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Novation Circuit won’t turn on
I fear that I may have broken my beloved Novation Circuit (original old school version). I tried to power it with a power plant for my guitar effects. It sends out 9 volt, but also has two 12 volt outputs. Anyway, the power plant stopped working all of a sudden. I didn’t know why, but it wasn’t the most expensive one, so I didn’t care too much. Stuff stops working, right.
But, when I tried to turn on my Circuit, it was also completely dead. Could I have fried it somehow? It doesn’t smell fried or anything. But it’s stone dead…
Anyone else who’ve experienced this. I already miss it, especially as a versatile midi controller.
Comments
Yikes that doesn't sound good. Out of interest...is it also not working with batteries?
I’ve tried, but I only have 4 fresh batteries and 2 used ones in the house. They don’t fire it up, but I’ll try with 6 fresh ones tomorrow.
The guitar power block almost certainly puts out center-negative polarity, while most non-pedal gadgets are center-positive. There are adapter cables to reverse this for odd pedals that don’ t comply.
Which is to say, it’s like putting the batteries in backwards. Some devices ignore this, some, I guess, might fry.
You have fried your Circuit
I agree, terrible shame if you have blown it.
You are not the first person to do this. The last time I did the wrong polarity power into a piece of equipment I was lucky enough that it had polarity protection but it seems this is quite rare nowadays.
Good tip for novices and pros alike is
Label those power cables
Back in 2016 someone posted the same problem. Contacting Novation support is the best new tip from here:
https://gearspace.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-and-electronic-music-production/1105524-help-my-novation-circuit-wont-witch.html
Good luck
Bugger.
It’s probably a good time to pick up another one used. The new shiny Circuits have resulted in the originals being sold cheap on the auction sites as there are rarely many bidders.
I got mine for £95.
Good luck, hope it’s not fried. They are a ton of fun!
I know it’s too late to say: ‘always check the polarity’ but this thing always freaked me out. It’s so easily done since a barrel plug is a barrel plug right? Wrong!
Maybe it’s the universe trying to tell you to get a second hand Circuit Tracks and use it to drive you iPad synths?
Thanks for all the kind comments. I tried out 6 fresh batteries and the Circuit immediately let out smoke and smelt bad. That’s it, it’s gone.
I have no idea about polarity and what else you’re talking about, but perhaps now is the time to educate myself - and maybe splash out on the new Circuit Tracks that looks kind of cool.
Ah man that's sucks, I feel your pain, I lost a mixer by accidentally plugging 19v into 12v, that's smell is the worst.. luckily for me it was a relatively cheap mixer but still it makes you feel dopey..
I've got Circuit Tracks. It's great and also the power is USB C so no worries about polarity.
I have one too! Highly recommended especially to work alongside iOS.
Great to hear. I think I’ll grab it at some point. Ive always enjoyed the workflow from the old Circuit and I think the additions with extra midi tracks and the ability to have an SD card stacked with samples sounds great. It did feel a bit too limited with the old drum/sample setup, and I ended up using it as a controller most of the time.
Maybe you can answer a question for me: do you load an entire pack (synths, samples, projects) from the SD card, or can you choose to load only new samples?
Circuit Tracks has built in battery though which is a mixed blessing.
I’ve tried to use it as a Hardware/controller but in the end I just use it as a media controller for Drambo. Drambo has a great sample management and imo kills Circuit’s sound engine. Managing stuff on the screen is easier than needing to deal with antiquated SD card based system. There’s no need to sync the iPad to Circuit’s sequencer and a whole session only requires saving in Audiobus. You can’t continue working on stuff when you don’t have Circuit with you as well.
So why bother with Circuit as opposed to a cheap midi controller?
Scales and Chord programming mostly. This is great when used with Drambo’s built arp..
I don’t know if you’re a Drambo user so I’ll shut up now
You are completely missing the point of Circuit. Why bother with Drambo when you can stare at a screen of a full blown DAW with 1000s of plug ins.
I love my iPad and all my apps, but I equally loved my Circuit (RIP…) for its versatility and its intuitive and quick workflow. I just loved playing around with it and come up with quick and dirty ideas. Its limitations became its strengths. It was just a fun and inspirational device that also worked as a great compact midi controller, especially for the knobs that could control many things depending on whether I turned on Synth1, Synth2, Drums, etc.
I could live without it, but I think I’ll go for the new Tracks at some point in the future.
Exactly this.
I like mine as it takes me away from the complications of a production environment and lets me just make music and jam with it.
Its limitations mean I’m not getting option paralysis or staring at an empty project not knowing where to start.
Its the antithesis of Drambo.
I made a load of patches for it which helps get into it. The sound engine is surprisingly good despite the amount of whinging about it you’ll hear online. It suits what I want anyway.
Setting up the controllers to sensible macros also make it more flexible as I can adjust specific patches to be basses, leads and dirty them up with distortion for drones etc. Same with the samples. I don’t have a circuit tracks so can’t switch out samples easily but have a good set of drums and kits that suits my preferences all ready to go.
The sequencer is quick and very playable. Its so easy to chain sessions and patterns and come up with lots of ideas very quickly.
And it doesn’t have a screen. The last thing I need after a long day at work followed by getting the kids fed and into bed is more screen time. My old man eyes can’t take it anymore.
Drambo is great but it’s for a very different mind set to when I want play the circuit. I keep my circuit in my lounge with rechargeable batteries in it and reach for it when I fancy a jam with no ulterior motives. I don’t even usually bother connecting it to a daw to record the ideas unless I want the MIDI — I record it straight into a little zoom from which I can grab the audio on my iPhone or Mac really easily at a later date. It needs the friction of making music to an absolute minimum.
It’s the equivalent of me picking up a guitar and just strumming.
And anybody that complains about the sound engine is totally missing the point. If you write a song on an acoustic guitar all you’re worried about is the song — the chords and melodies. Everything else can be filled in later.
I’ve made songs that started on the circuit and the finished song contains no circuit sounds at all, but the circuit still played a hugely important role.
The circuit is genius.
Great selling point. It’s really a creative and fun sketchpad. I know people make full songs on it, but for me it’s mainly about inspiration and a carefree, fun experience. And it’s complex enough to come up with something that could make it into a finished song. And the synth sounds are cool enough, for my needs anyway. It is what it is at that price.
I started off being down because my Circuit died, but now I just feel thrilled about buying a new Tracks! 😂
I think you are missing the point. The point is: make music that makes you happy by whatever means necessary.
I think you’ve missed the point – keep buying new stuff
THIS!
I want to apologies for my tone in my earlier reply to you. I have to fight hard sometimes to stop being a keyboard warrior and sometimes I slip up. Sorry.
Can I ask you a few questions about the Tracks?
1) the battery time on the specs is said to be 4 hours. Is that true in real life? And how long does it take to do a full re-charge?
2) could I use the 2 new midi tracks to send to my iPhone (via some small interface) and let it control a few apps there and send back to the Circuit? That would be a great portable setup with some extra width to the compositions with 4 synth tracks. Or does it only control hardware synths?
As an circuit og, tracks and rhythm owner, I can only say go for it. The new versions are just awesome. I am totally locked in the different workflows.
I have the original version not the Tracks so can’t speak for the battery life.
But as for midi, you can indeed control iPhone apps with it via a midi interface or via the usb I think (I’m pretty sure the tracks has class
Compliant midi so you can use a CCK to control it and let it me controlled from iPhone).
Somebody with a tracks can chime in.
I’ve used my circuit with my Mac for MIDI using the 5 pin din midi and it works like any hardware sequencer or synth. I can control the built in synths from my Mac and vice versa.
Cool. Thanks for answering. I guess I can route the two midi tracks (on the Tracks) via USB into an audio interface that is set up with the iPhone, control something in e.g. AUM and route it back into Tracks via the interface’s two outputs (and pan the two apps left and right). That is the idea anyway. I just need a small portable interface (perhaps Scarlet 2i2) to be the link.
I get about 3/3.5 hours of fun from the tracks.
I use a WIDI Jack to connect with my iPhone/iPad.
Great. Thanks. I just checked out the WIDI Jack. Hadn’t heard about it before. Essentially it just sends midi via Bluetooth, is that correct? So, no audio involved (for sending back to the Tracks)?
Yes that’s correct, the WIDI Jack is just ble midi.
For the audio now just a single line is needed.
I have other gear which all have WIDI jacks, I use my circuit to sequence those too.
No offence taken. I think we all suffer from screen burn out here and there. I’m actually contemplating using screens only when necessary. I’ve slipped heavily into the check this and that and video game land lately and my eyesight is going out of the window.
Whenever I can I try to relegate all of the functions to a midi controller so in most of my jams I mostly use the screen to actually play Samplr. When it comes to editing and file management i much prefer to have a proper screen though.