Some gear seems unassuming until the moment you lay a finger on it. While attractive to the eye even without its power on, Beetlecrab Audio’s Tempera is one of those devices. Encased in a small but sturdy metal enclosure that is about the size of an average paperback novel, but somehow extremely light given all its components, the Tempera defies expectations before it’s even turned on for the first time.
But machines aren’t paperweights, and thus the true magic happens the moment you turn on the device for the first time, and its multi-colored grid Lichter up like the New York skyline. Touch any upper square while touching the overlay keyboard on the bottom of its 8×8 grid, and a burst of sound—called a grain—flares to life, ready to stretch, shimmer, or shatter depending on how you move.
With gorgeous multi colored “emitters” lighting up under your touch (blue, pink, yellow, and green), the sensations feel akin to scrubbing through a tape deck, a description that Beetlecrab Audio even uses themselves when discussing its features. Slide up and you can change even the most sterile of samples into an airy pad. Drag sideways and you’ll spray samples across the grid, combining them with other loaded samples to create sounds you’d never expect. Named after old paint, calling this product “Tempera” feels appropriate, as the sensation feels more like finger-painting with audio than performing on some kind of synthesizer.
The four color-coded emitters wait patiently on this grid, hungry for anything you feed them—vocals, drum loops, vinyl dust, recorded samples, anything. Load a file, drop an emitter, tweak parameters via the knobs and menus up top, and you’re well on your way to something beautiful.
Let’s take a deeper dive into what makes this device so irresistible.
The Science and Synthesis Behind The Tempera
Granular synthesis isn’t new, and there are presently many different ways to accomplish this type of sound, either via plugins, keyboard synths, or other devices. However, rather than try to chase tech that has been done plenty of times before, Tempera flips the script by making the grains something you can “touch” and control on the most minute of levels. Its tactile workflow means you lead with your fingertips and curiosity, and this approach makes Tempera perfect for sampling spontaneous moments: capturing birds while hiking, sampling a guitar riff mid-jam, or mangling a live audio feed via its “live grains” feature.
No matter what you feed into this thing, it’ll always spit out something fun and different compared to its input, and it’s this kind of experimentation that makes you want to keep at it, sometimes for hours on end.
Sound & Feel
Texture Range — Tempera handles extremes. One moment, you can tweak sounds into buttery pads that ebb like a tide; the next, chop a short snare into something resembling insect clicks. Its engine keeps even heavy pitching clean, so even your craziest ideas stay hi-fi and unmuddied while glitch beats hit hard. It’s meant to encourage manipulation of live sounds, and as such, it’s fantastic that Beetlecrab designed this to handle even the most chaotic of experiments without a degradation in sound quality.
Hands-On Expression — Each colored emitter reacts to the settings dialed in via that corresponding emitter’s color knob. Want to change how the blue emitters react, or what sample is loaded for that color? Using a combination of the the two context buttons underneath each LCD screen and the colored knobs, you can browse through a variety of menus, with the context buttons changing depending on which menu you are in. You can even use the buttons on the right side of the grid to alter everything from the envelopes, effects, notes and voices, macros, settings, and more.
Once you get your fingers on the glass grid, the slightly raised texture of each square feels comfortable under your fingertips, never feeling too coarse or uncomfortable as you paint ideas to your heart’s desire.
Effects Flavoring — Chorus widens without cheesy haze. Delay syncs to tap tempo or MIDI; reverb adds dreamy tails that keep detail intact. Truthfully, this device is a dream for anyone wanting to make ambient soundscapes.
Tracks & Sampling: The Audio Canvas
Each Tempera canvas holds eight stereo tracks, roughly eleven seconds each. That cap will force you to curate: instead of loading a whole three-minute guitar in and creating a horrible sounding mess, you focus on a short fun clip, and edit it to fit once it’s uploaded onto the device. Loading samples feels refreshingly early 00’s: plug USB, copy WAV/FLAC/AIFF/OGG, eject. Trim silence, normalize peaks, even reverse audio right on the device—no computer round-trip.
Two Tuning Modes
- Hz Mode – pitched samples track your keyboard. Drop a C3 synth stab, set base frequency, and stay in key.
- BPM Mode – loops lock to tempo. Import a 92 BPM break, set base tempo, and the grains will groove even when the clock shifts.
Emitters: The Personality Behind Tempera
As mentioned before, the grid’s charm lies in emitters—animated little squares that fire grains and create gorgeous textures. Each has its color, so you always know what you’re triggering. In addition to these emitters, Tempera gives you solid hands-on control over exactly what each emitter can sound like and perform. Below are just a few settings you can unlock:
- Grain Length – from razor blips (4 ms) to lush phrases (400 ms).
- Density – sparse rain or torrential cloud.
- Spray X/Y – random drift across the sample.
- Octave – instant ±3-oct shifts.
- Tone Filter – quick band-pass sculpt.
Macros: Performance Sweeteners
Macro slots put key moves under one button. You can bind filter cutoff, delay send, engine volumes, and grain length for dramatic drops and rises. Hold Macros, twist a control, assign—it’s ready next time you load the canvas.
Speaking Of, What Is A Canvas?
Leaning into its name (itself a tribute to a certain type of old paint), a Canvas is, in the simplest terms, a project file for Tempera. Within said canvases lie all the samples you’ve loaded, the effects, parameters, basically every single thing you’ve done within a saved project. These canvases can be saved for later, reopened (with everything exactly the way you left it), and even better, shared with the community.
Want to share your awesome creations with someone else, or collaborate with a fellow Tempera owner on a project? Simply upload it online to the Gallery, and the world will have access to it, to load, play, and create. Not only will the samples you loaded be in the canvas, but you can download other projects via the Gallery, and unlock possibilities you may have never encountered on your playthrough.
In short, this focus on community collaboration allows Tempera to never stop surprising.
Sampling in Real Life
It’s easy to think of different ways to use Tempera to reinvent sounds you hear every day. Take a recorder to the park, record pigeons flapping and children laughing, and then watch as the sounds warp into something completely brand new. Live-Grains mode is the real showstopper: feed guitar into the input, arm a track, and grains spawn in sync as you play.
Recording Modes at a Glance
| Modus | When to Use It |
|---|---|
| Replace | Retake a track from scratch. |
| Overdub | Layer new ideas over old. |
| Mix | Fade old content while adding new. |
| Live Grains | Granularize incoming audio in real time. |
Overlay Keyboard: Built-In Melodies
Need quick notes without a controller? The overlay keyboard handles this just fine. Sure, it steals a slice of the grid, but it’s handy for how it supports multiple scales, and how it allows you to control the musicality of samples you’ve stretched out across the grid.
Rig Integration
- USB-B for MIDI and storage.
- USB-A for controllers and flash drives.
- TRS MIDI In/Out (Type A or B).
- Stereo In/Out jacks handle line and instrument levels.
The 8 GB internal flash holds hundreds of canvases; micro-SD or USB flash expand it. SD Bridge mode mounts the card to your computer for drag-and-drop housekeeping.
Caveats & Tips
Now, here are the only downsides I could see on what is otherwise a highly capable device. Despite its incredibly small size, the portability of the device is somewhat limited due to the lack of an onboard rechargeable battery. Tempera will only power on via 12V DC power, meaning it must be connected to a wall outlet to power on. While I am sure there are likely some creative workarounds to this that people within Beetlecrab’s bustling Discord community have already figured out, this is something to consider.
In the theoretical “sampling in the park” scenario I mentioned earlier, without any power workarounds, you’d need to record said samples externally, load them up to the device in your studio, instead of using the live grains to experiment right there. If Beetlecrab can find out a way to provide this battery power aftermarket, perhaps even as an accessory on their website, it would open the possibilities for this device tenfold.
Additionally, while I was blessed to have a wonderful walkthrough tutorial from one of the creators of this device, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there is indeed a decent learning curve to truly get everything out of this device. There’s a lot in this tiny little box, but let’s be clear: it is worth the time it takes to learn it inside and out. The more you study, practice, and learn, the more the experimental personality of this device shines through, rewarding you for everything you put into it.
Price & Perspective
At roughly $740 USD, Tempera costs more than some more entry-level granular synths but less than the GR-1. However, with its unique approach to triggering and painting sounds, if you crave hands-on exploration and live play, Tempera earns its keep. Plus, every single firmware release so far has widely opened up the possibilities of this little device, something that the developers plan to continue, as they listen to feedback from their Discord community and work hard to implement some of the most widely requested features.
Who Gets the Most From Beetlecrab Audio’s Tempera?
- Ambient composers chasing evolving pads.
- Film scorers who need unique soundscapes.
- Electronic producers who love live resampling.
- Performers wanting laptop-free granular magic.
Final Vibe Check
I’ll be the first to say that when it comes to picking out new music hardware to add to my collection, I rarely ever focus on the technical side of things, or how it looks on paper. I’m aware that for some, specs can be the make or break, but when it comes to adding hardware, I go purely based on vibe and how it sounds.
Which is why it makes it so easy for me to recommend Beetlecrab’s Tempera, for how perfectly it appeals to the vibe chasers like myself, but also those who value truly great and experimental tech under the hood. Tempera is such a fun little device for how it can essentially take everyday noise and turn it into vibrant musical moments without breaking your creative flow. And even sampled bits from your favorite songs can become musical in fun new ways thanks to this remarkable device.
If tactile sound discovery excites you, Tempera is highly worth it. And truthfully, without copy and pasting from the manual, it’s difficult to truly put in a small and easily readable review, everything this is capable of doing. This isn’t a play for a week, exhaust everything it does, and then leave it on the shelf to collect dust kind of device. This is a device that will still keep you feeling creative, months after first powering it on, as it has with me. It punches above it’s tiny size, and in short, proves why sometimes the best gadgets come from the smallest teams.
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