What does that tasty ice, cold vanilla ice cream need? Chocolate sauce and peanuts. What does the Novation Circuit need? This sample pack.
No, seriously. Cuckoo, that brilliant YouTube personality, has put his love for gear into a brilliant and genius sound pack for Novation’s adorable Circuit drum machine – the box for the common man and woman to make riotous noise uncommonly easy.
And it works like this: you give Cuckoo love in the form of Patreon (in absurdly small increments if you’re broke), then he gives you love back in the form of a download that shows his love for Circuit.
There are two elements: one, sampled drums based on Teenage Engineering’s excellent-sounding Pocket Operator. Two, synths based on some friendly abuse of the wavetable sound — because, as he puts it, wavetable synthesis “kind of sounds a bit gritty” if you push the parameters.
And that’s basically perfect for making some dirty sounds. In fact, if I have any complaint about the Circuit, it is that its internal sound bank is too vanilla. I don’t blame Focusrite/Novation; you’re meant to make your gear sound good. But then it’s up to the rest of us to make it sound bad, which is better.
The Teenage Engineering sounds, for their part, benefit from not being locked inside that inscrutable Nintendo interface, love it as we do.
Here, you can watch the ever-charming Cuckoo with his epic beard and hair as he walks you through what he’s done:
If I rambled on like this, no one would watch, but… he’s sort of mesmerizing.
And, for absolutely no reason at all, it goes on for 89 minutes, rivaling ambient Enterprise-D engine noise for “nerdy things from YouTube you might leave on in the background as you fall asleep.”
Anyway – the pack. Thanks, Cuckoo. Total win.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/novation-circuit-7029116
And for anyone wondering: no, Focusrite/Novation are not flying me over to the UK regularly to ply me with curries and ales. (Curry my favor, so to speak.) Rather, the Circuit has found its way into my rig at home and abroad, and more importantly, everyone I know who owns one is finding themselves blissfully happy with it, meaning I’m thus obligated to keep talking about it in this way. See above regarding love and happiness. But… actually, Focusrite/Novation, you are welcome to violate ethics and do that, as it sounds a good idea. I promise not to spill vindaloo on my Circuit.