In combination with these modes, you can pitch the sample in Keyboard mode and slice them up to four, eight, or 16 equal parts to be played back later. You can pair these with Reverse which does exactly what it says and Choke, which allows different channels to choke each other. There’s one shot mode which will play out the whole sample every time it’s triggered, Gated which will stop playing once the pad is released, and Loop which functions like Gated mode except it will continue to loop until let go. There’s quite a few ways to play back samples on the Rhythm so let’s break them down. This helped glue the drums together and means they only now take up one channel, freeing up the rest for adding melodic elements and hits. I would use quite a few of the tracks to create a drum loop, then resample the whole thing, add distortion and chop it up using the slice function. While having a jam, I found the resampling feature very useful too. I used this feature all the time while sampling into the device to make sure my drum breaks started on the 1, without editing later.
The recording threshold setting makes the device wait for incoming audio to start recording on a selected pad. You can press the next slot to start a new sample recording instantly. Hitting Sample Record takes you to your samples grid and from here, hitting record and selecting an empty slot will allow you to record incoming audio to that slot. The two ¼” inputs on the Rhythm allow you to sample audio sources directly into the device and the way this happens is rather intuitive.
The distortion is great for adding to drum breaks for an old school feel but goes from gentle to hard quickly so pairing it with the built in low pass filter goes really well. These parameters are tune (pitch), start and end points, slope (a combo attack/decay), distortion, high and low pass filters and a resonance control for both of these. This in essence means you can play multiple different samples on the same track, but they will choke each other when the next sample is triggered.Įach track can be sculpted using the eight encoders on the top of the device. Each one is monophonic but allows you to ‘Sample Flip’. If you want to have more than one pack of sounds on your device, you’ll definitely want to grab a microSD card for this device, and with a 2GB one will be able to hold all 31 extra packs.Ĭircuit Rhythm has eight stereo channels which can be used to play and manipulate audio. You can think of each pack as a customisable sound palette from which you can create from. Each pack can contain 64 projects with 64 samples (total up to 32 seconds per sample and 228 seconds per pack). The microSD card slot allows you to expand Circuit Rhythm to create 32 packs worth of audio.
For such a small unit, having all these connections is a blessing.
ICIRCUIT REVIEWS PLUS
Make beats on public transport to work, on the couch, or even at your favourite art gallery (with headphones of course).Ĭonnectivity wise, the Circuit Rhythm has professional ins and outs with two TRS inputs, stereo TRS output jacks, MIDI DIN In, Out and Thru, 3.5mm Sync and headphone ports, a USB-C port plus a microSD card slot.
ICIRCUIT REVIEWS PORTABLE
There’s an inbuilt battery on the Tracks that allows for four hours of portable beat making. This new offering from Novation is similar to their Circuit Tracks device but goes deeper into sample manipulation with a focus on beat and sampling.īoasting the same form factor as their Circuit Tracks, the Rhythm features 32 velocity-sensitive performance pads, eight multi-use encoders plus two master knobs with heaps of buttons to ensure everything is at your fingertips. Words by Sam McNiece Focusrite Australia | Enquire for pricingĪn extension of their Circuit products, the Circuit Tracks takes away the inbuilt synths and MIDI channels from the Tracks in exchange for a fully fledged eight-track sampler.