Novation Circuit Tracks: Groovebox Sequencer With Synth Tracks, MIDI Tracks And Drum Tracks Electronic Music Making

Product Information

I do wonder, hmmm … if the Circuit Tracks midi tracks could work the actual synth tracks, then you’d have midi control and automation in separate lanes over the internal synths. The inputs feed their own channels in Circuit’s mixer so benefit from level and pan control as well as sends to the effects. But even these can’t match the flexibility and power of a good laptop with a DAW and a decent controller, something like Ableton Live with Push 2. The contents of this article are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, whether mechanical or electronic, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the Publishers.

The pads are quite nice and expressive, and after a while most of the control scheme becomes second nature. Rather than simply adding loose samples to the card and then importing them into the hardware – something that would be tricky, given Tracks’ lack of a screen – the card is used to hold and import complete Packs. Even better, there’s a pair of audio inputs so you can bring in the sound from these outboard synth sources.It is only recently that manufacturers have been able to create self contained DAW-like units that are portable. One thing of note is that I haven’t really looked at the SD Card format–I suspect that will come with time, and unlock a lot more variety off it without needing to use Components at all. There’s still no effective way to play samples in a pitched fashion, or any features for looping, stretching or slicing (unless you pre‑prepare samples in your DAW), so although I occasionally use them to trigger longer ambient samples, these tracks mainly lend themselves to being drum triggers.

While they do support pitch bending, it’s in a continuous fashion on the knob that makes it almost impossible to know which note you’re playing; let alone to know if it’s actually tuned. Possible, but not easy… and therein lies for me both the biggest strength and the biggest weakness of this. Delve into the synth engine with the redesigned synth editor to create distinctive sounds for your live electronic performances or engulfing ambient soundscapes in the studio.There is the ability to go off-grid with microtiming, and you can keep the music growing with probability and pattern mutate.

Circuit Tracks is crammed with other features such as advanced FX, including synths, drums, sidechain, master compressor, and incoming audio in reverb and delay. Two audio inputs let you bring all your sounds into Circuit Tracks to send to FX and mix alongside its internal sounds.Keep everything locked into your groove with the acclaimed step sequencer, or get off the grid with microtiming control, probability and pattern mutate, and more. With more practice, it seems it’s not far fetched to go from zero to a full track in a matter of hours. So if you don’t want to use any kind of computer, you can hook up another instrument, control it via MIDI and route incoming audio through its on-board reverb and delay effects. But it passes the “fun and in use” test fairly well, especially if one of your goals is to avoid getting distracted by the gazillion things you can do on a Mac or iPad. Components also features a real‑time synth editor, which I found works on USB‑connected computers and Android tablets (but not iOS devices) directly from Chrome.