User Manual
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, lters, 
VCA, envelopes, LFOs, and more. If the 
16 SoundS 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 le for later reloading into another Beat.
A Beat is a collection of all settings needed to produce a drumbeat—a note 
sequence up to eight 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 BeatS 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 le for later reloading 
into another project.
Tempest allows you to record up to 128 sixteenth notes (8 bars in 4/4 time).
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. 
Tempest includes 928 factory Sounds, 64 Beats, and 16 Projects.
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 
14 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 57. It 
is extremely important and could save you a lot of grief!










