Painting With Sound: Beetlecrab Audio’s Tempera

Created by the author in Bing AI image Creator. Public Domain.

Full disclosure: Beetlecrab Audio provided me with this instrument and several personal lessons on using it. They have no editorial influence on this review.

At work we’ve a sizeable pair of speakers. Imagine a small PA. People will put background music on during work sometimes. Recently I brought a new (to me) granular synthesizer over and plugged it in. There was a soft thud when I turned it on. I picked one of the preset patches and using the onboard virtual keyboard laid out some soft pads, tweaking the patch as I went.

The normal work chatter stopped. 

I found myself immersed in the sound, the spell only broken by a coworker asking, “Dude, what is that?”

I try not to overstate things. Many experiences can be great in the initial moment but bear less or no repetition. Much rarer are the moments where you get to experience something unique and inspiring: That is what using Beetlecrab Audio’s Tempera is: Akin to sitting in the room where someone turned bowing a string into a violin. Using the Tempera falls just short of those heartwarming viral video compilations where a person experiences sound or color for the first time.

We have arrived, now, at a central metaphor: Tempera, as in paint.

We’ll revisit this later, but it is important to note here.

TL;DR Do I need this?

If you are a music maker who plays in the electronic realm for the entertainment of yourself or others, the answer is unequivocally yes. For a tad over $700 you get three things: firstly, an incredibly dynamic and inspiring instrument that can do significantly more than what your more pricey gear can do; secondly, you get to join a community of creators – including the creators of the Tempera – who interact frequently on Discord in mutual support; thirdly, you get to access a library of contributions – we’ll get to the technical names and aspects of this later – of other users.

I’ve played guitar for over thirty years. My desert island instrument? This and a set of halfway decent headphones.

All sorted.

Cool, cool, Bryan, but what is it?

Tempera looks to the – mostly – discerning eye like it must be a groovebox, workstation or sequencer; it is many things, but none of those. Tempera is a sampler and granular synthesizer with an incredible level of user customization.

Let’s talk interface: The main panel is an eight by eight grid. Each column is called a track: Think of it as a single sample beginning at the top and progressing to the bottom. Each cell is a grain of that sample: a moment within the sample whose parameters are user-controlled. 

Across the top of the instrument are four knobs each with an associated display. Each knob represents what is called an emitter. Each emitter has the same potential properties. Place some emitters on the grid, play a note on a keyboard or midi controller – more on this in a bit – and the emitters become the voice of the instrument.

Here’s where it gets even cooler: You control, via various envelopes and LFOs, how each emitter behaves. Does it periodically trigger grains in its own track on the y-axis? Or in other tracks the y-axis? Or both? And how does it behave when it gets there?

This behavior is controlled by the user by applying one or more of ten available modulators per voice.

The result is carefully guided-near chaos. The behavior of the music is so buried beyond the listeners ken that it appears random, even when it isn’t.

Sounds pretty cool. What else does it do?

The effects section really speaks to me. I connected to electronic music through Acid House, so an artist tweaking filter settings giving the music development and motion is right in my wheelhouse.

The Tempera does not disappoint.

The filter contains five varieties – Low Pass 12 and 24, Band Pass 12, High Pass 12 and, my favorite, Formant – all tweakable and processed per voice. Each parameter of the filter can be the target of a modulator, as well.

Furthermore there are chorus, delay and reverb effects which are more than enough to satisfy me, and while I’ve never met a wet effect I could not find a place for, these are more than up to the task. Panning chorus, a powerful delay engine and a reverb that can be subtle or, frankly, cavernous. The dynamism is impressive.

Additionally, the instrument can be played without any other gear, as it is possible to overlay a keyboard onto the display. This was a feature I initially didn’t think I would like, but I’ve since become a big fan of. Many canvases which do not natively include the keyboard overlay natively find me adding it as the first step. While many of the overlays are user-defined to a particular key – here’s hoping they expand this so you can play in modes other than Ionian and Aeolian – there is a chromatic keyboard overlay as well. The user can even choose where to place the overlay.

Hold up. You said this was a sampler.

It is, friend. It has a mic and controls enough to sample and chop up sounds to turn into tracks. Once you have your eight tracks and four emitters programmed and placed, you have a canvas. Think of a canvas as a dynamic patch: This is a starting point for a performance but not necessarily a hard-and-fast determination of how the patch will sound.

Tempera.

Paint.

Canvas.

You begin to see, if you haven’t already, the central metaphor the creators are going for, yes?

This instrument is, ultimately, a user-defined combination of a blank canvas and – tempera – paints: The limits are endless.

BeetleCrab Audio have even opened a gallery where users can post and download canvases, which can then be loaded into the instrument via either USB or micro SD card. Furthermore, the instrument comes with a number of preset canvases which can be used as is or tweaked by the user.

The creators haven’t even found the limits of the instrument, it seems. Firmware upgrades have recently allowed users to change the color and hue of the emitters, which is cool for everyone but especially cool for those who are colorblind.

Conclusion

It’s hard to put into words – so check out the YouTube vid above – how cool and inspiring this instrument is. There is literally nothing I know that gives a person this kind or amount of creative control over sound so intuitively.

There is no menu diving, and what menus there are laid out simply and, as easy as each function can be to find and tweak, there are user-defined macros for instant navigation.

This ease of use, combined with the powerful modulation and effects and the possibilities of granular synthesis make this a game changer.

Like I said above: This is my desert island instrument (assuming the desert island in question had electricity).