Introducing Tempera MINI

video upload by beetlecrab

"Tempera MINI is a new synthesizer from Beetlecrab.audio in a form factor so small, it defies reason."

Tempera MINI prototype devlog #1

video upload by beetlecrab

"First video of Tempera MINI proof of concept development"

via beetlecrab.audio

"At beetlecrab.audio, we have always been committed to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Tempera has seen an incredible response from musicians, sound designers, and experimental artists who have embraced its unique interface and deep sonic capabilities. However, one question has persisted: what is the absolute essence of Tempera?

This question led us down an ambitious path of innovation, culminating in our latest development—Tempera MINI. A radically compact version of our flagship granular synthesizer, Tempera MINI distills the essence of expressive polyphonic synthesis into a form factor so small, it defies reason.

Development Progress & Challenges

The development of Tempera MINI has been an exercise in extreme engineering. Our team faced several core challenges, including:

Interface Miniaturization – The original Tempera features a spacious multi-touch surface designed for expressive playability. Shrinking this down while compromising playability required rethinking the user interface entirely. Through meticulous touch calibration and adaptive gesture detection, we managed to preserve a highly playable surface area despite the drastic size reduction. Component Density – Packing almost none of Tempera’s synthesis engine into a fraction of the space posed significant electronic and thermal management challenges. After extensive board redesigns and custom component sourcing, we successfully achieved a form factor that maintains basically no functionality of the original Tempera—albeit at a radically compact scale.

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Introducing Beetlecrab.audio - Makers of Vector and Tempera

via Beetlecrab.audio

Dear friends,

as hot summer months are slowly passing by, our Prague workshop has been pretty busy working on all axes. Since there's now two products to care for, there's more things to do, more PCB wiring and more code to siphon through, but there's a silver lining in that when we're too deep in one thing and need some respite, there's always something to do on the other :)

We are Beetlecrab.audio

Another thing we're slowly dealing with is the inscrutable situation about our branding, which we have gotten ourselves into. Vector, VectorSynth Tempera, TemperaSynth Vector, Vectora Synth Temper. It's a mess. To get out of all this confusion we decided to adopt an umbrella for both existing and new upcoming projects: beetlecrab.audio. We couldn't quite figure out a suitable name but many of you started using this, so let's go with it. For now the website is a simple crossroad and will be improved over time. Both Vector and Tempera newsletters will be merged into one at some point, so if you're subscribed to both you may have received this email twice. Please ignore the other.

Now to the actual news. There's two parts here -- an update about how Tempera production is going, and announcement of the new Vector v2.9.1 firmware update. Let's start with -

Tempera Production Update

New upgrades

There's a few changes made to the hardware that we're comfortable sharing, now that they are verified. First, a great quality of life improvement: the TRS MIDI sockets are compatible both with Type A and Type B wiring ! This means that you don't have to worry and fiddle with unmarked adapters -- both types will work.

Next, we were still a bit unhappy with the powder coat finish of the metal case. It's difficult to get right: each attempt at different color and paint structure takes a lot of time to test and verify because at least a piece of metal needs to be painted and sent to us for examination, and it takes even longer because of course the metal case manufacturer doesn't have all the paints in stock, and sometimes they have to buy a whole bottle just to use a few drops. A sample palette exists but as we already learned with Vector, these give some idea but in the end look nothing like what you think on the actual metal, on the bends, crevices and so on.

Having said all that, I think we found and verified a finish that we're really happy with . It's less glossy and has a finer and more granular (hah) structure. It's very nice to the touch and I think looks much better. See for yourself, how the light interacts with the old vs new powder coat on top. Noticeable are also the beautifully laser etched graphics. (Tempera in old finish, plate on top in new finish. The light is angled in such a way to highlight the grain, the new finish is in fact even blacker than the old.)

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Beetlecrab Tempera Granular Ambient

video upload by r beny

Click CC at the bottom of the player for the subtitles.

"Hello, I hope you are taking care. This video is a performance centered around the Beetlecrab Tempera granular sampler/synthesizer. My intention was to create a long form piece of music using only the Tempera, outside of sequencing (as Tempera currently doesn’t have a note sequencer).

I’ve had the Tempera for a while now, but have only recently gotten around to really getting to know it well - learning its ins and outs, learning its boundaries and edges. When learning a new granular instrument, one of the first things I like to do is figure out the relationship between grain length/size and grain density/rate. Tempera is quite unique in that regard, as grain sizes can span the entire length of the buffer (~11s in this instance) - this allows for one to play back entire samples as-is (polyphonically as well), without being “granularized”. On the other end of the spectrum, Tempera also excels at creating grain clouds with an abundance of short grains all firing off at once. I make use of both of these techniques in this video.

Some patch notes:
Tempera is loaded with 8 different samples from various sound sources from my studio. Each sample is just a single note of the sound source, recorded directly to Tempera. Tempera has a note detection feature, so each note was recorded at slightly different notes (mostly either A or C).

From to left to right across the 8 cells, the samples are:
Mannequins Mangrove
Mutable Instruments Rings (patched to make a “harp” sound)
Mangrove with another timbre
Korg Z1 (with a “flute patch”, which I didn’t end up using in this video)
Rings (patched to make a “glockenspiel” sound)
Korg Z1 (with a “bassoon” patch)
Felt Instruments Blisko Cello (with a Sul Tasto patch with only a single string)
Novation Summit (with a pad patch)

In the video, I use the 4 granular emitters in conjunction with sequencing from the Squarp Hapax to sequence and play the various samples across the grid. Emitter 1 is set up to play just a single grain per note, with a grain length that matches the entire buffer. Emitters 2-4 are set up in various grain cloud formations.

The Tempera is running the latest beta firmware as of 6/24/25 (2.2.beta13, shoutout to the Discord).

This is a long one. Thanks for stopping by and sticking with."

Superbooth 2024: Trying out the TEMPERA from beetlecrab.audio

video upload by Tweeeeeak!

"Great fun with the Tempera. This one really impressed me, for the simplicity of creating complexity. :-D
It's also just basically beautiful!

00:00 Tempera 1
02:37 Tempera 2
04:10 Tempera 3
05:46 Tempera 4
06:08 Tempera 5
07:13 Tempera 6"

Tempera Explained // V2 Walkthrough & Demo

video upload by Starsky Carr

"The Beetlecrab Tempera Granular Synth just received its *V2.2 update*, and it’s a big one. In this video I take you through the new features, hidden tricks, workflow tweaks, sound-design improvements and performance enhancements that make Tempera one of the most expressive modern granular instruments around.

Whether you're already deep into granular synthesis or you're a hardware synth explorer looking for fresh inspiration, this walkthrough will help you get the very best out of the Tempera in its latest form.

I cover everything from the new modulation behaviours to improved grain controls, expanded performance capabilities, more responsive pads, UI refinements and creative techniques that make the Tempera feel faster, deeper and more musical. Plus: a load of practical audio demos so you can hear what’s really changed."

Also see:

Introducing: Tempera v2.1 -- Hardware granular synthesizer

TEMPERA Granular Instrument v2.0 Firmware

50 Tempera Custom Patches [Bank 1] by synth_nyc

You can find hi-res demos on https://synthnyc.com

Some info on the set via synth_nyc

"As with my Kaivo custom patches, this sound bank only uses Factory Samples.

The Tempera has several workflows. I’m focussing my sound bank on having the Tempera sound generated by an external keyboard (Emitters are configured in ’Toggle’ placement mode), and also on having tonal patches.

The way Beetlecrab Audio implements granular synthesis is very interesting IMHO, it really shines in generating controlled random sounds (!), I mean it creates easily a rhythm or pattern if you’d like in the patch, but with random changes. A bit like a random ARP would do on a chord. The result is very musical IMHO. If you add that this randomness can be placed in the stereo field (L/R or Center/Middle) with some Jitter (or not). And that you can scan tracks vertically (Y) and / or several tracks horizontally (X) - up to 8 with up to 4 Emitters; the possibilities are endless.

Many of my patches scan tracks vertically (Y) only as I found that already creates a great novel soundscape, but several patches scan several tracks horizontally as well (that’s the ones with a XY suffix in the Patch Name)

It would be possible to create some of this controlled randomness if you were to use Korg Wave Sequencing 2.0 and add some randomness to each Step using the Probability parameter, but you would not be able to go as far as the Tempera.

The most interesting results IMHO are with samples that present spectral changes (across time) or temporal changes (gap, etc…) across time and with a fixed pitch. Though I’ve used some samples that had pitch changes (the FX is also interesting) and no (clear) pitch.

Lastly, unlike my experience with other synthesis where I can hear in my head the sound result before adjusting a parameter, with Beetlecrab Audio implementation of Granular Synthesis, sometimes the result is unpredictable (at least to me) but often musical."

You can find them at: https://synthnyc.bandcamp.com/album/tempera-custom-patches-bank-1

temporal existence ... digitone & tempera ... ambient

video upload by substan

"A performance on the Elektron Digitone & beetlecrab.audio Tempera.
Apart from two field recordings, I only used Digitone samples on the Tempera.

Tempera into Digitone.
Recorded in one take.
Mastered in post.

As always ... the project file, canvas & music on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/substan
The great support from my patrons makes all of this possible ... thank you so much guys !!

Substan Bandcamp Page: https://substan.bandcamp.com"

the swarm ... tempera ... ambient

TEMPERA - An amazing granular-synth-sampler instrument by Beetlecrab Audio

video upload by CGMAGIK

"Finally making another video! I'm long overdue. It's been a busy year and I also moved, which was a huge amount of work. I live on a beautiful island now though, so well worth it :) Back in the Fall of 2024, as I was preparing to work on a new film project, an ad popped up in my news feed. I think on Facebook, or maybe Instagram . . . It was for this new granular sample based instrument called the 'TEMPERA' by Beetlecrab Audio. It didn't take long after reading a bit about it and watching a few videos that I felt that THIS was something I needed to get! Perfect for the film I was going to be working on. Part of what I was going to do with the project was to record a handful of real musicians (voice, bass clarinet, trumpet and guitar) and then further manipulate and make samples of the performances I recorded. The TEMPERA seemed like it would be a really great tool for some of that work, and it was! It is months later now, the film is finished and I felt that I should make a quick video showing some of these patches, or 'canvases' as they are called, that I made.

The TEMPERA is an amazing and inspiring instrument and I'm looking forward to working more with it.

The film I worked on is called #vanlife and you can read more about it here

https://www.screendaily.com/news/prod..."

Tempera Custom Canvas Jam

video upload by The Preposterist

"This is a short jam session using a custom canvas for the Tempera synth over a 160bpm beat"

And something completely different:

Tempera Fauna Canvas
video upload by The Preposterist

See the Beetlecrab.audio label directly below for additional posts and info on Tempera.

TEMPERA Creating a sampled guitar canvas

video upload by Vector

"It's easy to create a custom Tempera canvas by recording an instrument."

TEMPERA Scrubbing along and across samples with modwheel and aftertouch


Additional posts featuring TEMPERA

scattered light ... Beetlecrab Tempera ... (dark) ambient

video upload by substan

"What a great instrument Tempera is ... especially for ambient ... and it gets better and better. The next update (already available as a beta) will include the new Rake filter (comb filter), among many other things. Here is a first test run with it.

A performance on the Beetlecrab.audio Tempera
Recorded in one take.
Mastered in Ableton Live.

Tempera canvas and music are available for my patrons.
The great support from my patrons makes all of this possible ... thank you so much guys !!
/ substan"

The Granular Centerpiece of a Live Setup

video upload by Oscillator Sink

"I met the Beetlecrab Tempera in person at Superbooth this year and the sound (and blinking lights) had me smitten. After spending a number of weeks learning and using this extremely versatile granular instrument, I have landed upon the realization that it represents the missing piece for my live setup: part effect, part instrument, part looper, sitting at the centre of an ambient setup.

Transparency Notice:
The Tempura was provided to me by Beetlecrab Audio for the purposes of making content about it. Although I was not otherwise paid, I have been allowed to keep the instrument for myself. Beetlcrab have not been given, nor have they requested any editorial oversight to the content of this video.

00:00 What is Granular Synthesis?
01:19 Introducing Tempera
04:03 Tempera Architecture Overview
06:13 Emitter Parameters
13:15 Using Tempera as a Live Centerpiece
42:04 Final Thoughts"

beetlecrab audio Tempera: Ambient Jam

video upload by Freaky Tweaky

"即興演奏に適したポリフォニック・グラニュラー・シンセ – beetlecrab.audio / Tempera 解説 & レビュー by Yebisu303"

"Polyphonic granular synth for improvisation – beetlecrab.audio / Tempera Commentary & Review by Yebisu303"

painting with sound ... tempera & hapax ... ambient

video upload by substan

"After the Tempera received a ton of new features with the new 1.5 firmware (which is currently still in beta), it has developed into a fantastic playground for sound paintings in the few months of its life.

A performance on the new Beetlecrab.audio Tempera & Squarp instruments Hapax. Source Audio Ventris for reverb.

Recorded in one take into Ableton Live.
Mastered in post with a hybrid setup.

Canvas, project file and music are available for my patrons.
The great support from my patrons makes all of this possible ... thank you so much guys !!
https://www.patreon.com/substan

Substan Bandcamp Page: https://substan.bandcamp.com"

Tempera: A New Granular Instrument

video upload by Red Means Recording

"This video is sponsored by the makers of Tempera: http://playtempera.com
Tempera is a new granular instrument by the makers of the Vector Synth (https://www.vectorsynth.com/). It features 8 sample slots, each represented by a verticle column, that can be played back polyphonically, 4 granular emitters, envelopes, lfos, a filter, and a reverb.

I've been alpha-testing this unit and have made some content for it. Check it out in person at Superboooth 2023."

Introducing: Tempera v2.1 -- Hardware granular synthesizer

video upload by beetlecrab

"An introduction to the Tempera granular synthesizer with v2.1 firmware release introducing Live Grain FX processing, a new exciting filter and a lot of big and small improvements.

Tempera is a playful hardware instrument with a novel approach to manipulating sounds and a lot of processing oomph to back it up at over 4k simultaneously available grains, 16-voice polyphony, 10 per-voice modulators, a per-voice filter and a curated set of high quality onboard effects."

Superbooth 2023: Vector Instruments Tempera

video upload by Sound On Sound magazine

"Vector Instruments announce the Tempera granular synthesiser."

Vector Tempera

TEMPERA Granular Instrument v2.0 Firmware

video upload by beetlecrab

"After 3 months of seasoning and battering, the v2.0 TEMPERA firmware is ready to be wrapped and served.

Tempera is an electronic music instrument, a hardware granular synthesizer which allows for a full hands-on approach to sound design and live performance. Blend tones like paint on canvas with pristine audio processing in a compact, sturdy build.

https://www.playtempera.com/"

Beetlecrab audio Tempera – granular synth

video upload by MPTY

"I’ve recently added the Tempera to my setup, and it already feels like the extra spark I didn’t know I was missing. Tempera is an hardware granular synthesizer"

nexus ... tempera, vector & hapax ... ambient

video upload by substan

"Welcome Vector !! ... a whole cosmos of sound in one box.

A performance on the Beetlecrab.audio Tempera & Vector
Sequences by the Squarp Hapax.
Recorded in one take.
Mastered in post.

Tempera canvas, Vector patch and music are available for my patrons.

The great support from my patrons makes all of this possible ... thank you so much guys !! / substan

Substan Bandcamp Page: https://substan.bandcamp.com"