Circuit combines hardware and software

Circuit Performance - Danny Nugent

Integrating Circuit into your software based system has many advantages in the studio. This video unpacks how to move away from the restraints of a computer when you’re writing music and being creative.

Learn the six steps to Launchpad success

The Novation Launchpad is as ubiquitous any other piece of equipment in the music-making world. Its primary function is as an Ableton Live controller, but it has many uses outside of that spectrum, from an expressive performance instrument to a dynamic light show controller. Launchpad has captivated humans in all genres of music, and birthed its own YouTube sub-genre, garnering tens of millions of views.

If you’re new to Launchpad, or even still thinking about joining the fold, these six steps will help to guide you to success. Learn how to hone your rhythm and performance skills; find out about the ways to implement Launchpad in your musical and visual creations; and discover how to build and nurture your own YouTube channel.

Are You Ready To Start Your Launchpad Journey?

Get started with Launchpad in seconds: Play right now

There are several ways to get started with Launchpad. If you already own Launchpad hardware, you can install Ableton Live Lite for free, or connect to the Launchpad App on your iOS device.

The easiest way, however, is with Launchpad Arcade — you don't even need a Launchpad! Go to Launchpad Arcade now

Launchpad Arcade is a place where you can get straight into making music with Launchpad's familiar clip-based user interface. You can perform tracks from an extensive loop library, and you can even design and play lightshows, too — if you already have a Launchpad device. Launchpad Arcade works inside your browser (Google Chrome is recommended). All you need is a computer and an internet connection to get going.

Launchpad Arcade is ready for players at all levels. Whether you have zero music-making experience, or you're an intermediate or advanced user, the quick setup guide will fast-track you to the action.

Just hit the '?' button in the bottom right corner.

Are You Ready To Play?

It doesn't stand for 'Really Good Beats'

RGB technology allows us to light LED’s in almost any colour you can imagine. What this means is that your Novation RGB device will light up to match the colour of your clips in Ableton Live. Now you can see at a glance which clips are loaded, playing and recording.

The other advantage of RGB pads is that you can design, create and play colourful interactive light shows to enhance your performance.

Our RGB technology is available in Launchpad, Launchpad Pro and Launchkey 25, 49 and 61.

The Gory Details

RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue. Red, Green and Blue are primary colours; by combining these, it's possible to create any colour in the visible spectrum.

You can create secondary colours yellow, cyan and magenta by combining two primary colours together:
Red + Green = Yellow
Green + Blue = Cyan
Red + Blue = Magenta

Combining all the primary colours together at equal intensity will give you white.
Red + Green + Blue = White

By combining different primary colours at different intensities, you can create shades of any colour in the visual spectrum.

A Look Under The Hood Of Peak

Peak is Novation’s new polyphonic synthesiser. It’s an eight-voice analogue-hybrid design with a total of 24 oscillators, a multi-mode filter, analogue distortion, and three discrete digital effects. But behind these headlines, Novation have gone to great lengths to innovate with both digital and analogue technologies. In this preview, we aim to reveal a little more about what’s going on under the hood; what makes Peak do what it does, and how. We’ll explore the new tech developed specifically for Peak, and highlight the point at which analogue and digital converge.

Better Than The Best Of Both Worlds

Peak was designed by synth veteran Chris Huggett under several important design principles. The big picture outcome was for it to be “the best-sounding synth Novation has ever made”. To achieve this, the design would combine Novation’s acclaimed analogue synthesis technology — featured most recently in the Bass Station II — with future-facing digital advancements.

Fundamental to Peak’s success were two acknowledgements. Firstly that, while analogue synthesis has unique sonic advantages over digital counterparts, an all-analogue design can limit a synth’s overall flexibility and usability. Secondly, digital synthesiser technology still has room for improvement, so any digital elements employed should be better and more powerful than designs past.

For modern synthesiser instruments, using the combination of analogue and digital makes absolute sense. “In analogue circuits, the non-linear response is where a lot of the magic happens,” says Nick Bookman, long-serving Novation Hardware Engineer. “But digital gives us much more power and control when it comes to the oscillators, modulation and effects.” As such, analogue circuitry provides warmth and character for the filters, VCAs and distortion in Peak. Digital technology provides the control, audio precision and complex processing used for routing, modulation and effects.

That’s Peak in a nutshell — the best of old and new. A real hybrid. But while this blue-sky thinking is imperative to the design, Novation were focussed on making Peak more than just a convenient unity of analogue and digital technology. They had the goal of creating a completely new synthesiser; an instrument that’s greater than the sum of its (analogue and digital) parts. The next step was good old-fashioned innovation.

The New Oxford Oscillator

The implementation of the FPGA opens the doors to a new type of oscillator design for Peak — The New Oxford Oscillator — the design of which stems from the analogue imperative. Peak’s raw waveforms are generated using an architecture designed and realised by Chris Huggett. It employs two waveform-generating techniques: Numerically Controlled Oscillators (NCOs) and wavetables.

The saw-tooth, square / pulse and triangle waveforms are generated using Numerically Controlled Oscillators (NCO’s). Of note is the sawtooth, which can be multiplied and detuned on the FPGA, generating a thick, harmonically rich ‘triple saw’. The oscillators can also output wavetable-based waveforms including two types of sine wave. On a conventional digital wavetable-based synthesiser, the waveforms are band-limited before being stored in the table. This is to avoid unwanted aliasing. With the New Oxford Oscillator design there is no need for band limiting; the extreme oversampling means that the aliasing problem is pushed way out of the audible frequency spectrum enabling Peak to utilise mathematically pure waveforms. The first sine wave is exactly that — mathematically pure — while the second is a more colourful alternative, similar to the filtered triangle you would find on an analogue synth. The purity of combined and virtual synced waves is also superior because there is no compromise to the waveforms at the point of generation.

The New Oxford Oscillator can also load 17 ‘designed’ wavetables of five waveforms each. The ‘Shape Amount’ knob on each oscillator — which controls pulse width and saw shape with the analogue waves — morphs between the five waveforms in the active wavetable row, and can be modulated by LFO1 and Env1 directly from the front panel. (Further modulation can be programmed using the mod matrix.)

Each oscillator can also be synced to an ‘invisible’ virtual oscillator for creating classic analogue synced sounds without the need for slave oscillators, and set to a static frequency. This is ideal for drones or using the oscillators as modulation sources. Linear FM (Frequency Modulation) is also featured, with all three oscillators available as FM paths in both analogue and wavetable modes, and thus capable of cross-modulating each other in a recursive loop.

Inherent to the NCO design is pitch stability; Peak will never fall out of tune. But of course, the instabilities of an analogue design have a huge impact on the character of a synth. Warm, rich tones are often the side effect of slightly mis-tuned or fluctuating oscillators. So using specially designed algorithms — named Drift and Divergence — Peak mimics the response of analogue oscillators by introducing slight random pitch variation and per-voice offset, respectively, mimicking the often desirable imperfections and variance of VCOs. This creates a convincing analogue feel, if you want it.

The Filter

‘Real’ analogue circuitry is hard to beat when it comes to filter design, due to the complex nature of the interaction between input gain, cutoff and resonance. As powerful as the FPGA and New Oxford Oscillators are, Peak’s filters are 100% analogue. The eight self-resonant multimode analogue filters (one per voice), are based on the Bass Station II filter, but with increased resonance and adjustable keytracking. The filter can be switched from low-pass, high-pass and band-pass modes, with a choice of roll-off slopes: 12dB and 24dB/octave. LFO1 and Osc3 are hardwired as modulation sources, their depths accessible directly from the Filter section. The ‘Env Depth’ control applies modulation from the Amp or Mod 1 envelope. The filters can also have the same Divergence applied as the oscillators, for subtle random offset per voice.

Digital Effects

Peak features three digital effects: reverb, delay and chorus, all generated by the FPGA at a sample rate of greater than 90kHz, and of notably higher quality than their equivalents on most other synths. The reverb stands out as particularly impressive, incorporating modulation and filtering, and sounding supremely lush and expansive. Audio conversion from the analogue circuitry to digital effects and back is done via a DAC and ADC. A front-panel Bypass button disables all three, and if the effects aren’t used, the converters don’t come into play at all. In that sense, the onboard effects are no different to plugging Peak into an external digital effects module, which would involve the same conversion process.

The included wooden end cheeks can be removed, revealing screw fixings for installing Peak in the optional angled stand. The stand is made of die-cast aluminium and has two orientation options, each putting Peak at a different angle, but both with enough elevation to position it above a master keyboard.

Convenient connection is provided on Peak’s rear panel, with quarter-inch jack sockets for audio outputs. For interfacing with analogue control voltages, Peak has an external 1/8th-inch jack CV input which, can track 0-5Volt control voltage signals at rates up to 1.2kHz — well into audio range — for external modular control. In addition, the two Pedal inputs can accept either a sustain or expression controller pedal, so you can have one of each or two of either attached.

Use Melodics To Hone Your Pad Drumming Skills

Unless you’re a trained musician, you might find it hard to play good-sounding rhythms on pads. That’s totally normal — all musicians need practice to keep their timing and rhythmic feel locked in. Drummers, for example, often use practice pads to play complex rudiments that flex their rhythmic abilities; pianists improve their finger dexterity by practicing scales up and down the keyboard.

If you want to be a pad drumming master, there's a fantastic tool to help develop your skills. Melodics is a free app that helps you perfect your fingering through a series of slick-looking tutorials and interactive feedback.

Melodics works with all Launchpads, but you don't need a controller to use Melodics — it works just fine with your computer keyboard. Melodics tracks your progress, helps you to work on your weak points, and gives you genuinely good beats to play along to.

Work Melodics into your rehearsal routines, try just ten minutes per day, then share your progress with your friends. Soon, you'll be on your way to pad-drumming perfection.

Get Ready To Become A Rhythm Master