlist
Fixed Bug: Sending SPP and Continue with playlist off does not locate to correct measure in loaded beat

...

Thank you to John the Savage, Roger Linn, Chris and everyone else for you time in trying to fix and advance the Tempest OS.
...
I was happy to see any SPP bugs were supposedly fixed in the latest version. However, upon installing Tempest OS 1.4.5.1 my problems returned. Were as previously the Tempest would occasionally freeze, it now ocassionally hangs for a brief period before jumping ahead usually by 2 bars in advance of were it should be, or just jump ahead without hanging. ...

Sounds important.

[John the Savage]

hello!

i'm hesitant to post this in the 1.4.5.1 bug report thread firstly because maybe it's my fault, secondly because if it isn't my fault that's more depressing, all things considered lately!

the bug step by step:

1. i program a sound to have osc 3 set to key follow (e.g. a sub sine) but osc 4 set NOT to key follow (e.g. a kick transient).

2. all things are fine when i play the pads – osc 3 tracks and osc 4 stays at the set frequency.

3. all things appear fine when i play the part into the sequencer!

4. when the sequencer plays back the pattern, all the sudden osc 4 is tracking pitch! key follow is still unchecked in the oscillator window – it's just tracking automatically.

any thoughts or advice appreciated! for any pitched percussion sounds using the digital oscillators this is a nightmare.

i wish i could remember when i noticed this bug. somewhere between the update to key follow and the latest os.

thank you and all best!
nick

Hey godmodeinternet,

Okay, so I tested this using the most recent beta and several earlier incarnations, and it seems the 'Key Follow' functionality is indeed broken... Again (sigh).

I'm not sure when that happened to be honest.  I thought we had this issue fixed.  I failed to notice it during my more recent tests because I was only playing sounds live via the pads and didn't think to record a pass to the sequencer...

Anyway, thanks for finding and reporting this bug.  I've passed this along to Roger Linn; though I can't say whether DSI will choose to fix it or not.

Cheers!

thanks john!

relieved to hear i'm not crazy.

just in case anyone else needs this functionality, it's working in 1.4.2.1, graciously posted above, which is pretty stable for the most part.

getting this fixed along with properly synced LFOs and i'll be thrilled. i'm hopeful.

Thanks, that will save me going back through every iteration to determine that I'm not crazy (smirk)...

I knew it had been fixed at some point... Argh!

Cheers!

[RobH]

If I roll any drum that has event data it seems to trigger the sound twice cauusing phasing, its not desirable and really bad for live performance

Things that i think stop this are

a) not playing (i.e) just rolling while stopped)

b) I delete any events (I can play and roll without the unwanted trigger if i do this)

c) I assign a voice to the drum

It seems to happen to most of my drum sounds, sorry if this has been brought up, if there is a fix or workaround for this without me having to assign a voice pls let me know.

Also changing which voice i assign also very slightly changes my drum sound so i recalibrated my machine and V1 gives a really clean sound to a sample while no voice assigned and the other voices give a really small filter resonance or filtering to the sound, not sure whats going on there.

[RobH]

If I roll any drum that has event data it seems to trigger the sound twice cauusing phasing, its not desirable and really bad for live performance

Things that i think stop this are

a) I delete any events

b) I assign a voice to the drum

It seems to happen to most of my drum sounds, sorry if this has been brought up, if there is a fix or workaround for this without me having to assign a voice pls let me know.

Also changing which voice i assign also very slightly changes my drum sound so i recalibrated my machine and V1 gives a really clean sound to a sample while no voice assigned and the other voices give a really small filter resonance or filtering to the sound, not sure whats going on there.

[John the Savage]

If I roll any drum that has event data it seems to trigger the sound twice cauusing phasing, its not desirable and really bad for live performance

Things that i think stop this are

a) not playing (i.e) just rolling while stopped)

b) I delete any events (I can play and roll without the unwanted trigger if i do this)

c) I assign a voice to the drum

It seems to happen to most of my drum sounds, sorry if this has been brought up, if there is a fix or workaround for this without me having to assign a voice pls let me know.

Also changing which voice i assign also very slightly changes my drum sound so i recalibrated my machine and V1 gives a really clean sound to a sample while no voice assigned and the other voices give a really small filter resonance or filtering to the sound, not sure whats going on there.

Hi Rob,

I know what you mean, but I have to say that neither of these behaviors would be considered a "bug" per se.  Given that the Tempest is a polyphonic synth, and rolling a sound is really no different than triggering it manually, as long as there are voices available you would indeed get more than one incident of that sound in play.  There are, however, several ways you could remedy this issue:

a) assign the sound to a voice
b) set that pad to choke itself (*this method is the most likely to yield the results you're hoping to hear)
c) mute the pad sequence before you roll the sound
d) only use the roll between programmed hits
e) shorten the amp envelope decay for the sound in question to minimize overlap

As for your sounds changing slightly from one voice to the next, well... That's analog, Baby!  The same thing happens on an 808 and every analog poly ever made, and many would tell you "that's the charm of it" (wink).  The calibration routine is not perfect, so you could try running it again to see if that doesn't diminish the disparity between voices (*remember to unplug all your cables before calibrating).  Otherwise, if it's consistency that you want, all you can do is assign each sound to a voice.

Cheers!

[dsetto]

With 1.4.5.1, I am experiencing inconsistent instances of drift when syncing Tempest to my Pro Tools via USB.

I acknowledge the possibility of user error, although I have tried to mind the details. I hope it is user error. I am posting it here because I figure this is where important matters concerning 1.4.5.1 should be placed. And I want to get this communicated and debunked or corroborated asap. I am unaware if this is a long-standing, current and known issue. I looked over the entire Fixed Bug log, and latest outstanding issues list, and I’ve been keeping up to date with this forum off and on. I will provide details to be helpful. Sorry for the excess and non-pertinent info.

- The drift is not consistent. Some times it happens, some times it does not. It happens enough for me to be concerned. It’s inconsistency is puzzling.

- Abbreviations: PT=Pro Tools. T=Tempest.

SYSTEM:
    - Pro Tools 12.4 vanilla. Master.
    - Late 2011, 13” MacBook Pro. Mac OS 10.8.5.
    - Tempest, Main OS: 1.4.5.1. Slave.
    - Sync via USB.
    - 1 USB cable. Tried in both ports on the MacBook Pro. No USB hub. (Should I try a powered USB hub, in between Tempest & MBP?)
    - Digidesign 003, only for audio. It’s MIDI ports disabled.
    - Tempest settings:
        - MIDI Sys Ex: Source: none.
        - System: MIDI Clock. Clock Out: none.
        - System: MIDI Clock. Clock In: USB
        - System: BPM/swing/… Sources
            - 1. BPM Source: … The default was Project.
                - I tried Project, System, and Beat. But, mostly left this at Project.
- Tempos tried: 180 bpm, 220bpm, 240 bpm, 260 bpm.
- I established the delay from Pro Tools sending MIDI Beat Clock to Tempest to recording T via PT. (Measured the distance between the grid line and T’s click transient.) It was 203 samples. I set PT’s MIDI Beat Clock Offset to -203.
- This resulted in a tight synchronization between PT’s & T’s click. ….
- PT Hardware Buffer size at 256 samples.
- DIN MIDI port on T, empty.
- Used a Tempest Project that was created from an Initialized Project, in 1.4.5.1.
    - This project contains 10 two-bar Beats.
- Tempest in Beats Mode.
- Pads set to Beats.
- Beat Quantize off.
- T click on, mostly. Sometimes T click off.
- PT click on always. From stock click track. “Click 2”. It’s an audio file, I believe. I’ve tested that before, and this click is solid. 
- New, PT project. Only containing a click track and the small recordings for finding the Midi Beat Clock offset.

TEST:
- Set one of the tempos above; beginning with the slowest one (180).
- Began on measure 5. (To avoid timing issues I get when beginning on measure 1)
- Let PT play for a while.
- Sometimes, I simply listened to PT's & T's clicks for a while.
- Also, I would trigger (perform) the beats, in time to the click. So, it’s a “musical” test. And a FUN test!
- When there was no drift, the groove was tight. The 10 sequenced beats were in the pocket relative to both T’s click and PT’s click.
- No drifts occurred with tempos of: 240bpm, 220bpm, 180bpm
- Drifts occurred with tempos of: 280bpm, 220bpm, 260bpm
- After fresh “powering on” I observed both drifts, and non-drift passes.
- I had 2 “observation” sessions in the same day (today). Each within 45 minutes.
- For this test, I did not loop PT

RESULTS:
- Inconsistent. Sometimes there was drift. Sometimes there was no drift.
- Sometimes the drift became clear by 8 seconds (220bpm). Sometimes by the 2 minute mark (260bpm).
- Once, I went 6min30sec with no drift. (220bpm). This followed a fresh shutting of everything down, swapping the USB cable to the other USB port on MBP.
- But, was then followed by the drift @ 2 minutes (260bpm).
- It always began in sync. So, when there was drift, and I started at the beginning (measure 5), it was completely synced. Every single time.

NOTES:
- When there was no sync, it was wonderfully tight. And an amazing experience. An amazing experience to “perform/arrange” my previously sequenced 10 two-bar non-quantized Beats.

CONCERNS:
- The fact that it is inconsistent worries me because I don’t know how I can “prove” it.
- The ability to have Tempest reliably synced, without drifting to my DAW, Pro Tools, would be a wonderful thing. I am concerned this won’t come to pass.

REQUESTS:
- I would like suggestions on how to eliminate user-error from my attempt to sync T to PT.
- I am willing to consider work-arounds. Even other DAWs, and additional sync boxes.

DISCLAIMERS:
- My MBP 2011 is untested in every way. New to me. New OS install. New PT install. ... But, it's an Avid-supported computer, on a tried & true Mac OS, and a reliable PT version. 


Thank you for your time and help. It’s truly a wonderful instrument.

[John the Savage]

With 1.4.5.1, I am experiencing inconsistent instances of drift when syncing Tempest to my Pro Tools via USB.

- No drifts occurred with tempos of: 240bpm, 220bpm, 180bpm
- Drifts occurred with tempos of: 280bpm, 260bpm

RESULTS:
- Inconsistent. Sometimes there was drift. Sometimes there was no drift.
- Sometimes the drift became clear by the 2 minute mark (260bpm).
- Once, I went 6min30sec with no drift. (220bpm).
- But, was then followed by the drift @ 2 minutes (260bpm).

Thank you for your time and help. It’s truly a wonderful instrument.

Just a shot in the dark here, dsetto, but you do realize that the Tempest's sequencer has a max. tempo of 250bpm, right?

That said, I've personally never tried to slave it to faster tempos, so I can only speculate as to what the effects would be; but considering that you did not observe any drift below 240bpm, I think it's a reasonable deduction to say that you were simply over-speeding the sequencer.

Cheers!

[dsetto]

Was I speeding? Boy do I hope that's it. ... I did have drift with a 220bpm test.

My next tests will all be under the speed limit. Thank you. .. \\\

[RobH]

If I roll any drum that has event data it seems to trigger the sound twice cauusing phasing, its not desirable and really bad for live performance

Things that i think stop this are

a) not playing (i.e) just rolling while stopped)

b) I delete any events (I can play and roll without the unwanted trigger if i do this)

c) I assign a voice to the drum

It seems to happen to most of my drum sounds, sorry if this has been brought up, if there is a fix or workaround for this without me having to assign a voice pls let me know.

Also changing which voice i assign also very slightly changes my drum sound so i recalibrated my machine and V1 gives a really clean sound to a sample while no voice assigned and the other voices give a really small filter resonance or filtering to the sound, not sure whats going on there.

Hi Rob,

I know what you mean, but I have to say that neither of these behaviors would be considered a "bug" per se.  Given that the Tempest is a polyphonic synth, and rolling a sound is really no different than triggering it manually, as long as there are voices available you would indeed get more than one incident of that sound in play.  There are, however, several ways you could remedy this issue:

a) assign the sound to a voice
b) set that pad to choke itself (*this method is the most likely to yield the results you're hoping to hear)
c) mute the pad sequence before you roll the sound
d) only use the roll between programmed hits
e) shorten the amp envelope decay for the sound in question to minimize overlap

As for your sounds changing slightly from one voice to the next, well... That's analog, Baby!  The same thing happens on an 808 and every analog poly ever made, and many would tell you "that's the charm of it" (wink).  The calibration routine is not perfect, so you could try running it again to see if that doesn't diminish the disparity between voices (*remember to unplug all your cables before calibrating).  Otherwise, if it's consistency that you want, all you can do is assign each sound to a voice.

Cheers!

Oh shweet i can choke the pad i want to roll, yeah man that works for me!!! Thanks!!!

Yeah i guessed the slight variation in the voices was an analog thing but i wasn't 100% sure because after i calibrated 5 of the voices were identical lol where before the calibration they were all tiny bit different. I can most certainly live with the incredibly slight change to the sound!

Thats great actually i can roll to my hearts content playing live which is all i wanted to be able to do quite honestly!!!

Amazing thanks again most helpful to me once more you are the man!!!!