Beetlecrab Tempera ... Canvas From Scratch ... 3 examples

video upload by substan

"This video shows 3 examples of my approach to creating a canvas for the Beetlecrab Tempera.

Here you can download the 3 canvases for free. Please note that I used a beta version (2.2 beta12) of the not yet officially released 2.2 firmware to create the canvases. You can get this beta firmware on the beetlecrab discord channel ... with 2.1 these canvases will not work properly !!!"

https://gallery.beetlecrab.audio/patc...
https://gallery.beetlecrab.audio/patc...
https://gallery.beetlecrab.audio/patc...

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.

CLICK FOR MORE »

eruption ... Vector, Tempera, Hapax & Digitakt II ... ambient, psychedelic D&B

video upload by substan

"Sometimes my dark(psy) past breaks its way into the present.

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

Vector patch & Tempra canvas are available for free on the beetlecrab gallery:
https://gallery.beetlecrab.audio/patc...
https://gallery.beetlecrab.audio/patc...

Digitakt II 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 !!
/ substan "

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"

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.)

CLICK FOR MORE »

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..."

how to make ambient with Tempera

video upload by substan

"In this video I show you some ways to work with tempera using my canvas 'substantials - neon sky' that I made for beetlecrab.

Here you can download the canvas for free: https://gallery.beetlecrab.audio/patc..."

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"

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

Beetlecrab Audio Tempera

video upload by Luca Longobardi

"Not just beautiful, though — the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me. What I’ve up till now, what I’m going to do — they know it all. Nothing gets past their watchful eyes. As I sit there under the shining night sky, again a violent fear takes hold of me. My heart’s pounding a mile a minute, and I can barely breathe. All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I’ve never given them more than a passing thought before. Not just the stars — how many other things haven’t I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about? (Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore)

P.s.
Did you know that with Tempera you could play the original sample while processing it with different emitters? I didn't, and it was a wonderful surprise to discover this amazing feature."

TEMPERA demo scrubbing through vocal and speech samples

video upload by beetlecrab

BeetleCrab TEMPERA // A New Approach to Granular Synthesis

video upload by loopop

TIMELINE:
0:00 Intro
1:55 Why it’s special
3:05 Emitter basics
4:15 Rhythmic trigs
4:50 Playing the grid
6:50 Track types
7:35 2-lane mode
8:10 Wavetables?
9:20 Multitimbrality
10:05 Hardware
12:35 I/O
13:20 Some specs
15:00 Track menu
16:00 Sampling
16:55 Editing samples
18:20 Emitter params
25:45 Overlay “keys”
26:55 Modulators
29:05 Effects
30:55 Settings
31:30 Load/save
32:30 Macros
34:00 Gallery & misc
34:30 Pros & cons
38:50 Factory sounds
51:35 More sounds!

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"

Beetlecrab Vector Desktop Synth

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this Vemia listing

Click the auction link on top when you get there for additional listings.

"Much enthused about by Benn Jordan amongst others. This takes vector synthesis off in a whole new direction. A tiny amount of test usage and therefore in as new condition. A future classic, almost certainly? This is a hugely powerful touch-screen vector synth with a lot more thrown in as well. In excellent one-owner scarcely used condition. Boxed, with whatever manual came with it. ***PLUS VAT in UK***. VEMIA can collect and pack: 6GBP."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Brooklyn Synth & Pedal Expo Returns to Brooklyn on October 5-6

"The Brooklyn Synth & Pedal Expo, a free for all interactive display of synthesizers and pedals of all kinds, will return to Brooklyn on the weekend of October 5th and 6th at Greenpoint's stylish warehouse venue 100 Sutton.

Hosted in a 6k sq ft warehouse in the heart of one of Brooklyn’s most musical neighborhoods located between Williamsburg and Queens, this year's event is expected to be attended by around 2k visitors. Pictures from last year's edition can be found here.

Eurorack Classes and GSG.live workshops
The schedule of the presentations will be also integrated by two Eurorack classes hosted by Ben Atchouel of the New York Modular Society and two workshops about online performances curated by the team at GSG.live.

Confirmed Vendors
Visitors will find a varied mix of companies, over 80, with a nice assortment of heavyweight synth and pedal brands and smaller boutique builders, including several Eurorack companies. Full list below.

CLICK FOR MORE »

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.

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

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."

Beetlecrab Audio Tempera and Strymon BigSky Mx

video upload by Luca Longobardi

"Dense grey skies, like today, envelop my world in a soft and mysterious embrace. In these moments, things around me seem to breathe more slowly, inviting reflection and calm.
It’s then that thoughts with a distant memory of serenity emerge."

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/"