Novation Circuit - Mainframe

Payton Carter

"Time to get back to to the Circuit! My Deluge arrives in a week, so I have to get all my unfinished projects recorded before I abandon the Circuit forever. hahaha, jkjkjk. I'll love the Circuit for the rest of my life.

All audio coming from the Circuit, minor post processing with Ozone Elements 9. Filmed on an Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mk2, Canon FD 50mm f1.8."

Novation Circuit - Firewall

Payton Carter

"This jam had some weird issue where the pad synth track was limited to 4 notes of polyphony instead of the usual 6, but only in certain patterns. If you programmed 6, notes would drop out randomly. It didn't happen until I went to record the track, which bummed me out a little. I wasn't able to resolve the problem, so if it seems like some notes are missing, that's why."

Elektron Digitakt - Expectations (a sleepytime jam)

Published on Apr 28, 2020 Payton Carter

"I've had a difficult time lately with creative slumps and what I perceive to be musical failures. Sometimes I'll look back on my older tracks and think I haven't made anything I like in months. I've gone through buying and selling some gear with the expectation that once I get [piece of gear], it will be all I need, and then I can start making real music. In the last year, I've bought and subsequently sold a MicroFreak, OP-Z, iPad, Model D, and DeepMind; the Circuit (my first hardware) is the only one I've kept. Obviously, it's not the gear.

I'm sure many of you are like me in that there are hundreds of unfinished tracks sitting on your hard drive. Especially lately, I feel like nothing I've made meets the imaginary expectations I set for a good track. The chord progression is weak, I can't find the right bass sound, there's not enough movement or tension... I end up abandoning the project, and the only thing I gain is a little more frustration. Making music hasn't really been enjoyable lately, which makes me really sad.

Yesterday I decided I need to step back and just finish a new song, with the understanding that it doesn't need to be the greatest thing in the world. I started on this track and tried to just push through, ignoring second guesses and distractions. I've always admired Will Wiesenfeld's work as Geotic, because his music just radiates emotion. It's joyful, it's heartbreaking, it's nostalgic—not afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve. I tried to capture a similar kind of feeling in this song. It's simple and not the most interesting track in the world, but it fills me with optimism. Whatever you create, it is good enough.

On another note, the lack of stereo sampling on the Digitakt is really bumming me out more than I thought it would."

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Some notes on that here: https://www.elektronauts.com/t/your-stereo-samples-on-the-digitakt/40089

No Chance - a synthpop jam on the OP-Z

Published on Mar 21, 2020 Payton Carter

"I've been stuck in the house all week, so I needed to make something a little upbeat today. Here's a happy synthpop jam on the Teenage Engineering OP-Z. The arpeggio track doesn't have an LFO, so I pretty much just noodle with the filter cutoff the entire time. Hope you enjoy!"

Epsilon - Minimal techno on the Teenage Engineering OP-Z

Published on Mar 21, 2020 Payton Carter

"Check out my music here - https://paytoncarter.bandcamp.com/

Not much to say on this one. Wanted to do some kind of minimal techno type thing (is this even techno? I don't know, I'm so bad with my electronic genres), and this is where I ended up. I think I'm gonna use the "Cluster" sound engine on every single one of my tracks because it's just so dreamy."

Unstoppable - a Krautrock inspired jam on the OP-Z

Published on Mar 19, 2020 Payton Carter

"Check out my music here - https://paytoncarter.bandcamp.com/

I started this jam trying to make something in the vein of Tangerine Dream. I'm not quite sure if it ended up sounded anything like them, but there's definitely some Krautrock influence here.

I'm loving the OP-Z. I'm used to manually changing patterns and sessions on the Novation Circuit, so I thought I would give myself a break and just chain everything together for mostly automatic playing. The workflow on the OP-Z can be a little frustrating at times (especially when trying to work with anything longer than 16 steps), but I think it's best suited to quickly get ideas down and not worry too much about the details. It's lightning fast in that regard.

The new reverb engine is loads better for atmospheric/ambient sounds, which I tend to utilize more. I also really like the new "Analog" sound engine. I'm using it on the arp track here. The only problem is that the two new sound engines each take up a spot in the engine selection, which means if you allow all 8 engines on a track, you only have two spaces for user samples. Surely there's space to allow for plenty more, especially with that (unutilized?) 1GB chip. Please TE, help us out here!"

Novation Circuit - Endurance

Published on Mar 7, 2020 Payton Carter

"I'm a terrible guitarist (see the end of the video), but I'm slightly less terrible when I can cut out the half-decent parts! For this jam, I noodled around on my guitar for about five minutes with some chords in mind. I then chopped up the samples in Reaper and imported them into the Circuit. I'm playing the guitar samples on drum track 4 with the sample flip feature. The synth patches are from Cuckoo's complete Circuit pack, and the drum samples are from the factory Circuit pack."

Novation Circuit - Tutorial - LFO Deep Dive

Published on Mar 5, 2020 Payton Carter

"If you liked this tutorial, consider checking out my music here! https://paytoncarter.bandcamp.com/

The Nova engine in the Circuit has some wonderfully deep modulation options. In this tutorial, we explore the LFO section of the Components editor and describe all of its parameters, try out some possible modulation options, and create a sweet synth patch!"

Payton Carter Circuit posts

Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" performed (almost) entirely on the Novation Circuit

Published on Mar 3, 2020 Payton Carter

"Download my music here - https://paytoncarter.bandcamp.com

While I was growing up, my parents always had the 80's new wave radio playing in the house, so I got to know bands like The Cure, New Order, Talking Heads, Tears for Fears, and so on. Depeche Mode has always been one of my favorites, and I think their music has been a huge inspiration and influence for me. I thought it might be fun to try and recreate one of their tracks on the Novation Circuit.

Everything except for the guitar is coming from the Circuit. I overdubbed the guitar after recording the Circuit part. The synth patches are from Cuckoo's complete Circuit pack, and the drum samples are from the Post-Industrial Punch pack available from Novation. I also sampled chords from the Fairlight "Sarrar" sound (the choir sound) on Arturia's Analog Lab, which are playing on drum track 4. Audio was recorded into Reaper and mastered with Ozone Elements."

Novation Circuit - Tutorial - Making a synth patch from scratch in Components

Published on Mar 1, 2020 Payton Carter

"If you liked this tutorial, consider checking out my music.
https://paytoncarter.bandcamp.com/

In this tutorial, we go over making a pad synth patch from scratch using the Novation Components editor for the Circuit. If you liked this tutorial or would like to see other topics covered, make sure to let me know in the comments!"

Novation Circuit - Valiant

Published on Feb 29, 2020 Payton Carter

"It's been a while since I've played with the Circuit. I downloaded the Team Novation pack, hooked up an external MIDI keyboard, and sat down for a couple hours with the goal of just finishing a song. This is what came out of that session. Make sure to check out the tutorial if you want to see how I made this track.

All audio is coming from the Circuit, recorded straight into the Canon 80D. Mastering with Ozone Element 8."

Novation Circuit - Tutorial - How I made my track, "Valiant"

Published on Feb 29, 2020 Payton Carter

"I've had lots of requests for another tutorial, so I thought I would make one for my track 'Valiant'. This video goes through how I arrange tracks, why polyphonic synth patches are important, and how I perform the final song. If there are other parts of the workflow on the Circuit that you would like to see, let me know!"

Teenage Engineering OP-Z jam and review - 3 days, 7 patterns, and first impressions

Published on Dec 4, 2019 Payton Carter

Teenage Engineering OP-Zs on Amazon

"I got an early Christmas present two days ago. I thought I would show you some of the patterns I’ve created so far, and give a quick 'first impression' review of the Teenage Engineering OP-Z.

I’m coming from the Novation Circuit, which I’ve loved, but I was starting to feel the limitations of the two synth tracks and canned presets. I chose the OP-Z so I could expand the number of synth tracks, allow full control of the synth engines without a computer, and use its awesome, esoteric sequencing capabilities.

I’ll start off with some of the things I like. First, the synth engines sound wonderful. They are very usable and musical sounds. I’ve found myself spending less time trying to find the right sound and more time writing music, because the sounds just work in almost every context. I feel like I could use the same set of sounds across diverse genres equally well. I’m able to focus more on melody and composition, rather than sound design, which helps me be a lot more productive.

The step sequencing and punch in effects are fantastic. I haven’t used it enough yet to be comfortable using the punch in effects live, but the step components are great at adding elements of variation and surprise. You can make it so you’ll never hear the same 16-step pattern twice, but the parameters have enough constraint that it never feels chaotic (unless you want it to).

It’s super portable, and the built in battery is convenient. I’ve only had to recharge it once in the two days of use. I don’t think it’s too small to use comfortably, and it’s actually quite nice to just use it on your lap. I can fit the whole thing in my pocket easily. The buttons feel good to play.

The interface is surprisingly intuitive. It took about 2 hours to feel comfortable with the interface, and now I feel like I can perform most of the tasks without consulting the manual. I only have to reference the step component parameters every once in a while. I have an Android phone and didn’t realize until the second day that TE had just released a beta app. Honestly, I didn’t find it too useful. I prefer using it without a connected screen.

The sampling capabilities are great, especially now that you can sample directly through the microphone or USB audio. I’ve been going through my music collection on my phone and building sample packs from them right into the OP-Z. You can use samples as one shots or sources for a synth track, so the sonic capabilities are now pretty much endless.

Here are some of the things I don’t like. First, the reverb is terrible. I don’t know what TE were thinking. There’s only one reverb algorithm, and it’s very digital and harsh sounding. There’s almost no tweaking of the sound. The maximum decay time is much too short. It’s almost useless at adding large space, so I’ve found it really only works as a stereoizer. It works in some cases, but I don’t find myself using it very often.

I’m slightly concerned about build quality. I bought mine used off Reverb, and when I received it, I was disappointed to find that the encoders were popping right out. I scoured the forums and found a little Teflon thread tape around the encoders should fix the problem. It worked wonders and I haven’t had problems with that since. The back panel is a little loose. The buttons do double trigger every once in a while, which makes me worried for their longevity.

The synth engines, while great sounding, are a little limited. There’s not much tweaking of the sounds, so everything ends up sounding pretty similar. This is less of a con than I thought, because the sounds are very usable and work across many genres. I’ve always held that composition much more important than sound design, anyway.

I wish an analog of the mixer interface on the app was available on the device. You have to go to the fourth page of parameters on each track to change its volume. That’s not very practical in a live setting.

There’s no excuse for how little memory is on board. 32 Mb is just unacceptable in 2019. As great as the sampling capabilities are, there’s only room for 4 different six-second samples per synth track, so you have to pick your favorites unless you want to constantly shuffle samples back and forth from your computer.

Despite its limitations, I’m in love with this thing. It’s my desert island instrument for sure. I am super productive while using it, I can take it anywhere and make music anywhere, and it’s just plain fun to use. Mine was supposed to get wrapped and put under the Christmas tree, but I don’t think I can let that happen."