MIDISynth-Circuit Tablet/Phone User Guide

Transcription

1 MIDISynth-Circuit Tablet/Phone User Guide

2 Table of Contents 1 Overview Requirements ios Android Performance Mode Demo Android Installation License Scaling Setup MIDI Circuit MIDI Port (top) CMS MIDI Port (bottom) (IAP) Rescan Bluetooth Show All MIDI Devices Process MIDI In MIDI Sets Dirty General Phone Mode Double Click Action Skin Show Vals Fine Control Confirm Section Init/Rand Track Program Change Ignore Session Patch Use icloud (ios only) Show Macro/Mod on Synth Load/Save New Load Save Delete Auto-Save Upgrades...11

3 2.4.1 ios - In App Purchases Android Uploading Sessions & Samples to Circuit Uploading Sessions to CMS Operation Menu Bar Synth Colours Synth 1 & Patch Control Macro Modulation Mono (Circuit Mono Station IAP) Session Session Control Session Storage Performance Mode (IAP) Sub Controls XY Controls (IAP) Randomise (IAP) Morph (IAP) Custom Parameter Assign (IAP) Patch Management Load/Save Store Store To Init All Upload Upload All Fetch All Troubleshooting Long-Press Quick Reference...28

4 1 Overview MIDISynth-Circuit in an app that allows you complete control of your Novation Circuit from your ipad, iphone and Android tablet/phone. As well as providing detailed control of both synth engines, session, and drums, the editor can be used for storing and retrieving patches/patch banks, for enhanced performance control, and for upload session and sample banks to Circuit. For the purposes of this document, CMS refers to the Novation Circuit Mono Station. 1.1 Requirements ios ipad/ipad Pro/iPhone Camera connection kit or equivalent, WiFi MIDI, Bluetooth MIDI receiver ios or later itunes/ifunbox for transferring data to/from a computer icloud for transferring data to/from cloud based storage (icloud, DropBox, GoogleDrive) Android Android tablet/phone OTG (On-The-Go) cable, Bluetooth MIDI receiver Android Marshmallow 6.0 or later 1.2 Performance Mode Demo A demo of the performance mode features is available for those interested in trying these out. The demo runs for 15 minutes after starting the editor and is cut down to the following: 1 XY pad (instead of 4) 4 custom controls (instead of 16) 6 macro controls (instead of 16) 1.3 Android Installation The Android installation is provided as a downloadable.apk file for installation on your tablet. To install this product, you will need to set your tablet permissions to be able to install content from unknown sources. If you are not willing to install content from unknown sources then please do not purchase this product as you ll not be able to install it.

5 1.3.1 License After purchasing the product you ll receive a license in a separate mail from noreply@sigabort.co.uk. Please make sure this is in your safe senders list and check your spam folders if this does not turn up in a short time. Save this license key to your Android device and provide it when asked upon starting the app Scaling The resolutions support by Android devices are weird and wonderful whilst I ve done as much to accommodate this as possible, if things are looking somewhat weird on your device then send some screen grabs over to circuit@sigabort.co.uk along with the device specs and I ll see if I can improve things for you.

6 2 Setup Click on the SETUP button to bring up the setup screen. 2.1 MIDI Circuit MIDI Port (top) The MIDI port of the Circuit is auto-selected if detected at startup. If you have enabled Show All MIDI Devices and selected a different MIDI port then this port will be selected instead CMS MIDI Port (bottom) (IAP) The MIDI port of the CMS is auto-selected if detected at startup. If you have enabled Show All MIDI Devices and selected a different MIDI port then this port will be selected instead. This port selector is only visible if you have purchases the CMS IAP.

7 2.1.3 Rescan Rescan connected MIDI devices Bluetooth Connect to MIDI BLE devices. After connecting to a BLE received, please use the RESCAN button to rescan available devices. If your device does not appear try enabling SHOW ALL MIDI DEVICES. NOTE: Is it not currently possible to upload sessions and samples via Bluetooth Show All MIDI Devices If enabled all MIDI devices will be displayed for selection if disabled only MIDI devices matching Process MIDI In Enabling this option will processing incoming MIDI data from the controller and update the GUI appropriately (turning the knobs on Circuit or automation data). Depending on the state of the MIDI Sets Dirty flag, this will also set the edit buffer as dirty MIDI Sets Dirty Enabling this option will cause incoming MIDI (turning the knobs on Circuit or automation data) to mark the current edit buffer as dirty and flag that the user needs to save it when moving away from the patch. 2.2 General Phone Mode Enabling this will change the UI to use the paged phone display which may be preferable on smaller devices Double Click Action Determines what happens when a control is double-clicked: Off: No action Zero/Centre: Control is set to 0 or centred if it is bipolar Default: Control is set to the Novation default Patch: Control is set to the value when the patch was loaded Skin Change the look of the App. Skins 1-2 are provided for all purchasers. Skins 3 and 4 are unlocked with any IAP purchase.

8 2.2.4 Show Vals Enabling this option will show the current value underneath each control. The user can click on this to manually enter a value Fine Control Enable to allow fine control of sliders/rotaries Confirm Section Init/Rand Require confirmation of an initialisation or randomisation operation via a long press (see section3.6.2) Track Program Change Determines whether the synth editor should follow program change (patch selection) on Circuit Ignore Session Patch Does not load patch content or drum patch specified in sessions Use icloud (ios only) Enable to use cloud storage (icloud, Dropbox, GoogleDrive). For Android, this is always enabled Show Macro/Mod on Synth Allows a single Macro or Mod editor to be shown on the main Synth page.

9 2.3 Load/Save This is a top-level load/save which stores the following data in a single file for convenient archiving. It is also possible to load/save patch data (see section 3.7.1) and session data (see section ) separately. If not using cloud storage a custom browser will be displayed to view the internal storage of the device. If using cloud storage, you will be presented with a standard browser from which you can locate your files. The data saved/loaded with this operation is as follows: Setup data Patch data Extended patch data Session data XY control assignments (global) Performance control data Custom parameter assignments Colour assignments

10 2.3.1 New Create a new setup. To rename a setup once it has been created, select the setup and then type the new name into the box Load Load an existing setup Save Overwrite the selected setup Delete Delete a setup Auto-Save An auto-save mechanism exists which will restore the last state each time you start up the app. An auto-save operation is performed under the following conditions: Setup options are updated A patch is saved A session is saved Performance controls are updated, including setting range XY controls are updated, including setting range Colours are changed

11 2.4 Upgrades ios - In App Purchases Press the UPGRADE button to see a list of all optional purchases that are available. This may take a few seconds to populate Restore Pressing the RESTORE button will restore any previous purchases that you have made. This may take a few seconds to retrieve. Once completed you will be notified of any successful restorations Android You can upgrade your license for the Android version at:

12 2.5 Uploading Sessions & Samples to Circuit Bootloader access to Circuit is provided for the following actions. Uploading a single session Uploading a bank of sessions (32) Uploading a bank of samples (64) Please be aware Novation do not provide 3 rd party access to the bootloader and therefore use of these functions is undertaken at your own risk. I cannot support any issues that may arise from use of this functionality and Novation will accept no responsibility. Session and sample files can be download from Novation Components and transferred to your ipad via itunes. 2.6 Uploading Sessions to CMS Bootloader access to CMS is provided for the following actions: Uploading a bank of sessions (32)

13 3 Operation Certain operations can be carried out by a long-press on a control or label a long press is 0.3s. 3.1 Menu Bar The left-hand part of the screen provides a menu bar with relevant options for your current location in the editor Synth Colours It is possible to select the display colour for Synth 1 and Synth 2 by a long press on the appropriate button.

14 3.2 Synth 1 & 2 If the randomisation module has been purchased then a section can be randomised by a long-press on the section name. If patch initialisation mode is selected then a section can be initialised by a long-press on the section name (see ). Double-clicking controls will perform the configured double-click operation (see section2.2.2) Patch Control Next/Previous Patch Load the next or previous patch into the editor buffer Store Store the contents of the editor buffer to the indicated patch slot. This button will turn red when there are outstanding changes to be saved Fetch Fetch the current state of the patch from Circuit Init(ialise) A long-press on this button will initialise the whole of the patch: synth, macro, mod.

15 If the MACRO page is selected then the long-press will only initialise the macros. Likewise, for the MOD page. The button also operates as a toggle switch to enter patch initialisation mode. When this mode is active a long-press on a section name will initialise that section only Up(load) Upload the contents of the editor buffer to the patch slot on Circuit. The destination slot is selected in the Patch Management screen (see section 3.7.5) Macro Click the MACRO button to replace the synth display with the macro display Copy/Paste Press COPY to copy a single macro. Press PASTE to paste the macro to another slot in the same patch, or select a different patch and press PASTE there. Press PASTE ALL to paste the macro to the same slot or a different slot on all patches. Press COPY ALL to copy all 8 macros. Select a new patch and press PASTE to paste all 8 macros to that patch. Press PASTE ALL to paste all 8 macros to all 64 patches Naming Macros can be named for display on the performance screen. If only a single destination is provided for a macro, it will automatically be named to that destination. In all other circumstances, it will be set to Macro n.

16 3.2.3 Modulation Click the MOD button to replace the synth display with the modulation display. 3.3 Mono (Circuit Mono Station IAP) The MONO button will only be available if you have purchased the IAP giving access to CMS. The Mono page behaves the same as Synth 1/2 pages for Circuit.

17 3.4 Session Session Control Whilst it is not possible to get session state or upload session state to Circuit, 32 presets are provided to allow you to store different session setups Next/Previous Session Load the next or previous session into Circuit Store Store the contents of the editor buffer to the indicated session slot. This button will turn red when there are outstanding changes to be saved Init(ialise) A long-press on this button will initialise the session. The button also operates as a toggle switch to enter session initialisation mode. When this mode is active a long-press on a section name will initialise that section only Session Storage Session banks can be loaded/saved independently of the rest of the editor state by using the SESSIONS button. If you wish to save the sessions as part of an overall setup, then use the LOAD/SAVE buttons in the setup section (see Error! Reference source not found.) Load/Save Brings up the load/save screen.

18 Store Store the current edit buffer at the currently selected slot Store To Pressing STORE TO will allow a different patch slot to be selected and the current edit buffer will be stored to that slot Init All This will initialise all 32 session slots. 3.5 Performance Mode (IAP) Performance Mode extends the performance capabilities of your Circuit by pulling a number of performance related controls onto a single screen. This consists of: Access to all 16 macros Access to 16 user-defined control mappings Access to 4 user-defined XY controls Access to Session morphing Custom control morphing Mixer and Delay/Reverb sends Snapshot and Autoreset functions Patch & session loading Zooming Performance Controls Under each of the slider controls is a SELECT button. Enabling this and then enabling the MACRO or CUSTOM buttons will effectively zoom the selected controls so they occupy the full width of the screen.

19 Setting Range of Performance Controls Pressing the RANGE button will superimpose range sliders on the mapped custom and XY controls allowing you to set the minimum and maximum %age value of the control Morphing Enabling the MORPH button will add two morph sliders to the display the left slider will morph between two custom parameter banks (see section ) and the right slider will morph between two specified session presets. Pressing the EXCLUDE button under the left morph control will change the SELECT buttons under the custom sliders into EXCLUDE buttons. It is then possible to define custom controls that are excluded from the morph operation Custom Banks Up to 16 banks of custom parameter values can be stored and retrieved. It is also possible to morph between two banks. Press the BANKS button to bring up the controls for storing banks which operate in a similar way to other banking controls Selecting View It is possible to rotate through three view modes for the Performance Mode, accessible from the top control button: All: Shows all sliders and XY controls Slider: Shows all sliders XY: Shows XY controls XY Controls Pressing the XY GLOBAL button will toggle between viewing the global XY controls and those that have been assigned to a patch. It is possible to select which patch controls are used for the XY controls via the selection button underneath Mixer Pressing the MIXER button will switch to mixer view.

20 From here you can control the levels of each channel, the master filter and also control the delay and reverb sends for each channel Snapshot Engaging snapshot using the SNAP button will take a snapshot of the current performance controls: macros, custom controls, XY controls, channel levels, delay sends, reverb sends, mute states, master filter. You are then free to change any of these controls and have them all reset back to their value when you engaged snapshot by another press of the button Autoreset Engaging Autoreset via the AUTO button will reset each supported control (macros, custom controls, XY controls) to a specified value when the control is released. The reset values are set with a long-press of the AUTO button. Any controls being operated at this point will have their values updated Mutes The six buttons across the top can be used to mute each channel on Circuit. When muting the appropriate button will flash red. Please note this is a soft mute is it s not possible to directly control the mutes. Instead, the channel volume is set to 0 for mute and then reset to its current level when unmuted. Due to technical limitations, it is not possible to get the current volume levels from Circuit so there are defaulted to 100 at startup. These values are updated under the following circumstances: Changing the level sliders in the Session page Loading an editor Session Moving the controls on Circuit Note: changing any volume level either in the editor or in performance mode will disable the mute Patch & Session Selection Synth patches can be loaded by holding down the SELECT button clicking the SYNTH 1 and SYNTH 2 buttons. Sessions can be loaded by clicking the SESSION button. Patch settings (for both the synth and drum parts) can be ignored when loading session via the option in the setup screen.

21 3.6 Sub Controls Which sub-controls are currently in view can be controlled by the selector down the left-hand side The sub controls refer to functionality provided by In App Purchases (IAP). Please refer to section 2.4 for details XY Controls (IAP) Four XY controls are provided for easy control of multiple parameters at the same time. The XY controls are freely assignable to any parameter of the synth and aren t restricted to controlling the same synth section, e.g. one axis can control a Synth 1 parameter whilst the other access can control a Session parameter. If you have the CMS IAP then controls can also be freely mixed across the synths. Once assigned these controls will be available in the Performance Screen (see section 3.5). Clicking a Map button will highlight the parameter controls and these can then be assigned by clicking on the appropriate control. Its name will then appear in the XY control to show it has been assigned. The XY controls will only operate when two controls have been assigned. A long-press on a MAP button will remove an existing mapping. To copy a set of XY controls from patch to patch or to/from the global settings click on the COPY button to the left of the XY controls. Then select the destination and press PASTE Global XY Controls It is possible to store a set of XY definitions for each patch as some controls may be more appropriate for certain patches compared to others. It is also possible to define a set of global XY controls that are always available. To enter global XY control mode, click on the XY button whilst already in XY sub-mode. The button will change colour and you can now define a set of global XY controls. Pressing the button allows easily toggling between the two modes.

22 3.6.2 Randomise (IAP) Three randomisation algorithms are provided for discovering new sounds. Several parameters are provided for each randomisation mode to tailor how mild or extreme the randomisation is, and sections or individual parameters can be excluded to further increase control Common Controls These controls are available in all random modes. Dials Only enabling this will disable all dropdowns from randomisation Exclude Allows individual controls to be excluded from the randomisation Random Randomise with the current settings The button matrix on the setup screen can be used to provide high level exclusion of sections of the synth see section Absolute An absolute value will be set for the parameter between its min and max value. Range this determines the max upper value a random value will be chosen between 0 and this %age of its max value Affinity whether the value tends to favour min (-ve) or max(+ve) values Relative This randomiser will generate random values based on the current values in the synth. Range the maximum movement as a %age of range (i.e. max min values) that the value can move Noise how often (%age) the range is ignored to pick a random value. Negative values still obey the max of 50% of range, positive values set the range to be 100% Clip affects behaviour when the new value would be outside of the min/max range. When clipping is on, they are fixed to min/max values. When disabled, they will bounce back from the min/max difference by the appropriate amount. Direction sets direction of value change to down, up, or both.

23 Patch The new value will be picked between min and max values when the minimum is taken from the first patch specific and the maximum is taken from the second. Patch Select 1 the first patch number to use Affinity whether the value tends to favour patch 1 (-ve) or patch 2 (+ve) Patch Select 2 the second patch number to use Noise how often (%age) the affinity is ignored to pick a completely random value. Negative values still obey the bounds of min/max from patch 1 and 2, positive values will pick a value from min to max of the parameter Exclude Pressing the EXCLUDE button will enter exclude mode where each control or section can be individually excluded from the randomisation. Controls highlighted in blue are included. To toggle the inclusion/exclusion of a control/section, simply click on it. By default, all macros and mods are excluded from randomisation and morphing, as well as some other basic controls that would affect output adversely unless required (e.g. levels).

24 3.6.3 Morph (IAP) It is possible to morph between two patches or sessions (depending upon which screen you are on) using the controls provided. Noise How often (%age) the min/max values of the patches are ignored to pick a random value. Negative values still obey the bounds of min/max from patch 1 and 2, positive values will pick a value from min to max of the parameter. Patch Select 1 the first patch number to use Morph bar Left is fully patch 1, right is fully patch 2 in-between is where the magic can happen Patch Select 2 the second patch number to use Dials Only enabling this will disable all dropdowns from morphing Exclude Allows individual controls to be excluded from the morph (see section ) Custom Parameter Assign (IAP) 16 parameters can be freely assigned to any parameter on the synth and these will then be available in the Performance Screen (see section 3.5). Mapping is similar for the XY controls hit the Map button underneath a slider to enter map mode and then select the destination control. A long-press on the MAP button will remove the mapping. Use the 1-8/9-16 button at the left of the screen to move between the two banks of 8 parameters.

25 3.7 Patch Management Patch management is opened by pressing the PATCHES button when on the synth screen Load/Save Brings up the load/save screen. This will load/save the patch state independently of the rest of the editor state. If you wish to save the patches as part of an overall setup, then use the LOAD/SAVE buttons in the setup section (see Error! Reference source not found.). If the SYSEX button is selected patches will be loaded/saved in standard sysex format compatible with Novation Components, but will not contain additional MIDISynth data. If the FULL button is selected a custom file format will be used that contains the following extended information: XY control assignments (patch) Macro names

26 New Create a new patch bank. To rename a bank once it has been created, select the bank and then type the new name into the box Load Load an existing patch bank Save Overwrite an existing patch bank Delete Delete a patch bank Store Store the current edit buffer at the currently selected slot. The button will turn red when there are un-stored changes Store To Pressing STORE TO will allow a different patch slot to be selected and the current edit buffer will be stored to that slot Init All This will initialise all 64 slots in the editor Upload This will upload the current editor buffer to a patch slot on Circuit for off-line access. The patch slot to be used can be selected via the button below Upload All This will upload all 64 patches to Circuit Fetch All This will fetch all 64 patches from circuit and update the patch slots in the editor.

27 4 Troubleshooting MIDI settings on Circuit Ensure that your Circuit is configured to receive and send MIDI see the MIDI I/O section on page 61 of the user guide. Try on mains as well as battery With our other versions of the Circuit editor we ve had reports of people having different experiences when using battery power vs. mains power. Make sure you are using USB Certain operations are only supported over USB and so the USB connection is required for correct operation. Change the USB cable It s surprising how often this has an effect if you are having issues. Not all USB cables are created equal.

28 5 Long-Press Quick Reference These are all the long-press operations gathered together for easy reference. Synth Colours long-press the SYNTH 1 or SYNTH 2 button Section randomisation long-press a section title with INIT button toggled on Section initialisation long-press a section title with INIT button toggled on Initialise patch/macro/mod- long-press INIT button in appropriate screen Unmap XY control long-press the required MAP button Unmap custom control long-press the required MAP button Set Autoreset values of Performance screen long-press the AUTO button whilst holding controls Toggle Patch/Global XY long-press the XY button on the Synth screen