Dave Smith Instruments TEMPEST - Manual (Page 13)

3 Tempest Operation Manual Quick Start
Sounds, Beats, and Projects
There are three terms that are important to know:
A Sound is a collection of all settings required to produce a drum or other type
of sound when you play a pad, including settings for samples, oscillators, filters,
VCA, envelopes, LFOs, and more. If the 16 S
oundS
key is pressed, you can use
the sixteen pads to play the Sound in the selected Beat. After you create a Sound,
you can save it as a Sound file for later reloading into another Beat.
A Beat is a collection of all settings needed to produce a drumbeat—a note
sequence up to four measures of 4/4 time, thirty-two Sounds (sixteen in pad bank
A and sixteen in pad bank B), mixer settings, effect settings, and more. Tempest
holds sixteen beats in memory at one time. If the 16 B
eatS
key is pressed, you
can use the sixteen pads to play the sixteen Beats that are loaded in memory.
After you create a Beat, you can save it as a Beat file for later reloading into
another project.
A Project is a collection of nearly everything in memory: all sixteen Beats (each
containing its own thirty-two Sounds), four Play Lists, and various project-related
settings including the playing tempo.
Going Deeper
There is important information throughout the manual, but pay particular atten-
tion to “The Pad Function Keys” on page 4 to gain a greater understanding
of Tempest’s pad modes and how to use them, and “The Screens Keys” on page
12 to learn how to access and interact with the various types of data on the
graphic display. It is highly recommended to read “Save/Load” on page 51. It
is extremely important and could save you a lot of grief!