Each Project in Circuit Rhythm has memory space for eight separate Patterns per track.
The true potential of Circuit Rhythm begins to be realised when you start to create interesting variations of a Pattern and then segue them together to be played out as a complete chain of up to 256 (8 × 32) steps. Furthermore, not all the Patterns for each track need to be chained in the same way: you could have 64-step drum patterns on Tracks 1 and 2 combined with a longer sequence of bass and/or synth lines on Tracks 3 and 4, for example. There is no restriction on how you combine the Patterns from different tracks (though Patterns may only be chained sequentially; see Chaining patterns for more information).
To arrange and organise your Patterns, use Patterns View, accessed by pressing Patterns . The first time you open Patterns View in a new Project, it will look like this:
Patterns View has two pages, selected by the ▼ and ▲ buttons . The pages are identical, and the Pattern memories arranged vertically; on Page 1 the pads select Patterns 1 to 4 for each track, on Page 2 they select Patterns 5 to 8.
How each pad is lit indicates its status. A dim pad means that the Pattern is not currently selected to play. One pad per track will be pulsing between dim and bright: this is the Pattern that was playing when Play was last stopped. Initially (i.e., when a new Project is started), Pattern 1 in each track will be in this state with all the other memories empty, and the pads dimly lit.
To select a different Pattern for any track, press its pad. If you do this while another Pattern is already playing, the new Pattern will be “queued” to begin playing at the end of the current one, giving you a smooth transition between Patterns. In this case, the pad for the next Pattern will flash quickly while it is being “queued”, until it starts to play. However, if you hold down Shift while selecting the next Pattern, it will start playing immediately from the corresponding Pattern step, thereby ensuring that the overall timing maintains continuity. For example, if the current Pattern had reached Step 11 when you press a second Pattern’s pad while holding down Shift, Circuit Rhythm will remember where the cursor is, and the second Pattern will start playing from Step 12.
The currently selected Pattern is the one you will hear in either Play or Record Mode: this makes operation very simple and transparent. The current contents of the selected Pattern will play when you press Play, and if you add extra track information – synth notes, drum hits or MIDI data – it will be saved in the same Pattern memory.
Every time you press Play , the currently selected Pattern restarts from Step 1 (or the chosen Start point – selectable in Pattern Settings View). If you want to continue the Pattern from the point at which the sequencer was last stopped, press Shift and Play together.
Pattern memories may be cleared in Patterns View by holding down Clear (it lights red) and pressing the corresponding pad. The selected Pattern pad will light bright red - to confirm deletion - while you press it. While playback is stopped, if the Pattern that is cleared is not the currently active Pattern (indicated by the track colour pulsing), and is not part of a Pattern Chain, it will light white. This indicates that this Pattern will be displayed in all step views for the track. This matches the behaviour of View Lock, see View lock.
In Patterns View, the Duplicate button can be used to perform a copy-and-paste function, letting you copy a Pattern from one memory to another. This is a very useful function, as it lets you use an existing Pattern as the basis for another, slightly different one: it is often easier to modify an existing Pattern to be how you want it than create a new one from scratch.
To copy a Pattern from one memory to another, hold down Duplicate (it lights green), press the pad with the Pattern you want to copy (it lights green while you press it), and then press the pad for the memory where you want the copy to be stored: it will light red, then, if playback is stopped, it will turn white once you release Duplicate, indicating that this Pattern will be displayed when you switch to a step view. You now have an identical copy of the Pattern. If you want to copy the Pattern data to several memories, you can continue to hold the Duplicate button down, and repeat the “paste” part of the operation to the other memories.
Tip
You can duplicate Patterns between tracks, as well as within a single track.
The default length of a Pattern in Circuit Rhythm is 16 steps, but you can double the length to 32 steps with the Step Page button (labelled 1-16/17-32). A Pattern length of 16 steps or fewer is indicated by the Step Page button showing dim blue. To extend the length of the Pattern currently being viewed beyond 16 steps, press the Step Page button: it now shows bright blue for Page 1 - while displaying Steps 1 to 16, and orange for Page 2 - while displaying Steps 17 to 32.
This feature lets you create more interesting and varied loops within the scope of a single Pattern. If some tracks are 16 steps long and some 32 steps long, the 16-step Patterns will repeat after Step 16, while the 32-step Patterns will continue for Steps 17 to 32, so you will hear two repetitions of the shorter tracks for every one of the longer.
Pressing Step Page (1-16/17-32) while a 32-step Pattern is playing changes the display to the other page but does not interrupt the Pattern. You can set a Pattern length back to the default of 16 steps by holding down Clear and pressing the Step Page button: the Pattern will now revert to 16 steps in length. Samples assigned to all 32 steps are preserved, though you will only hear those assigned to the first 16 steps after using Clear. If you extend the Pattern length to 32 steps once again, all notes/hits previously assigned to steps 17 to 32 will still be there.
You can also use Duplicate with the Step Page button. Holding down Duplicate and pressing the Step Page button will extend the Pattern length for the currently selected track to 32 steps, and copy all data at Steps 1 to 16 to Steps 17 to 32 respectively, including automation data. Any data already present on Page 2 will be overwritten by this operation.
Once you’ve created several Patterns for one or more tracks, you can start to chain them together to make a longer sequence. Press Patterns to open Patterns View.
Patterns can be chained on a per-track basis. When Patterns are chained, they play sequentially, e.g., a Pattern Chain comprising four Patterns will play them in numerical order one after the other, and then repeat. If they are all 32-step Patterns, the chain will be 128 steps in length. Another track with just a single 32-step Pattern will be played four times during each chain; a 16-step Pattern will be played eight times.
To create a Pattern Chain, press and hold the pad for the lowest-numbered Pattern required and then press the pad for the highest-numbered Pattern required. (Or, the other way round.) For example, if you want to chain a track’s Patterns in memories 1 to 3 together, hold Pad 1 down and then press Pad 3. You’ll see that all three pads now illuminate brightly in the track colour, indicating that they now form a chained sequence.
If you want to select a chain from Patterns across the Page boundary, selection works the same way: for example, to select Patterns to 3 to 6 as a chain, press and hold the pad for Pattern 3, then press ▼ to move to Page 2, then press the pad for Pattern 6. You’ll now find that the pads for Patterns 3, 4, 5 and 6 are all lit. To chain Patterns that use the same pad on the two pages as the start/end points (e.g. 1 and 5), hold the pad for the first Pattern, move to Page 2, then release the pad. In this example, a chain of Patterns 1 to 5 is then created.
What’s important to remember is that the Patterns you chain together must be consecutive. You can chain Patterns 1, 2, 3 and 4 together, or 5, 6 and 7 together, or 4 and 5 together, but you can’t chain 1,2 and 6 together. (However, Circuit Rhythm’s Scenes feature allows you to overcome this restriction: see Scenes for details of to use Scenes.)
The following example will illustrate chaining:
The Patterns View example above shows a possible arrangement of Patterns for an 8-pattern sequence. We are using the following Patterns, and for simplicity we will assume that all the Patterns are of 16 steps:
When you press Play, each track will loop round its own chain of Patterns. The longest chain is Track 8 – this defines the overall length of the sequence, in this case, 128 (8 x 16) steps. Track 8 will play Patterns 1 to 8 in order, then loop back to Pattern 1 and start again. Against this, Track 1 will play Patterns 1 to 4 in order, and then loop back and repeat; Track 2 only has one Pattern, so this will repeat eight times in the 8-pattern sequence. Tracks 5 and 7 have two Patterns in their chains, so they will each be played through four times, and Track 6 has four Patterns in its chain, so it will played through twice. What you hear is illustrated in the timeline below:
The above example illustrates the basic points involved in chaining Patterns together to make a longer sequence. Creating longer, more complex and more interesting sequences is an extension of these principles. Circuit Rhythm allows Pattern chains of up to 256 (8 x 32) steps, where any of the eight tracks can change their pattern every 16 steps (or fewer if start/end points are also altered from the default).
Every time you press Play, the Pattern Chain restarts from the start point of the first Pattern in the chain. You can restart the Chain from the point at which the sequencer was stopped by pressing Play while holding down Shift.
You can shift the pitch of the currently viewed Pattern up or down one or more octaves by holding down Shift and then pressing ▼ or ▲
. You can do this either during playback, or when the sequencer is stopped. Pattern Octave can be changed in any of the Step Views excluding Sample View, Slice Note View and Slice Point Record View. Only the pitch of the currently selected track is adjusted, that of the others will remain unaffected.
If the pattern contains notes which are already in the highest octave that Circuit Rhythm can generate, they will remain unaffected by an upward Pattern Octave shift; the same applies to the lowest notes and a downward octave shift. If this is the case, the ▼ or ▲ button will light red to indicate that the command cannot be executed. There is also an upper limit to sample playback pitch (as described in the section on Keyboard Note View – see Keyboard note view) – you may encounter this prior to reaching the maximum playable octave, depending on the setting of the Tune parameter (Macro 1).
By default, the Pattern Step display on the upper two rows changes with the selected Pattern (and current Page), so that the play cursor is always visible. If you want to edit one Pattern while continuing to play another Pattern or complete Pattern Chain, you can make use of View Lock. One use of View Lock is to “freeze” the Pattern Step display to the current Pattern (and Page) by holding down Shift and pressing Patterns . The upper two rows will now be locked to the Pattern that was displayed when you selected View Lock.
In Patterns View, tthe currently viewed Patterns will be lit white. A pulsing white pad indicates that a Pattern is being both viewed and played, while steady white indicates that a Pattern is being viewed while another (of the same track) is being played: this pad will be pulsing in the track colour. To change the viewed Pattern, hold Shift and press a Pattern pad. You can still change which Patterns and Pattern Chains are playing in the usual way, described in Patterns View at Patterns view.
View Lock also lets you freeze the Step display on the current Page of the Pattern when you are working on a 32-step Pattern. When View Lock is active, the Pattern will continue to play through both Pages, but only the Page that was in view when View Lock was selected is now displayed. The alternative Step Page can be displayed by pressing the Step Page button .
While Shift is held, the Patterns button lights green when View Lock is active; when inactive it is red. You can press Shift at any time: the button colour will confirm whether View Lock is active or not.
View Lock is applied to all tracks, and applies to all Views that have a Pattern Step display (i.e., Velocity View, Gate View, etc., as well as Note View). It can be cancelled by pressing Shift + Patterns again. Note that the state of View Lock is not saved. It will default to ‘inactive’ whenever Circuit Rhythm is powered on.
Although default Pattern lengths are either 16 or 32 steps (see also “Step Page and 16/32-step Patterns” at Step page and 16/32-step patterns), it is possible for the Pattern in any track to be any other number of steps in length, up to the maximum of 32 steps. Furthermore, the start and end points of a Pattern may be independently defined, so that sub-sections of a Pattern, of any length, may be played against other tracks with different Pattern lengths, creating some very interesting effects. You can also choose Pattern play order and set the speed of the track relative to that of other tracks.
All these options are set in the Pattern Settings View; press Pattern Settings to open this:
Any alterations to patterns made in Pattern Settings View can be saved to the Project in the usual way: press Save – it flashes white, press it again – it flashes green to confirm the Save. (Remember that this overwrites the previous version of the Project; select a different Project memory if you want to keep the earlier version.)
The upper two rows of the Pattern Settings View show the Pattern steps for the currently selected track. If no adjustments have yet been made to Pattern length, Pad 16 will be illuminated sand: this indicates the last step in the Pattern. However if the Pattern length is 32 steps, you will need to press the Step Page button to open Page 2 to see the end step indication. To see which step is currently the Pattern start point, press and hold Shift. The end point step returns to blue and a different step pad lights sand: this will be Pad 1 if Pattern length has not yet been altered.
You can change the end point for the track – and hence shorten the Pattern length - by pressing a different Pattern step pad. The new end point is indicated by a sand illumination, and the “higher” pads either go dark or dim red, the latter indicating that note/hit data has previously been assigned to that step. If you reselect the original end point, this data will still be there and will be played.
Altering the start point is exactly the same process, except that Shift needs to be held down while selecting the new start point:
Pads 29 to 32 in Pattern Settings View let you choose the play order the currently selected Pattern will use. The pad for the selected play order illuminates brightly: the default play order is forwards (i.e., normal), indicated by Pad 29.
Alternatives to the normal forward play order are:
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Reverse (Pad 30). The Pattern starts playing at the end point, plays the steps in reverse order to the start point, and repeats.
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Ping-pong (Pad 31). The Pattern plays forwards from start to end, reverses back to the start point, and repeats.
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Random (Pad 32). The track steps are played randomly, regardless of note/hit assignment, though still at step intervals.
If the play order is changed in Play Mode, the Pattern always completes its current cycle before starting a cycle with the new direction. This applies regardless of the current Pattern length or Step Page selection.
The third row of Pattern Settings View determines the speed at which the track plays relative to the Project’s BPM. It is effectively a multiplier/divider of the BPM.
The selected sync rate is indicated by the brightly-lit pad: the default rate is “x1” (pad 5 in row 3), which means the track will play at the set BPM. Selection of a higher-numbered pad increases the rate at which the play cursor progresses through the Pattern relative to the previous one. Similarly the a lower-numbered pads will decrease the play rate. The sync rates available are 1/4, 1/4T, 1/8, 1/8T, 1/16, 1/16T, 1/32, 1/32T, with T representing triplets.
1/16 is the default sync rate, where each step corresponds to a 16th note. Increasing the sync rate is a great way to increase the sequencer’s step resolution at the cost of overall playback time. Reducing the sync rate is useful for creating longer patterns that don’t require quite as fine detail, such as triggering slices of a long sample.
If the sync rate is changed in Play Mode, the Pattern always completes the current cycle at the existing rate, and changes to the new rate at the end of the cycle. This applies regardless of the current Pattern length or Step Page selection.
Mutate is a feature that lets you introduce further random variations into individual Patterns on a per-track basis. Mutate “shuffles” the notes or hits in the current Pattern, to different steps. The number of notes/hits in the Pattern and notes or drum samples themselves are unchanged, they are just reassigned to different steps. All step parameters are reassigned by Mutate, including micro steps, gate values, sample flips, probability and automation data.
To mutate a Pattern, hold Shift and press Duplicate
. You can do this in any View that has a Pattern steps display, i.e., Note View, Velocity View, Gate View or Pattern Settings View. Mutate only affects the Pattern currently playing, so if it is part of a Pattern Chain, the other Patterns in the chain will be unaffected. The reassignment of notes/hits will take account of the Step Page length. You can apply Mutate as many times as you wish for any one Pattern by repeatedly pressing Shift + Duplicate: the notes/hits in the Pattern will be randomly reassigned each time.
Note that Mutate cannot be “undone”; it is a good idea to save the original Project so that you can return to it after applying Mutate.
Scenes let you assign multiple Patterns and Pattern Chains within a project to a single pad, allowing you to trigger parts of a song easily. Scenes can also be chained to arrange much longer sequences and thus build up complete song structures.
Scenes are accessed in Mixer View: press Mixer to open this:
The two lower rows of pads in Mixer View represent the 16 Scenes that are available in the current Project. In a new Project, all the pads will trigger Pattern 1 of all eight tracks as no Pattern Chains have been defined or assigned yet. The first (Pad 17) will be pulsing bright green. which indicates that the currently playing Patterns correspond with the last selected Scene (Scene 1 by default).
Tip
The pre-loaded factory Patterns make extensive use of Scenes functionality – be sure to check these out to see how they’re used in action.
Open Patterns View and define all the Pattern Chains for each track that are to constitute a Scene. Change to Mixer View, press and hold Shift: the Scene pads change colour to dim gold. Press a Scene pad (while still holding Shift) – it will light bright gold while pressed, indicating that Patterns are now assigned to it.
All the selected pattern chains are now stored as that Scene. On releasing Shift, the pad with the stored Scene now shows bright white:
Now when you press the pad, the Scene is selected and will play the set of Pattern Chains which were assigned to it next time you press Play .
When you select Mixer View, you will immediately be able to see where Scenes are already stored, as their pads will be lit bright white, or bright gold when you press Shift.
Assigning Pattern Chains to a Scene does not affect current playback and will not select the Scene nor change your Scene Chain (see below) if you are already in Play Mode: the selected Scene will start when the current Pattern or Pattern Chain is completed – see “Queuing Scenes” Queuing scenes.
Scene data is stored with the current Project when you perform a Save by pressing Save twice. If a Scene pad is pulsing green, it indicates i) that this is the currently selected Scene, and ii) that the currently selected Patterns match those assigned to the Scene. If the selected Patterns are changed in Patterns View, the Scene pad will return to dim white. If the matching Patterns are selected once again, the Scene pad will once again pulse green. Note that this behaviour will only occur for the most recently selected Scene – if you select the Patterns of a Scene other than the most recently selected one, the corresponding pad will not turn green.
When you assign a pattern chain to a Scene pad you also save the currently selected Mixer Mutes to that Scene.
When playing back scenes you can choose from two playback modes. You can toggle between the two playback modes using pad 9 (1st pad, second row). The pad lights white and is bright white to show it is active.
If the Mute Recall Mode is active, Scenes recall the Mute states saved to them. If the toggle is inactive the Scene keeps your currently selected Mute states, and the Mute states will not change when you change to Scenes with different Mute states.
Just as you can chain Patterns together in Patterns View, you can chain Scenes together in Mixer View to create longer sequences. You do this by holding down the pad for the first Scene, then pressing the pad for the last Scene: these pads and all those between them will illuminate green. The Scene Chain to be played will now comprise the Scenes assigned to all the pads between the two you pressed; e.g., if you want a Scene Chain made up of Scenes 1 to 5, hold the Scene 1 pad and press the Scene 5 pad. Each Scene will play the Pattern Chain assigned to it once and then switch to the next Scene. The Scenes will play in numerical order, and then repeat.
Tip
You can use Scene chaining to overcome the restriction in Patterns View of not being able to define a Pattern Chain of non-sequential Patterns. You can assign the sequential groups of Patterns to consecutive Scene memories and then play them out as a Scene Chain. For example, if you wanted to play Patterns 1, 2, 5 and 6 in order, you can make a Pattern Chain of Patterns 1 and 2 and assign it to a Scene memory, and then another Pattern Chain of Patterns 5 and 6 and assign it to the next Scene memory. Then you can define a Scene Chain of those two Scenes, and will get the four required Patterns in sequence.
Scenes may be “pre-selected” in the same way as Patterns, so if a Scene is already playing, the next one is queued. The pad for a queued Scene flashes green and at the end of the Track 1 Pattern currently playing, the new Scene will begin playing from the start without losing sync.
To clear a Scene memory, hold down Clear and press the pad for the Scene you wish to clear. This will return the Scene memory to its default state - Pattern 1 for all tracks.
Tempo and Swing are closely related and the methods of adjusting them are very similar.
Circuit Rhythm will operate at any tempo in the range 40 to 240 BPM. The tempo can be set by the internal tempo clock, or by an external MIDI clock source. External MIDI clock can be applied either via the USB port or the MIDI In port.
To display and adjust the BPM of the internal tempo clock, press the Tempo/Swing button to open Tempo View. (Like most buttons on Circuit Rhythm, you can short-press to switch the grid to Tempo View, or long-press to check the BPM momentarily.)
The BPM is displayed on the pad grid as two or three large digits in blue and white. The “hundreds” digit (which can only ever be a “1”, “2” or off) occupies grid columns 1 and 2, while the “tens” and “units” digits occupy three columns each, How the digits 0 to 9 are depicted is shown below.
Macro control 1 is used to adjust the tempo; its LED illuminates bright blue.
No switching is required to allow Circuit Rhythm to be synced to a source of external MIDI clock (subject to clock settings – see “Clock settings” on Clock settings). If a valid external clock is applied, it will automatically be selected as the clock source, and the grid will display “SYN” in red if Macro 1 is turned. Adjusting Macro 1 will not alter the internal tempo when an external clock is in use.
While the internal tempo clock only allows integer BPMs (i.e., no fractional tempo values), Circuit Rhythm will synchronise to any external clock rates – including fractional values - in the range 30 to 300 BPM.
If an external clock is removed (or goes out of range), Circuit Rhythm will stop playing. “SYN” remains displayed until Play is pressed. The grid then shows the BPM that was saved with the Project, Macro 1 will be re-enabled and you can adjust the tempo.
If you want to match the tempo to an existing piece of music but you don’t know its BPM, you can use Tap Tempo.
Hold down Shift and tap the Tempo/Swing button in time with the track you’re listening to. You need at least three taps for Circuit Rhythm to change its tempo setting to your manual input, and it calculates the BPM by averaging the last five taps.
You can use Tap Tempo at any time, but if you’re in Tempo View, you’ll see the BPM display update itself to the tap tempo.
By default, all steps in a pattern are equally spaced in time. At tempo of 120 BPM, a 16-step pattern will repeat every two seconds, making the steps one-eighth of a second apart. Changing the Swing parameter from its default value of 50 (the range is 20 to 80) changes the timing of even-numbered steps (the off-beats); a lower swing value shortens the time between an even step and the previous odd step, a higher Swing value has the opposite effect.
Swing is adjusted with Macro 2, while in Tempo View; its LED illuminates orange. Note that when adjusting tempo and swing alternately, you may notice a short delay before the knob adjustment takes effect. This is to allow you to check the current Tempo and Swing values without altering them.
Swing can be used to add an extra “groove” to your pattern. Note that as it is the even steps that are “swung”, these can be interpreted as 1/16-notes (semiquavers).
The Click (or metronome) can be activated or deactivated by holding Shift and pressing Clear . Clear will light bright green when Click is enabled and dim red when it is not. When enabled, you will hear a metronome tick at every quarter note on all audio outputs whenever the sequencer is playing. This is a global setting, therefore Click will remain on or off regardless of Pack or Project changes. The setting is not saved when Circuit Rhythm is powered off.
To adjust the volume of the Click, press Tempo/Swing and use Macro 5. Click level is also a global setting and applies to all Packs and Projects. The level setting is saved when the device is powered off using the power button .
You can synchronise external equipment – e.g., analogue synths – to Circuit Rhythm with the rear panel Sync Out connector . This provides a sync pulse at a rate proportional to the tempo clock (BPM); the actual ratio can be set in Setup View – see Setup view. The default rate is two pulses per quarter note.