Recording - January 2017 - 24

...where we bring you follow-up articles
with application hints and upgrade news
about gear already reviewed in Recording

&
Novation Circuit 1.4
by Mike Metlay

We gave Novation's Circuit grid-based groove box a quick look in our
December 2015 Buyer's Guide, and were struck by how much fun it
was. With two powerful Synth Voices and four Drum Voices, multiple
Pattern sequencers, mixing and effects, all combined into an 8 x 4 gridbased box with plenty of real time control, Circuit packs a lot of power,
but users were limited in what they could do with the internal sounds.
What a difference a year makes! Now up to firmware version 1.4,
Circuit's capabilities have absolutely exploded. It's now one serious composition/performance platform, and for this issue on rhythms, we're
going to cover everything that's new in the Circuit world.

Components
Circuit Components is a cloud-based toolkit for your Circuit.
You create an account and access it on the Novation website;
from there, you can connect to your Circuit via USB and use
the My Circuit web interface to move, rename, save, upload,
and download new Sessions, Drum Samples, Synth Patches, or
everything at once (called a Pack). Packs can be saved locally
as MIDI SysEx archives (.syx files). You can change Samples
one at a time or load them in banks; this lets you customize the
Drum content on your Circuit with your own sounds.
Note that this is a librarian/backup system, not an editor;
you have to build your own Samples in other software and use
the Circuit itself to program Patterns and Sessions. But the fact
that this is even possible now is a huge step forward.

New features
Over the past year, firmware upgrades have added over a dozen
new features to Circuit. Step editing allows for fine control of timbre within a sequence, and Sample Flip lets you use all 64 onboard samples in a
single session if you wish, swapping them in and out of all four Drum
parts on the fly. It's easier to record automation of the Macro knobs and
clear your work if you make a mistake. You can switch Patterns instantly
rather than waiting until the end of the Pattern, and if you like
polyrhythms, you can now set up two different Pattern lengths for the
Drum parts. You can even color-code Sessions to find them quickly while
playing them back.
Other new features involve Circuit's connection to the outside world.
You can now control Circuit from external MIDI devices, not only to play
notes and turn the eight Macro knobs but also to select onboard patches.
Ableton Live integration via USB is improved, and you can easily control
whether your sync source is internal or external.

Isotonik Novation Circuit Editor
What about new Synth Patches? Novation has partnered
with software maker Isotonik to offer the Novation Circuit
Editor. This is a free standalone program written in Cycling '74
Max, or a Max For Live patcher available inside Ableton Live,
that gives you full access to the innards of the very powerful
Synth voices. Novation told us that these are based on the
Nova synthesizers, and now that we can see the virtual front
panel, we can believe it!
Aside from building, uploading, downloading, and storing
patch banks, you can create entirely new sounds and program
how the Macro Knobs control them. The Synth voices are actually quite powerful, and all tweaks done in the editor are
instantly reflected in the Circuit (and vice versa). Our test sessions were flawless and we were having an utter blast programming new sounds in minutes.

A whole new Circuit
Proper system sync and integration, cloud-based backup
and file organization, sample import made easy, and full
access to a very powerful pair of internal synth engines takes
Circuit to a whole new level of power. If you have a Circuit
already, you have to get into this right away, and if you don't,
now's a good time to take another look. Circuit is now a userconfigurable synth/sampler powerhouse that's punching well
above its weight.
Price: Circuit, $329.99; firmware upgrades,
Components, and Circuit Editor are all free
More from: Novation, www.novationmusic.com
24

RECORDING JANUARY 2017

http://www.novationmusic.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - January 2017