Tempest - Midi - mute all sounds

[Boothwhite]

Hey all!

I'm not that familiar with Midi and am looking for some expert advice. What I want to do may or may not be possible with the gear I have, if it is, I cant figure it out. Im probabaly the first one to ever try and figure out how to accomplish this.

Im a drummer primarily, but I use the tempest as a percussive layer in my playing. Currently, I have the Tempest driving my Metronome via midi (which is always playing throughout the song) and I use a Boss line selector pedal to mute and unmute the tempest for dynamics. Because I am just muting and unmuting the sounds, I dont have to stress about re-starting a sequence in perfect time and can focus on other things in my performance. Its pretty fool proof as long as I stay in time with my metronome. This setup works for me, but I would rather mute and unmute sounds with an electronic drum pad than a guitar pedal.

There is a device made by Roland called the TMC-6 (trigger midi converter). This unit is designed to have electronic drum pads hooked into it and when the pads are hit, they are converted to midi data. I am trying to use the midi cc in the TMC to either mute all sounds on the tempest or pan hard right. I would prefer to mute, but panning is just a secondary option. If I can pan hard right on the main outputs, I only have the left going into my external mixer anyway, so it would essestially mute it everything. However I end up doing this, its crucial that the sequencer never stops running or else it would turn off my metronome. Also, I usually have many voices playing in a sequence.. so when I un-mute, its crucial that all these voices are turned back on as they originally were.

Ive tried a few different things with the midi setup on both units but its not doing anything. The tempest might not even be capeable of muting or hard panning. Who knows. I am totally open to other ideas on how to mute the tempest with a drum pad. Whatever gets the job done!

Thanks for all your help!

[Yorgos Arabatzis]

Sorry no extensive Midi implementation on the Tempest.
Tempest can only accept Midi CC messages on main MIDI channel as follows:
CC# 12 - Distortion
CC# 13 - Compression
CC# 19 - a value other than 0 reverts Beat FX params to defaults
CC# 20 - Beat FX All Osc Frequency
CC# 21 - Beat FX Feedback
CC# 22 - Beat FX Lowpass Filter Cutoff
CC# 23 - Beat FX Lowpass Filter Resonance
CC# 24 - Beat FX Lowpass Filter Audio Mod
CC# 25 - Beat FX Highpass Filter Cutoff
CC# 26 - Beat FX All Env Attack
CC# 27 - Beat FX All Env Decay

For muting all sounds you have to do it by hand by selecting one empty pad with no sequence and hitting the solo button.Pressing it again unmutes all sounds.

[Shanesplanet]

I feel your pain Booth. I was looking for a way to start/stop the tempest from my foot controller, without using realtime messages. Had to filter those out because of a setup issue with loopback. I then looked for a way to MUTE all sounds and figured I could just let the Tempest freerun as a clock that doesnt stop. I am having to resort to using a premuted beat spot on a pad that is the same tempo as the project. One could make a muted beat or just an empty beat, either way. I'll be running mine in beat mode when controlling externally. ALl i have to do is plan to be at the tempest every couple of songs, to unmute beats or to reload projects. If you find an easier method, that doesnt disrupt the last know beat tempo, let me know.

[Shanesplanet]

BAM, I have a workaround. I was going to use my midi relay (midi solutions) to allow me using the switch inputs on the Tempest for beat roll with the foot controller. Then it occurred to me... Use switch one at the table for beat roll, and use the relay into input 2 for remote play/stop capability. Tried and its working like a damn charm. It's too bad DSI didnt include this in the midi chain/circuit. However, this doesnt really help in your scenario of not worrying about starting in perfect time. The blank beat pad and setting BT quantatize at 1 bar may be your closest bet. Be sure to set pad control beats mode.

[onesnzeros]

what about a CC#22 filter cutoff message that went to 0, that would almost be like a mute?

[Shanesplanet]

what about a CC#22 filter cutoff message that went to 0, that would almost be like a mute?

I came up with same thought. It kinda works, but you can still hear some resonance or feedback when you do that. I'll give another try, perhaps cutting ALL the cc's to zero will work. Of course, then I'll have to switch beats back and forth, or recall where they all were. Thanks for the response.

[onesnzeros]

No probs. LOVE this forum, great bunch of scallywags.

You could also do the inverse with CC# 25.
The two filters being sent to the closed position might be enough?

It's crazy that users should have to be doing stuff like this.
For $3,000 I was expecting a tad more support. Like at least an EDITOR!!!?

Anyways... Good luck!!