Petition To Fix Tempest Drum Machine Bugs Gets Results

People are working on it   28-Apr-16

The Tempest drum machine was the result of a Dave Smith/Roger Linn collaboration  - I mean the guy who practically invented drum machines, together with a dedicated 6 voice drum synthesizer from Dave Smith, got to be a good call right? We reviewed it back in 2011, and loved the sound of thing, although we were a little concerned that some features were not yet implemented. Most of these have now been addressed with firmware upgrades, but for existing users, there are still some issues they would like solved.

An enterprising group of them have put together a petition over at Change.org (currently over 600 signatures) to ask Dave and Roger to resume working on the firmware. Smaller companies, generally do have limited resources and it seems the Tempest has not been receiving much love of late.

The petition is pretty specific and calls for the fixing of a list of issues (as outlined on the petition page).It seems like people power has yielded results!

We asked Roger Linn to comment on the matter and can reveal that resources are being allocated to address the ongoing firmware development.

We quote:

"To be honest, a big part of the problem is that I've been so busy with LinnStrument for the past couple of years that I haven't been giving Tempest the attention I should have as designer, and I think that is reflected in problems in the last Tempest update. So I owe Tempest owners an apology. Dave and his guys were already working on a new update, but with the kind assistance of one of the writers of the petition, I've stepped back in to help insure that the next update does what it needs to. I'd love to give you a release date for this update but there are still too many unanswered questions. So the best I can say now is that we're working hard on it and this is very important to me personally.

Great news for Tempest owners past, present and future.

• RogerLinnDesign.com
• Our 2009 Tempest Review
• Tempest petition at Change.org