# And Even More Tempest Stuff... - Site: Analog Industries - Author: Chris Randall - Date: 2011-10-03 - URL: https://analogindustries.com/2011/10/and-even-more-tempest-stuff/ I'm trying to get as much use out of this thing as I can before it has to go back to its rightful owners, hence overlapping videos and blog posts. Anyhow, in this one, you can see me utilizing the "16 Mutes" mode of operation, in order to arrange the song on the fly. In this mode, you essentially sequence one whole pattern with everything going on that you might need, and turn the sounds on and off with the appropriate buttons. Also making an appearance in this one is the Beepcat/Beagleboard, which you can just make out sitting on the Juno 60. I'm controlling it with the Akai MPK as in the Beepcat video. It is doing the higher-pitched melody thing that comes in when I drop the foot out. The Euro-Rack modular is providing the bassline; it is a single TipTop oscillator running through a Harvestman Kuzminorgel in to a Harvestman Polivoks filter, plus some Doepfer stuff nobody gives a shit about. And last but not least, my trusty Meeblip is doing the wubs. Like the last few videos, recorded to and mixed from a TASCAM TSR-8 1/2" tape deck. MIDI sequencing done in Live. You know the drill. ## Comments (26) **krylenko** (2011-10-03): Off topic but since MIDI sequencing was mentioned and you all know stuff... I have very little time for music right now and what I do have, I want to use to write quickly. I'm still using Tracktion 2 and love it for audio, hate the fact that the MIDI looping (play and record) skips the first note. It's unusable. I miss the days of banging out loops on a drum machine and MMT-8 w/ solid loop recording and a simple workflow. I'd like something similar but in software, and I'd prefer it to be free. Limited features is fine, as long as it can handle basic loop recording and pattern chaining. Suggestions? **Chris Randall** (2011-10-03): I'm not personally aware of any modern MIDI sequencer that duplicates the MMT-8 or similar. I agree with you that was certainly a more fluid way to work, and perhaps it's what I've been pining for all this time as well. Anyone? -CR **huggie** (2011-10-03): It's not Movember yet bro... Great to see the Tempest in yet another performance mode. It really is a versatile unit... - Hugo **synthetic** (2011-10-04): Swag. Keep sneaking those Beepcat peeks. (Great name as always.) @krylenko isn't that how Abelton Live works? **MrMZ** (2011-10-04): @krylenko You know I was thinking that if you don't get distracted or in too deep with all the possibilities Live could tick most of the boxes for you MIDI-wise. You could set up a few rows of MIDI clips assign them to whatever and start firing away. Bonus is you miss out on the great Abelton-y audio quality. Worth a look. **studio nebula** (2011-10-04): Funny someone should mention the MMT-8. I've never actually used one but about a month ago I briefly considered trying to find one, just for the sake of a simple workflow. Maybe Jeff has some NOS units stashed in his closet? --Adam **utm** (2011-10-04): Been thinking about my old MMT-8 myself. Hard to believe how much has changed since then. That thing was so temperamental - but more stable than some of the sequencing software I used subsequently. Cool music, Chris. I've enjoyed your posts/tweets about Tempest as well as the Creagle. **boobs** (2011-10-04): nice vid CR. i like that groove. well proper, as they say in UK. re the MMT8 - hated it. it's good for recording loops and playing things into it but i found going in and editing to make corrections or liven up a drum part to be a total PITA.. or god forbid you want to write your drum arts in it... i think squarepusher did that for a while but i'm guessing he smoked an 1/8th every day. but it's the live performance sequencer of its day and beyond. soooo many people used them for years and years for live sets as well as in the studio. i just couldn't get there with it. **krylenko** (2011-10-04): Guess I should give Live another shot. Tried it a couple of years back and it never really gelled for me, but I have heard people say it can be fluid once you set it up. @boobs, I never found editing on the MMT-8 to be that difficult, but I never did much beyond "I like that performance, let's nudge one or two fast notes back a bit". I play most stuff live but I'm horrible at drums, so the MMT-8 was perfect b/c I could set up a loop and lay down one drum part at a time, erase on the fly if a take didn't work, then move on to the next track to try out a bass line or whatever. The mute buttons and simplicity of the OS made that really fast. Plus the mutes were awesome to quickly try out different arrangements and/or mix patterns live to disk. The basic functions of an MMT-8 wouldn't be all that hard to replicate, and I don't even need most of the editing features... maybe I should DIY it! **renderful** (2011-10-04): Awesome, always love the experiments, and the inclusion of the Meeblip and Beepcat! The MMT8 is a previously-unknown piece of gear to me. Was it a precursor to the method Live uses to pattern sequence? Who started the paradigm of starting the next sequence when this one is over, giving you the ability to queue changes in a quantized fashion? MPC-60? The DR-110 came out in 82? and has the quantized pattern change feature. Man, I need to figure out how to get my DR-110 to sync, and I'd love to get a breakout box to mod the drum sounds, and maybe multi-outs. Anyone got any info on this, it seems like the DR-110 modding scene has died. DR-110 = Reading the Tattoo manual made me buy it, I swear. **renderful** (2011-10-04): Looks like the MPC-60 and MMT-8 came out after teh DR-110, so I'm wrong on that. Someone had to quantize patterns. I love that feauture. @krylenko A Novation Launchpad and Ableton Live Launchpad Edition(comes with the Launchpad, limited to 8 tracks with limited instruments/effects) would probably get you pretty damn far. **Puzzlegob** (2011-10-04): Another great video, I like all the solo Tempest vids, but it's nice to see it used with other gear. My Eventide Timefactor, (which I see you have in this video) and Space arrived yesterday, and I got to give them a desent workout last night. Both of them are bloody lovely. **afreshcupofjoe** (2011-10-04): If you want an MMT-8, I say just buy one. They go for less than 50 bucks on the used market, even less if the keys don't work or the LCD is bad-- both which are easy to fix. It's an awesome device for live playback, kind of like an early hardware version of Ableton Live. Nothing beats it for that, but it's a PITA to do any serious recording or editing with. It has some wonky quirks and they never really got all the bugs out of it. Still plenty of people find it usable. I think Orbital still uses them as their main live sequencers. I still bring mine out and play with it now and then. **studio nebula** (2011-10-04): Hmm... I've never really considered using the Launchpad and Live just for MIDI sequencing. Might have to give that a try. I could even dig my E-mu Ultraproteus and Roland XV-5050 out of the closet to get that early-90s bunch-of-sequenced-MIDI-modules vibe going. Oh, damn--I sold my mixing desk. That's gonna be obstructive. @renderful: Building Tattoo (and writing the manual) made me want a DR-110, but I haven't scored one yet and CR won't part with his. --Adam **renderful** (2011-10-04): @studio nebulua, you'd need one more piece for sequencing. A pad or keyboard would work, but with something like a Python script and http://www.nativekontrol.com/LPC-Live.html you could do sequencing, pad/velocity triggering and use the default Live recording/playback mode of the Launchpad. There are other python/max4live scripts that will open the ability to sequence with the Launchpad. Renoise is also very good on Launchpad sequencing support. Boulder, Co reprazent! **Chris Randall** (2011-10-04): My DR-110 appears to have died, I'm sad to say. Easy to part with now, as it hasn't worked in a year. -CR **obscurerobot** (2011-10-04): Were you able to pull MIDI out of the Akai, or are you tying in to the pots directly? Tempest is definitely moving up in my gearlust list. That and maybe a soundplane. Regarding the MMT-8, it seems like a lot of excellent sequencing workflows are being lost to the sands of time. It would be cool to document how the best (and maybe worst) sequencers worked so that those reimplementing the sequencing wheel have something to look back at. Or not, maybe Chris' master plan is to create the ultimate DAW in which to host his plugins. **patchen** (2011-10-04): This is the most I've seen the MMT-8 mentioned in a loong time. I think I was still in high school the first time I had to take one apart to clean the contacts under the buttons. I used to play live sets with two of them synced for 16 tracks which was fun but I certainly don't miss having to stop mid set to load up the second half of my songs from a Datadisk. That part was not so fun. **patchen** (2011-10-04): Oh, and for my money an mpc is a good alternative to the MMT-8 workflow. When I got an mpc2000xl I sold the MMT-8's and never looked back. Great little sequencers even if you never want to sample a thing... You can use the pads as 16 track mutes or use them to trigger different sequences like triggering 'rows' in ableton (at least i think that's what they're called) probably not as versatile as what will be available in the Tempest, but then you can find a used mpc1000 for around $500 pretty easily **silent5** (2011-10-04): Seq-24 seems like it fits the MMT-8-ish software description. Plus the utilitarian interface recalls Cubase 2.0 on the Atari ST. It doesn't get more MIDI than that. http://www.filter24.org/seq24/ As a former MMT-8 user myself, I still consider Live + APC-40 to be the ultimate MMT-8. It's like having 5 MMT-8's at once, controlled by a single hideously ugly hardware interface. **krylenko** (2011-10-05): @studio nebula: I wondered the same thing... maybe bongo_x jumped ship when T3 came out. I remember hearing a lot of complaints about big bugs and the lack of upgrades/service then and it seemed like a lot of people switched to something else in disgust. That's one of the reasons I'm still using T2. **shamann** (2011-10-05): Tracktion is still available from Mackie, but I don't believe it has seen an update in a good three years. Not quite present or past tense, we'd likely need to invent a new tense to effectively describe its state. **bongo_x** (2011-10-05): -Adam- They haven't updated it in years (unless I missed something), and it's pretty buggy on the Mac. I don't know that they ever even had a totally stable ver. 3 release. Most people gave up on it many years ago, but they still have it on the Mackie site. I first bought it from the original developer and used it a lot for a couple of years, even though I have almost every DAW made. bb **bongo_x** (2011-10-05): I didn't see the other responses before I posted. I don't think T2 works on current Macs, and T3 is pretty iffy. It might be different on Windows. bb **krylenko** (2011-10-05): Tracktion on the Mac, glad I never had to try that out. T2 has been rock-solid for me on a succession of Windows machines... I never upgraded to T3 b/c of the aforementioned problems. It's a bit weird when I open T2 and see "compiled February 11, 2001" though, and I recently had to harangue Mackie to reset the lifetime limit on machine registration changes. @silent5: I've tried Seq24 a couple of times in the past and it never really clicked, but I looked at the "manual" again thanks to your post, and I'm going to give it another shot. **studio nebula** (2011-10-05): @renderful: Yeah, I need to take a good look at Numerology in its current form. It's grown a lot since version 1.0, I see. The direct support for Silent Way is a nice touch; I could definitely get some use out of that. --Adam