Novation Circuit Rhythm and Circuit Tracks

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1605

On a side note, I didn’t know until pretty recently that you can actually pitch a sample 5 octaves down until like maybe 2 weeks ago. You need to be playing the Rhythm from a MIDI keyboard.

The Rhythm also aliases a little bit when you pitch something down about two octaves, which can be cool. Like this here:

I’ll probably roll off the high end when I actually do something with this but I think it’s neat. I think the lowest one is played like 3 octaves down from the original pitch of the sample.

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1606

:100: this is what I’m after in a sampler

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1607

bu.buu…buuut the Model Samples has Kits!!! :point_up_2:t6: :boom: :grin:

1608

The Rhythm uses more of an actual kit system than the Samples. One sample is assigned to each track and parameter changes will carry over between patterns and scenes. The Samples doesn’t really have a kit system in the same way. You can just load 6 samples all at once. But each pattern is still independent.

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1609

Ah man, this is absolute gold - thanks @Doug - I’ll try and put comments back to the key points here, also in case this is helpful to others.

I had no idea about the 5 octave thing. I saw the SoundGhost video where they say the Tracks is able to do -24 semitones, and the Rhythm -12 semitones. My maths is terrible, but it sounds like rather than -12 you can actually do -60. Do you need a full keyboard to do that? Interesting as I like to play with pitching vocals and keys samples down low.

On the sample locking, what threw me on the Tracks was that if you have pattern A & pattern B and you make changes to the parameters on pattern B, when you go back to pattern A the macro locks from patten B are still active. I did a bit of a search and found a clearlock technique (is that a word - I dunno?!) via Techtronix and his tutorials (Go to pattern A in Velocity/Gate etc > hit Record > Hold Note > Turn the macro(s) right to both lock pattern A back to its original parameters) I don’t know if that’s useful to anyone but it helped me out.

Thinking about how I use samples, a typical track will be one shot drums & synths (eg: a pad, bass) as foundation and this is well covered by the Tracks. Depending on the track then it’s a case of expanding the sound with little touches (some examples below). That could be another pad, a lead synth/sample, or a vocal, as well as little plucks/effects and also textures (either playing through in full or chopped up and loops - I’m open to both.) In terms of sample sources, I usually combine bought packs with stuff recorded off the web from films/songs I like. I do sometimes go hunting for my own sounds, but I do that less than the packs/recordings combo purely because of time. Recording in from the Tracks? I can imagine at least trying it, either sampling single notes or phrases from the synths, like a melody line or similar.

In terms of style, I’ve done the usual rabbit hole of videos to see what’s possible. For some folks, these jams are enough; but in my music I like to layer this stuff over/under the bare core of the song which is the drums/synths. This is the part I’d call the soundscape if you will (ignore the one shot drums on these):

Rhythm
The chords, vocals & textures from this - Ambience & texture from this
Samples:
Ambient soundscape - Ambient soundscapes - Looping soundscape

There are some similarities there in terms of they’re all soundscapes. But what it would come down to is whether the soundscapes being done on the Samples could be somewhat replicated on the Rhythm. If that’s the case I’d probably go Rhythm for all the workflow advantages you’ve outlined here. But if creating those kinds of soundscapes/effects is only achievable on the Samples, I’d probably prioritise that, although I very much appreciate your warnings about some of the frustrating aspects of the workflow. One to ponder on!

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1610

I was being facetious :slight_smile:

btw it’s still Model samples for life, but nice breakdown

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1611

If you’re just using the pitch knob then yeah, you can only tune your sample an octave up or down. So I can see why that’s led to some mistakes when people talk about the Rhythm’s pitch range. Also, if you’re using slice mode then you don’t have access to the keyboard. So in slice mode, you really do only have an octave in either direction to work with there.

But yeah, if you’re in keyboard mode, you can play the sample 3 octaves lower than the original pitch. From there you can still tune it down another octave for a total of 4. But you need to use a MIDI controller to actually play the full range.

As far as parameter locks go, if you scroll up in this thread a little bit I did a little video on parameter locking on the Rhythm. So if you want to do something like chop a sample when you’re in keyboard mode you can. It’s very easy. It works well. But it’s clunkier than it is on the Model: Samples or the Digitakt. But again, I really think it’s always worth pointing out that sample locks are a pain on the Model: Samples. And the Circuits have the best version of this with sample flip.

As for those examples, two of the ones with the Samples seem like they’d be pretty easy to reproduce on the Rhythm. The only one that struck me as something that might be a little tricky was the Raumskaya one because it has that free running loop.

You can approximate that on the Rhythm by using a pattern that’s about the same length as your loop since your pattern can be any number of steps you want. And you can change patterns around that loop. So it’s a little clunkier to set up and the longest your loop can be is 64 steps.

This is a little pet peeve of mine that would be a bigger deal for you. There’s no way to hold a note longer than 16 steps on the Rhythm. That means that the longest you can loop something is for 64 steps by slowing your pattern down to 1/4 speed. Hopefully Novation addresses this. But who knows if they will.

I think that you could get around that by sequencing that track with a MIDI track from your Tracks.

But yeah, as for the overall comparison, I think that if you don’t really care about sampling and resampling and you just want to load sounds from your computer then the Samples is a very good option. I didn’t mention it but if we’re talking about how these two compare then I should definitely add that Transfer on the Samples is a lot faster and more straightforward than Components is on the Rhythm.

And while sample locking is annoying on the Samples, it’s mainly because you have to navigate in and out of a bunch of folders. But the flip side of that is that you have access to all of the samples on your plus drive. On the Circuit there’s nothing you have to navigate because you only have access to what’s in your pack.

And another thing to consider is that the Model: Samples doesn’t just have more sample time per project. It can deal with longer samples. The only limit on the size of a sample is the size of the project. So if you want to load a single 11 minute sample, you can. On the Rhythm, a sample can only be 32 seconds long, whether you record it or send it from your computer.

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1612

Great stuff again Doug, thanks. I’ve watched your videos and I’m getting a stronger sense of the similarities between the Tracks & the Rhythm. I like the way you chop the sample in the note view - that actually looks like an interesting way to work! From what you’ve said here, the Rhythm will do most of what I’m after, but the one key selling point of the Samples is probably the LFO and how it handles longer samples.

Again in case this summary is useful to others, there’s a lot of knowledge here:

Rhythm:

  • Ideal for being next to a sound source
  • Record in // Resampling
  • More octaves
  • Keyboard & step view in one
  • Sample flip simplicity
  • No way to transfer samples between packs on the device (but possible via components)
  • Limited sample length

Samples:

  • Ideal for bringing a sample library
  • LFO for sound shaping
  • Fast pattern reload
  • Higher sequencer resolution
  • No sample length limit + infinite loop
  • More parameter locking options (eg: reverse on one step, loop on the next)
  • Menu/folder diving for sample locking
  • No trig preview

I’ve been having a play with a mini Rhythm by uploading a sample pack to the Tracks I already had with different lengths. At the moment the longest sample I have in there is nearly 20 seconds, and I used up all the available space on the pack with 59 samples. As you said, that 20 second sample did stretch a pattern into half time at a lower tempo (or that could be the lowest res at a higher tempo) but resolution is a bit less important with those longer samples.

I’ll see how i go on with this to feel out how the crossover might be, but thanks for your help - I really appreciate all the input :slight_smile:

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1613

Well, I’m selling my Circuits. They’re very funky and lovable, but they’re no good for finishing longer stuff, such as sets, live performances and such - or at least, not the kind of stuff I make.

To be fair to Novation, they never said the Circuits were intended for this, so it’s all good. Great kits. Just not what I’m looking for or need, in the end.

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1614

I feel you. I haven’t really been able to put together a little set of beats that i can play straight through like I can on my Digitakt. I think, for me, a few tweaks to the projects would probably do the trick.

For one, it’s cool that they’ll automatically tempo match each one. But I’d like to be able to jump from one project to another at their original tempos. I don’t mind the tempo match thing as default behavior though. Then again, even if this were an option, I think the fx tail might still be too extreme for this to work out the way I’d like it to. So who knows.

It would also be nice if there were a way to chain projects. It’s cool that you can use the projects to work out different parts of a song but it would be nice to be able to take that all the way and just chain them together.

On the flip side, I think that being able to jump from one project to another is cool but this feature doesn’t work out nearly as well in practice as it could. There’s a slight but very noticeable gap in the audio. It’s worse if you try to do this over MIDI. If this worked a little better then the Circuit would just be able to do something that is kind of a pain to set up on the Digitakt.

Same goes for scenes, it’s cool that you can chain them but direct jump would be great. I would imagine that this would be a lot smoother since it would just be a bunch of simultaneous pattern jumps rather than loading a whole new project. It also feels like something that should be entirely possible considering that jumping from one project to another is essentially a scene jump already.

But yeah, I’ve got a whole list of things. I think the Rhythm’s great. I’d love to own a Tracks if I could afford a new instrument. But they’re by no means perfect.

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1615

Tyre kicking here, one thing I wondered about the Rhythm specifically is why Novation kept the packs format so similar to the Tracks. Is it for compatibility between the two devices, is it a set philosophy of how packs work, or is it a technical limitation? For example, if the philosophy is set in stone and you have to keep all the limits on sample uploads (30 seconds if I recall?) could you not just increase the pack size 3-4 times? That would give users up to 15 minutes across 512 samples. That’s not only comparable with the M:Samples, but it’s also just an expansion of what it already does. From the outside it feels like that would unlock a lot of power that’s (maybe) pre-built into the system.

The Tracks execution of this with 64 one shots for drums and 128 synths is flawless from what I’ve experienced so far - mainly because it’s more than enough to create the basis of a bunch of tracks. But it feels like for samples, being able to move through different banks of sounds can be useful, and the packs format creates a relatively low ceiling on how many samples you can group. As it is (and as Doug has pointed out) that’s not to say it’s bad, but that decision makes it more suited to grabbing sounds on the go rather than pack building - which does work on the Tracks.

I wonder if extending the limit of the packs is the kind of thing that could be opened up in a firmware update, or if it’s hard wired into the machines at this point. The Tracks went from 1 minute to over 3 minutes of samples so there might be some extra power accessible in there somewhere?

1616

I’m going to guess that limiting the amount of samples to 128 is for MIDI and UI reasons. If you limit the available samples to 128 then you can choose them from an external device with a cc message. It also means that you can have 8 pages of 16 samples and the Rhythm can show you what page you’re on by lighting up the numbers for one of the 8 tracks.

I doubt that this is something that will change. And if I had any say in the matter, I wouldn’t change it. If it were changed and I could no longer choose samples on my Rhythm from my Digitakt, I’d probably sell my Rhythm.

I should also say that this limit has never been a big deal for me. I’m used to it. The Digitakt has the same limit. And you can get around it by doing things like using sample chains rather than just one shots. And that’s easier on the Rhythm since it has a slice mode.

With the sample time limits, your guess is as good as mine. The Rhythm takes longer to save samples than it probably should. But I’m not even sure what’s going on there since you can jump from the rec page back to a sequencer page and use the sample. You can also record a sample while another one is saving. But I don’t want to think about how long it would take to save a 2 of 3 minute sample.

The Rhythm also isn’t particularly well suited to deal with longer samples. There’s no display so you can’t zoom in for close editing. Though you do have course and fine editing of your start and end points. Really, the Digitakt and the Model: Samples aren’t either. But it’s nice to have that option. I’ve had a good old time making remixes of hip-hop tracks on my Digitakt. It would be cool to be able to do that on the Rhythm.

And more total sample time would be cool. I think the 3 minutes or so that it has is more than enough for the kind of music that I make. But on my Digitakt I don’t even think about sample time.

But really, the main sample management thing that I would like to see is importing and saving samples on the SD card. Direct streaming or recording the master to the SD card would be very cool too. But being able to import samples would go a long way for me. I would really prefer to have a folder with my favorite drum and bass samples and be able to just pull from that as I go instead of loading that stuff up on the pack before I know I’m going to use it. And the fact that it can’t do it feels like an oversight.

1617

We know that webmidi is not supported in ios browsers.

But regular midi is. In an app.

It would not be so hard to take the components ui and then wrap/encapsulate into an app and use a transformation layer to the midi api.

Then it would work with iphones and ipads.

Which would be really great for portability.

You could even include the nova engine synth in this app as 2 extra synths and pan them left and right to audio out so it goes into line in 1 and 2 in the circuit tracks. As it is mono. Midi in to the iphone to play it.

I would :heart: that.

(I dont have a computer or an android device so i am completely locked out of the synth engine)

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1618

I think I’ve got it now! I watched a couple of videos of other folks paging through the banks of samples. Now with the way it’s set up - I totally get how 128 fits seamlessly into the workflow and the x8 tracks across the pads; and so I also totally get why more would kinda ruin that.

I’ve had a bit of fun noodling on the Tracks and I managed to turn a texture sample (4 seconds) into a looping pattern and mess with the pitch manually. (This is limited with the blunt-ish tools of end point change & non-chromatic pitch.) But that was a lightbulb moment about how this could work on the Rhythm, especially when it comes to messing with atmospherics, looping and locking the steps; all of which would get a lot more out of short samples in support of the synth tracks on the Tracks - so that is a big potential learning on my side. I think now I’ve seen the possibilities this could be a heck of a lot of fun. I can also see how the way the two Circuits might work together would be pretty powerful so that’s absolutely on the table. But while I decide, I’m enjoying trying things out in the Tracks meantime.

I also heard multiple times that other Samples owners have just ended pushing towards a Digitakt once they saw the power of that machine, so I wouldn’t totally rule that out. I know that’s an unbalanced comparison vs the Rhythm (the DT is obviously quite advanced) but it’s something I’d look into - mainly because the DT brings stereo ins & overbridge into the frame, so you’d have 2x synth, 4x simple drum, 8 advanced sample tracks, all with the ability to perform whole songs into the DAW (thus eliminating the no audio over USB issue with the Circuits.) It’s a significant jump up, and it would be a bit ambitious (and possibly above my current skills - so perhaps I should stay in my lane for now!) but I’ll leave that there before I derail this one anymore!

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1619

I’m one of those people that went from the Samples to the Digitakt. I think that whether or not you would feel the need to make that jump depends on what you want out of it. If you don’t plan on sampling or resampling or if you don’t mind having to prep samples like you already do for the Tracks then I think the Samples might still suit you just fine.

But I would also say that I don’t think that the learning curve is a good reason to go with the Model: Samples over the Digitakt. The things that the Digitakt has that the Model: Samples doesn’t are mostly just basic synth things that you’re already familiar with like amp and filter envelopes. The whole point of the Models seems to me to be stripped down so that things are more or less knob per function.

The tricky stuff is the Elektron sequencer or getting used to the particulars of the LFO. And both the Samples and the Digitakt share all that.

I think that coming from the Tracks, the Rhythm would obviously be the easiest thing to learn. But I also don’t think it would be that big of a jump to go to an Elektron sequencer. The main differences that I notice are the way that the parameter locks work and trig conditions. The Circuits have probability but the Elektrons have a bunch of other stuff in there too. But you can still use the sequencer without knowing how any of that works.

That and the pattern system. They’re apples and oranges. But the Elektrons are more straightforward. The Circuits are the weird ones. So I don’t think you’ll find that part of it hard to use but you might miss things like direct pattern and project jumps.

I think that where the Digitakt is going to really shine over the Rhythm and the Model: Samples is actually the kind of thing you’re talking about. Taking a sample and making a little instrument out of it. Mainly because you’ll have an amp and filter envelope to work with. You’ll also have loop points. And all of that stuff can be modulated with 2 LFOs. And those parameters as well as the LFO parameters can be parameter locked.

There are also MIDI tracks on the Digitakt. Those can give you access to parameters on your Tracks that aren’t available from the machine.

It’s an interesting comparison though because there are things that I prefer about the Rhythm. For example, I think that the Digitakt has much more versatile filters but I find the Rhythm’s to be better at carving out the frequencies that I want in a sample.

Also, I find the Rhythm to be a lot better at getting a track started. It’s annoying that you only have access to what’s on your pack but at the same time that means that all your samples are just recorded to your pads and those pads correspond to your samples when you’re using the step sequencer. You don’t need to think about names or folders for samples so there’s less stopping you from just trying things out. There’s also a slice mode so it’s easy to just play around with a sample right away.

Another thing worth considering is this. If you want to tweak your samples live then the Elektrons have a little problem. Each pattern is independent. So tweaking the filter on pattern 1 has nothing to do with the filter settings that are saved on pattern 2. That can lead to value jumps when you change patterns. The Circuits obviously don’t have that problem.

I think that I’ll probably do a video about this comparison whenever I get back into making videos. I think it’s an interesting match up because they’re really different but they’re more similar to each other than something like an MPC or the new 404.

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1620

With the Rhythm, you can sample while the sequence is playing, useful

1621

You can do that on the Digitakt too. I think it’s more straightforward on the Rhythm though. Especially if you want to do something like put an empty slot into a sequence and then record into it. On the other hand, the Digitakt can resample from specific tracks in addition to the master. And that’s pretty useful.

1622

Yeah I don’t know the Digitakt

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1623

I go for the sample because of the pads :rofl:

1624

I go back and forth on this one. I do have some packs that I use, so that made me think the Samples & Tracks combo would be absolutely fine. On the other hand, I’d likely at least play around with with live/direct sampling if I had a machine that did it. Sometimes I’ll have a little lead line on a keyboard and sequencing that with vanilla MIDI is cool, but I like the idea of either chopping it up, reversing & repitching and just messing it up. The Rhythm sounds great here because I get the feeling from the Tracks workflow that it would be pretty quick & easy to start sampling.

Yeah this part is what made me look into it. I’ve seen so may folks doing really interesting things with the LFOs creating evolving sounds, ambiences and atmospheres, which is I guess where the “more than a drum machine” comments come from. I can imagine the Tracks running the basis of a song and then having something like this on the sampler machine. I notice this is doing the sample scanning which seems to be something that is often used for the “sample as synth” ambience pieces. That said; the Rhythm is probably a starting point I’d be comfortable with and (enabling common sense mode here) it might still be a great first step. I totally see the merit in the Rhythm as a first move into having a dedicated sampler; and then and making the move upwards if that works out.

This comment is where it gets interesting. I need to read up on this, as there is a lot of power in the Circuit’s that are locked away! I think what makes the Digitakt worth at least mulling over is the fact that it’s a one time buy (eg: no need to upgrade later.) Whether it’s the sound shaping features like LFOs, amp envelopes or just the technical stuff like capturing stereo ins via Overbridge (and Overbridge itself), these pros do start to add up. Anything that tempers some of the limitations of the Tracks (like no audio over USB) makes the Digitakt a really interesting option as the centrepiece of a small setup.

I had heard that in other places too, about the lack of shaping. I wonder, is this something that can be covered off by applying EQ after you’ve exported everything?

This one would be trial and error I think. I do play with the filters as patterns play on the Tracks, although it’s not like full DJ style modulation on most patterns. I do record a lot of the automation into the sequencer once I have tweaks that I’m happy with.

Yeah, I’ve heard some people say (rightly or wrongly) that the Digitakt is almost like a Circuit Rhythm Pro/Digitakt Lite, if you put the apples/oranges sequencer aside. Would love to see that video though!