EDITOR PRO READ ME
Circuit Editor PRO Read Me. This document will guide you through editing patches and creating patches for your circuit. It will not be going into details of synthesizer patch design, but focus on workflows on how to get sounds from the circuit to the editor, from the editor to Circuit, and from the editor backed up to your hard disk. Overview When opening the Circuit Editor consists of two windows, the screenshot to the right handles the Zoom Factor of the Main Floating Window. Toggle the Open / Close button to open the main Editor Window Installation MaxforLive Version Simply drop this on a MIDI track and watch the menu turn Cyan when the Circuit is attached and the handshake is successful. Press the I logo at the bottom right to rescan for the Circuit if it s removed for any reason. Standalone Versions For the standalone versions we have packaged them with all the files that you need so you don t need to have a separate installation of Max or MaxforLive. Simply double click to open the Circuit PRO App.
Configuration Thankfully we ve made this as simple as possible for you, with the Circuit connected open the device and navigate to the main window. In the top left you ll see the section for MIDI Port which if connected successfully will display the Circuit and turn Cyan. The screen shot below shows it in Red to indicate that the Circuit is not connected. VIEW CONTROL FULL will show all of the available options in the window. The small button in the header will give Color Control over the currently selected Synth display. All of the Parameters shown are relevant to the choice of SYNTH ONE or TWO as selected. KEYBOARD CONTROLS - HOVER OVER A TITLE & ALT - Each Parameter can be reset to it s initial state by hovering over it s title and clicking and releasing with the mouse. SHIFT - Many Parameters have the option of RANDOM, this is accessed by hovering over the title and holding down SHIFT. CMD / CTRL - Tabs that select for example the Oscillators or LFO s can also be used to set the Wave type, simply click on the tab you wish to change then when it s in view hover over the tab title and hold down CMD / CTRL. You ll then be presented with a Menu of options to allow you to select by name.
MACROS will show only the eight macros and reduce the footprint of the editor on your Screen Real Estate. Each Macro Encoder on the Circuit can be mapped to four separate destinations, as a guide the destinations are listed as the tab headers, clicking on the tab headers will navigate between the options. Hovering over the Macro 1 title at the top right will change the Label to RESET, clicking and releasing will clear the settings across all four available destinations. RESET / RANDOM - Holding down SHIFT and hovering over the MACRO 1 title will change the label to RANDOM, clicking and releasing will randomise all four destinations for the chosen Macro observing the master Randomizer options. RESET / RANDOM - Hovering over the Tab for the currently selected destination will have a similar action changing the label to RESET, and with SHIFT held down the RANDOM Option will be available. COPY SINGLE - Copying of a single Macro to another or to all Macros is handled within the individual Macro View as shown above to the left, clicking the Copy button gives you the option of Paste to All whilst all of the other Macro s will display a Paste button for the singular paste option. COPY EIGHT - To copy all 8 Macros for pasting into another Patch or all of the 64 Patches hold down CMD / CTRL and hover over the MACRO CONTROLS title bar as shown below. When there are Macros to Paste the two options to the right will appear in the header bar.
SESSION will switch the Synth Editor to control the current Session Settings. As these settings are specific to a particular Session they are not saved with the Patch, instead you should save them to a particular Session Slot directly on the Circuit itself. NOTE: Randomising the SESSION CONTROLS is not currently supported UNDO - SNAPSHOT - REDO With the addition of the various Random and Morph options you ll find yourself furiously pushing buttons and auditioning the results. You can then cycle around the Snapshots using the Undo and Redo buttons, these will be disabled if no snapshots are available. Moving any of the parameters within the Editor will by default not save every change, so when you find a sound you like you can click on the Snapshot button and the current state will be saved to the Editors Undo history.
Patch Control Uploading Patches 1. You can load the Editor with other banks of sounds in the.syx format by clicking on the Load Bank from Disk button. This will overwrite your current settings with the whole of the saved bank. If you wish to load selected patches of a bank in specific Patch Slots, simply: Create a folder that contains the individual Patches as.syx files. Name each file with a preceding number eg. 3. Broken Piano.syx or 16. Brutal Resonance The Patch Banks in our Circuit Patch Store are supplied in this format for ease of use SHIFT + CLICK on Load Bank from Disc Select your Folder All of the.syx files will now be uploaded to the Editor replacing the equivalent Patch Slots as per your naming convention. 2. Then press Upload All Patches to Circuit 3. Click OK. You will see the Save button on your circuit pulse for about 20 seconds whilst all 64 patches are uploaded. 4. You are now free to back the Circuit up using Novations Components Website
Basic Concepts before you get going. Circuit has 64 patches stored on the unit that can be accessed at any point by pressing Shift + Synth 1 (or Synth 2). You have two pages of patches that can be accessed by pressing Oct (Patches 1-32) and Oct (Patches 33-64) Circuit has 32 sessions slots available. When you save a session, you are saving all the notes and automation, but you are also saving all the settings that make up the 2 synth patches. Therefore if you change a patch using the Editor (or via external MIDI CCs) then any changes to the patch are saved with the session. So the quickest way to save your changes to a patch is simply save the session on your hardware, and when you reload the session, it will load up and sound exactly the same as when you saved it! The down side to this is if you have made an awesome patch, it s only saved in the session. So if you want to be able to use the same patch in other sessions, then you ll want to overwrite one of the 64 patches on the unit. Now you ll have to start to make decisions about which of the 64 patches you are going to overwrite. One thing that you don t need to worry about is your existing sessions If you overwrite Patch 1 ( Bass-ic Square ) with your new one ( Amazing Bass ) all the sessions that used the original Bass-ic Square patch will still sound the same. However you will no longer be able to select Bass-ic Square patch in any new sessions as it has been overwritten. You will now only be able to select Amazing Bass in your new sessions.
Editing an existing patch on your circuit. If you are interested in taking an existing patch from Circuit, editing it, then saving it to the unit then this is the best course of action. On your Circuit, press Shift + Synth1 (or Synth 2) and choose the preset that you want to edit. In the Editor, press Get Current Patch from Circuit. This method will have the Editor follow the patch selection from the hardware. So you have now synced the Editor with Circuit, and you will see all the controls move to represent the current patch. You ll also see the name, category and type update. Note that this does not update the Library control list. (Library control drop down list is more useful when creating a whole bank of patches so you can ignore it for now)
Randomizer There is an 80% chance of any parameter being randomised - 20% of the time it will be left at it's inital value. RANDOM TYPE 1 - ABSOLUTE An absolute value will be set for the parameter between it's min and max value. Range - limits the range (i.e. max - min) to a %age Affinity - whether the value tends to favour min (-ve values) or max (+ve values) Center - TBD RANDOM TYPE 2 - RELATIVE The current value will be adjusted depending on the parameters Range - the maximum movement as a % of (max - min) the parameter can move Up / Down / Both - whether the movement can be +ve, -ve, or both Noise - how often (%age) the Range is ignored to pick a random value. Negative values below 0 still obey the 50% max of Range, values above 0 set the Range limit to 100% RANDOM TYPE 3 - PRESET The value will be picked between min and max where min and max are taken from the current values of the two presets passed in Patch Select 1 - The first Patch Patch Select 2 - The second Patch Affinity - whether the value tends to favour Patch 1 (-ve values) or Patch 2 (+ve values) Noise - how often (%age) the Affinity is ignored to pick a completely random value. Values below 0 still obey the bounds of Patch 1 and Patch 2, values above 0 pick a number from min to max for the parameter
CLIP - ABSOLUTE & RELATIVE RANDOM TYPES Clip defines what happens when a generated value goes outside of the valid minmax range of a parameter. If Clip is on then the value is clipped to either min or max. If Clip is off then the value bounces back from min/max, e.g. Parameter min is 0, max is 127, clip is On Generated value is -5, used value is 0 - Generated value is 133, used value is 127 Parameter min is 0, max is 127, clip is Off Generated value is -5, used value is 5 - Generated value is 133, used value is 121 Parameter min is 15, max is 45, clip is On Generated value is 10, used value is 15 - Generated value is 55, used value is 45 Parameter min is 15, max is 45, clip is Off Generated value is 10, used value is 20 - Generated value is 55, used value is 35 EXCLUDE - FINE CONTROL FOR RANDOMISING PARAMETERS When randomising entire sections with either the Randomise Button or SHIFT clicking on a title the Editor by default will randomise all the contained parameters according to the currently chosen Random option. To have very precise control over what is and isn;t included you can select the Exclude button within both the Randomiser and Morph sections to reveal a layer as shown below. Each parameter can be clicked upon, if they are greyed out then they will not be included within any Random or Morph actions, as shown above within the Macro Section the Start Position and Depth will not be Randomised or Morphed whilst the Position and End Position will be.
MORPH Morph simply put allows you to use two patches as a base and morph the parameter settings between them. In the top right of the Morph window select two patches and move the Slider to hear the results. Store Patch X - This will save the current settings to the numbered patch, this is determined by the currently selected patch in Patch View Morph Menus - This is a high level exclusion option, you can light the button to have all of the Menu Driven Parameters included within your morphing or unlit to leave these static as you blend between each patch Update UI - With this lit the UI of the Editor will change to reflect the current settings, deselect the option and you will only be able to hear the changes that are made. Noise - Adds a further layer of unpredicatability to the end result, with this set to 0% the morph will simply move each parameter linearly from patch 1 to patch 2 s setting. Experiment with subtle and extreme settings of this control for a wide range of results. Exclude - See the section within Randomiser!
Saving with the Session. Circuit Editor is quite a complex synth editor, but we hope that it s laid out well enough that you find your feet quickly, experiment, start something new! We ll presume you ve just spent the last 10 minutes making a patch. Now you need to decide what to do with it. I want to use this new patch in this session I do not want to overwrite any of the factory patches This is the most simple: Just press Save (twice) on your Circuit. The edited patch is saved in the session, and when re-loading the session, you ll recall the patch. You will not be able to access the patch in any other sessions. Overwriting a Patch. I want to use this patch in new sessions that I create I want to overwrite an existing patch, replacing the old one with this new one Remember this action will overwrite the original factory sound with your new one. Press Upload Single Current Patch to Circuit Choose the location where you want to overwrite the patch. TIP: Press Shift + Synth 1 (or Synth 2) to see which patch is currently loaded. Note which one of the Oct (Patches 1-32) or Oct (Patches 33-64) is lit up, and then which patch slot is lit up, then press t h e c o r re s p o n d i n g p a t c h number in the below window. The selected slot will now be overwritten.
Creating a Bank of 64 Patches If you are interested in creating a whole bank of 64 patches, then this is the best way to go. Click on the drop down list in the library control section of the editor. Select the patch that you want to hear, and it will be loaded to the Circuit Hardware. NOTE: Selecting Patch 35 will not make your Circuit jump to patch position 35, it will load Patch 35 into whichever Patch location you are currently using. If you are working to create a bank of patches, this should not matter, as the end result is to save 64 patches to this list, then upload all 64 patches at the end. You may prefer to load a bank of initialised patches first. You ll find an init_bank.json file in your downloaded folder. Press Load Bank from Disk, and select the Init_bank.json file. This will load up 64 initial patches. Start designing your patches, and storing them to the list as described above.
Managing and Saving Patches in the editor. First ensure that you rename your patch, and then select the desired Genre and Category. Storing your patches to the Editor list. Storing patches does not make any changes to the patches on the unit. This only stores patches to the list in the editor. Press Store Patch This will overwrite whichever patch is currently displayed in the list. If you want to select a different place in the list press Store Patch To A n d t h e n f o l l o w t h e b u t t o n s instructions to choose one of the patches in the drop down menu beneath it. Initialise Current Patch to start from scratch. Saving a Patch or Bank to your HDD Simple, just press Save Patch to Disk or Save Single Patch to Disk. Patches will then be saved in the.json format to be recalled later.
Troubleshooting Circuit Not Communicating to Editor Q, The Editor appears to be working as the Circuit is showing in Cyan on the main device menu but there doesn t seem to be any communication between the Editor and the Circuit. A, When you turn on the unit whilst pressing SHIFT, you get a settings page. On the left are 2 buttons for Receive MIDI and Send MIDI these settings effect both DIN and USB MIDI in and out of the unit. Make sure both of these are Green, then press Play to boot up the unit. WINDOWS 10 STANDALONE USERS Q, I got an error saying that there s MSVCP120.dll missing on my pc A, You also need to install the VC2013 redistributable, For 64-bit Windows 10 users install both the 32 and 64-bit versions of the redistributable CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows Standalone - Windows 7 and above Mac Standalone - OSX 10.8 and above MaxforLive - Ableton Live 9.6 & MaxforLive 7.2