Novation // Circuit

How do you guys integrate Circuit with other Elektron machines? Today I played with one but I’m not sure how it would fit into my workflow.

MIDI Sync’d to my MD, doing its own thing with its own internal sequencer.
Audio output going into a mixer with all my other gear.

Mostly running polyphonic pads and such on Synth 1 and mono synth stuff on Synth 2.
Little sample based drum bits on the sample tracks, as my MD is nonUW.

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I too have mostly just been doing midi clock sync. The Circuit has extensive MIDI CC support, so it could be sequenced from any MIDI-sequencing-capable Elektron device (:elmd: :elmm: :elot:), but the Circuit’s onboard sequencers and some of the flexibility you have in playing them are good enough that you don’t really need to do this.

I use it a lot with Monomachine to add some drums when my Machinedrum is elsewhere, and to provide some additional / ‘prettier’ sounds or polyphonic sounds to complement the Monomachine.

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Another thing you can do with MD/MM/OT and Circuit, is use the MIDI CC# assignments on the Elektron midi tracks as a sort of hardware editor for the deeper parts of the Nova Synth.

Things like OSC tune, detune, Waveform select, Filter mode select, Filter Drive… etc. They’ve all got CC#s assigned.

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My fave thing with circuit are
Nice analog bass lines , nice 101 ish bass and portamento
Some nice old warp style Clanky synth noises
Changing between similar sounding sessions with different fx , you can get really nice long delay transitions
With the new instant session play , you can get nice short snippets cutting in and out too.

With sample flip , I got nice stuff from randomly hitting noises on each step , and changing all to very short lengths , a bit of short delay

I wish
I could also step sequence the effect type
Step sequence a synth preset
Keep sample name from when it was imported when uploading from circuit to editor
You could alter session colour on device
You could define sample and synth preset colours too , in editor and device
Alter colour / brightness on the step selection screen , keeping same colours is fine as it groups synth 1,2 and drums , but brightness might be useful for intro / main / fills

I’m wondering if
Sample selection on each drum track can be chosen via midi cc too, I suspect it’s inbuilt sequencer only

Overall , very good update unfortunately my controller only does cc’s and there’s some nice things via nrpn’s too.

It’s been possible via MIDI since before the 1.3 update. From the MIDI CC guide (drum control, channel 10): “drum 1 patch select: CC 8”, drum 2 is CC 18, drum 3 is CC 44, drum 4 is CC 50; all range 0-63.

so on an external sequencer i can trigger a different sample whenever i want by just sending values to each CC ?
i.e p-locking it from octatrack

will try this weekend.thanks.

Hey, that’s mine. :grinning:

I hadn’t quite finished the editor before selling my Circuit. The macro editor needs finishing. All that’s lacking in TBMS is ability to save patches to the flash memory of the machine, you can save patches on TBMS and recall later. You can also randomise selected parameters. Great app. Looks like i missed a great update…

Is there a way to modify the delay presets? The lack of a dotted quarter/half note delay is a little frustrating!

Nope. They are what they are, all sixteen of them.

Nice work.

Can you use the Circuit to trigger Analog Rytm tracks?

The problem with AR’s MIDI implementation is that the track triggers are on something like octave 0, that is, ridiculously low MIDI notes… I’m wondering if the Circuit is able to “hit” the right notes :slight_smile:

Yep. It can act as a keyboard, scales and all. Not sure about its absolute bottom, though. But it goes up and down over many many octaves.

I’m pretty sure the Circuit has the full MIDI range… at least it seems like it can go ridiculously low and high!

New video, btw:

Getting into making my own synth sounds using the editor. It’s a bit more limited than I first thought, but still quite deep. The wavetable sounds are very nice.
I love that I seem to come up with a new track for every synth sound I develop… I think I may end up with an EP of ambient IDM soon…

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Very nice work. A fine use of the reverbs you got going there.

Can’t find this info anywhere… Who’s got one?

[Moderator’s note: Apologies, @GAURA. I moved your post to the main topic for the Circuit without copying the question. GAURA is asking whether Circuit has an arpeggiator.]

The answer appears to be no.

There’s no arpeggiator, but there are some approximations in the LFO shapes. I haven’t played around with them to gauge whether or not they are actually useful for melodies, but they’re an interesting addition…

Meanwhile, here’s another video… I made a whole track using one synth channel:

It sounds as if you have more than 2 synth voices on the go at certain parts of that superman track. How have you managed that. Is it different per pattern part and the long note release is blending them altogether?

Not really. The bass and melody from the first section of the track are the two synth voices, and then the third melodic phrase that comes in later in the track is actually the factory cowbell sample, pitched up and down.
Also, there is a bit of harmony on one of the synth voices, just exploiting the 6 note polyphony…

In addition, the synth patches I’ve been developing have been pretty dynamic, mostly so I can get the most out of just one patch. See my most recent video for an extreme example :smiley:

I’m really enjoying this machine! It seems the more limitations a synth has, the more I’m compelled to exploit them.

Next step is to do the above 1-channel jam with a monophonic patch instead of poly :stuck_out_tongue:

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