The Year of the Drum Machine: Clavia Nord releasing a new drum machine?

Clavia Nord released this teaser image for NAMM coming up, which shows off a new piece of gear that looks alot like our friend Dave Smith's Tempest.  Could this be a lower cost drum machine?  Is Nord taking a stab at DSI?  More importantly, will it be a standard drum machine type, or some sort of machine playable with sticks, as one of their other images hints at?  I hope it's a standard drum machine-- not all of us can afford fancy Tempests, and Nord would certainly be cheaper if it were digital.

news/images via MATRIXSYNTH

Dave Smith Interview: We talk Tempest with a synth legend

As some of you may have noticed, I recently changed the header of the site to a certain familiar font-- that of Dave Smith Instrument's logo.  It's commemorating the release of the new Tempest, DSI's brand new analog/digital hybrid drum machine.  I'd been trying to score an interview with Dave for a couple months now, but he's been quite busy at work on his newest classic.  Finally, that interview is up today.

To call Dave an audio electronic engineer who owns is own company just doesn't quite cut it.  He's very much a legend in the world of synthesizers.  If you don't know why, you'd have to try hard to not find his influence.  Dave started Sequential Circuits back in the mid-70s, a music company.  They created the first programmable polyphonic synthesizer, the Prophet-5, in 1977.  Prophet-5s are still highly sought after today and is arguably the greatest synthesizer ever made.  In addition to that and other great products made by SCI, Dave helped create MIDI, the universal music standard we all use for our keyboards-- he even coined the term.  Sequential Circuits was eventually bought out and Dave had stints at other companies making digital products, only to return to his roots more recently with Dave Smith Instruments, who've also remade his classic Prophet-5 as the Prophet '08, in addition to other new classics like the Evolver and Mopho.

I can't help but feel lucky to get a chance to chat with such a legendary name in electronic music.  I sit here with my Mopho Keyboard and my Tetra just within reach, two of DSI's recent creations, which I love to play.  The Tempest marks a huge moment for many synthusiasts as it's a truly rare breed-- drum machines aren't as popular, let alone an analog and digital hybrid.  While I haven't tried a Tempest yet and there aren't many (if any) reviews out yet, early impressions say Dave has once again set the bar incredibly high for competitors with a new classic.  Check out what Dave has to say on Roger Linn and the Tempest below.

The DSI Tempest is almost here...

All you lovers of drum beats and Analog/ Digital combos can rejoice that the much sought after Dave Smith Instruments Tempest is almost here!

The release date of this soon to be legend has been clicked back a few times, but it looks as though we've just about made it-- I've most recently heard it should be just about ready in another week.  If you haven't heard about this thing, be prepared to be talking about it for the next twenty years-- this is just about as classic as it's going to get.  Dave Smith, who helped pioneer polyphony in synths and created the Prophet 5 and Pro One, teamed up with Roger Linn, who created the LinnDrum and other classic drum machines.  Mixing these two together is a recipe for awesome, as they're both incredible innovators in music technology.  Great drum machines seem to be dying down, and analog drum sounds are becoming even rarer, but the Tempest is going to change all that.  Not only does it feature analog oscillators and the warm Curtis filter found in the other DSI products, but it also includes 2 digital oscillators per voice as well.  Not only that, but it also has samples of Roger Linn's older drum machine creations.  This represents such an important step in music tech because of the beautiful marriage of analog and digital sounds, which compliment each other so nicely, as we could see in the DSI Evolver and PolyEvolver.  This is pretty much the perfect piece of equipment if you're looking for a high end drum machine of today-- but enough gushing, watch the video below.

Hopefully we'll see this thing shipping in another week or so-- I'm sure the last little bits are just tiny software issues ironing out and are worth the wait.  After this, who knows what's next for DSI?  They have synths in pretty much every price bracket... perhaps we'll see a keyboard version of Tetra, or something even grander...