Producer’s Guide to… Novation Ciruit Tracks

Praised for its great value and accessibility, Circuit Tracks is a groovebox worth getting to know. Let’s take a tour

As was true of the original Circuit, you could make convincing arguments for calling VIDEO ON Novation’s Circuit FILESILO Tracks an entry-level instrument. Little-to-no music theory or production knowledge is required to get to grips with its two polysynths and sample drum machine; simply select a predefined scale, load a preset then push the pads and tweak the macros until something sounds good. Novation have clearly put a lot of thought into making the design approachable for even the newest of music makers, meaning you can coax quality sounds from Circuit even if you don’t know your wavetables from your wavefolders.

To think of Tracks as a purely entry level instrument would be to do it a disservice though. The beauty of this Circuit – as with its predecessor, at least after multiple firmware updates – is that there’s real depth here when you want to explore further. Tracks offers more functionality than ever, thanks to its new external sequencing channels and advanced tools such as sequencer sub steps and probability. Let’s explore some of these tools and see how Tracks can go beyond simple preset playback and hold its own against gear from the likes of Elektron and Arturia.