New Gear Review: Novation Circuit

The battery-powered, speaker-sporting, Novation Circuit.

Let me start by saying this: The Novation Circuit is fun. I didn’t even read the manual, and I was making music from scratch within minutes.

Over the years, I’ve owned and used plenty of the Roland drum machines and analog keys: The SH-101, TB-303, TR-606, TR-707, TR-808, and TR-909.

The Circuit reminds me of the way I made music with those, except it takes up way less space and costs a fraction of the price.

What Is It?

The Novation Circuit is a pad-based MIDI controller that has two synths, a drum machine, an internal speaker, and a AA battery compartment built right in.

There are a variety of sounds to choose from here:64 synth patches and 64 drum sounds that can be played live by hand, recorded to memory, or even programmed via a step sequencer.

Once you’ve created a few different drum patterns and synth lines, it’s easy to change between them on the fly. Or, you can set the Circuit to cycle through a selected group of patterns—up to 8 patterns for each synth or drum machine.

Features and Control

On the top row, you’ll find a set of soft knobs that perform different functions depending on which mode you’re in. In synth mode, for instance, these knobs affect the synth differently depending on the patch.

Sometimes the third knob will affect cutoff frequency, and other times it will affect filter attack, depending on the settings For this reason, it can be a little difficult to know exactly what you’re adjusting off the top of your head, but this becomes easier and more obvious as you get to know the patches.

The “Macro” knobs change drum sounds, effects levels, mixer levels, etc, and all knob movements can easily be recorded, even becoming part of the patterns you record to internal memory.

A view of the Circuit’s Macro knobs.

The Circuit has a lot of great features: The ability to set the key of the track, and to change it, painlessly, is great. This makes it much easier to create bass lines and melodies in key—perfect for everyone who did not attend Berklee. Transposing is also unbelievably simple: Simply press the “scale” button, and select the desired key. Both internal synths will adjust to the new key.

Another great feature is the size and construction. The Circuit is remarkably compact, but also sturdy. It can run on six AA batteries and has a small speaker on the back, so you can use it pretty much anywhere (Perfect for a 9am subway ride in NYC making beats and blasting them for all your fellow commuters to hear)

Novation Circuit also provides access to MIDI I/O through its USB port, as well as traditional MIDI I/O ports. (A special breakout cable is supplied). I was able to hook up the Circuit via MIDI to both ProTools and Ableton, and it seemed pretty happy to be locked to MIDI beat clock and follow the tempo from either DAW. I could, as one would expect, send the MIDI from the Circuit to other synths and drum machines to double up on the sounds. Painless.

Rear view of the Novation Circuit.

“Swing” quantization is implemented really well here, which is one of those things that’s only provided usefully on a handful of drum machines. Novation did a great job adding this feature to the Circuit, and the ability to “un-straighten” beats makes this feature much more interesting. With one touch of a button and the twist of a knob, and you can increase or decrease the amount of swing applied to the sequencer.

Several other great features that you’d normally expect only from a DAW or a much more complex drum machine include “nudge” (moving the notes of a pattern back or forward a 16th note); the ability to change pattern lengths; the ability to edit the “gate” of each note (making it either ring out or act as a short stab); and the ability to edit the velocity of each note.

To Be Critical

Amidst all these positives, there were a couple drawbacks, or at least aspects that I think could be improved.

One of the first issues was the filter knob. The global filter knob, affects the main output of the entire Circuit, acting as either a high pass or a low pass filter. The filter goes too far in either direction for my tastes, making the track virtually inaudible when the knob is fully turned.

I think it would be much more useful if the knob acted with less power and range, so that when sweeping the knob, one can make full use of its rotation, as opposed to just a half turn of useful range. Of course, this is just my opinion, and others may enjoy the more drastic control they have over the sound, and not mind making smaller and more controlled knob moves the rest of the time.

The Circuit in use.

I would have liked to see separate outputs—whether analog or digital—for the synths and drum machine as well. It would be helpful to have an easy way of recording each part individually. It is possible to record each instrument individually by soloing each part and then lining them up, but it would be great if Circuit could make this process more efficient, even if only on the digital side.

The final concern I had was with the personalization of the product. I would love to be able to edit and store the FX parameters, or be able to load my own samples into the drum section. It’d be great to have the option of reprogramming the MIDI to trigger Battery, or another program, where I can use the sounds I’ve created on my own.

That being said, the Novation Circuit has been a great product to use. It’s easy to learn, and exceptionally user-friendly. It’s the perfect instrument for someone who is new to creating electronic music. It gives you a large variety of sounds to choose from, and the ability to make music independently of other software and DAWs. I had a lot of fun with this box, and I look forward to some of the advancements I hope Novation will make with it.

Nic Hard is an audio engineer who has worked with Snarky Puppy, The Bravery, Joey Ramone, Jack Bruce, Tito Puente, Eagle Eye Cherry, Flava Flav, Jesse Malin and many more.

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