STEAMROLLER

A firmware for the Novation Circuit Rhythm for rhythmic noise, IDM and experimental percussion

Install via browser Read the manual

SteamRoller keeps everything the Circuit Rhythm does: the sampler, the sequencer, the mixer, the effects, your packs and projects. It adds a sound generator that fills your packs with new drum sounds, parameter locks that work on every step the way Elektron's do, a single gesture that varies a whole pattern, and the Grid FX locked to single steps of single tracks.

Features

  1. Sound generatorIn the Sample Rec view, the track buttons draw new sounds from eight families, synthesized on the Rhythm by one of two engines and auditioned at once: poundhard, an FM drum voice (kick, snare, hi-hat and cymbal, metal, noise, glitch, impact, gnarly), or BAYAREA, a West Coast voice for textures and strange noises (clunk, scrape, hiss, rumble, whir, clang, chop, gnarly).
  2. Store as samplesHold a track button and press a slot: the sound becomes a real sample in the current pack, exactly as you heard it.
  3. KitsOne pad fills a whole page of 16 slots with a balanced kit. Each further page, from either engine, extends the kit with what it lacks most, up to 128 sounds.
  4. Parameter locksHold a step and set a value on it, with a knob or with the step sliders: with Record on, the two bottom pad rows become sliders for that step's level, pan, delay and reverb, and for the seven Grid FX. A lock lasts for its step's whole sound and lands on the transient; the next unlocked hit returns to the track's own value.
  5. Grid FX per step, per trackBit crusher, stutter, looper, auto-filter, vinyl, reverser and phaser, each with eight settings from gentle to extreme, locked to single steps. Only the track that holds the lock goes through the effect.
  6. SpiceShift + a track button adds random locks to the track's pattern after reading its structure: the backbone stays, ghost notes move, fills build, throws go where there is room. Press again for another take.
  7. Pattern generatorRecord on, Shift + a track button: a whole new pattern for that track in one of four styles (industrial techno, power noise, IDM, broken), with its length, velocities, gates, ratchets, probabilities, parameter locks and Grid FX. It plays the track's own sound, or builds a whole drum part from the pack's samples, each in its role.
  8. Locks follow the stepDelete a step and its locks go with it; copy a step and they come along. Everything saves with the project.
  9. Installed from the browserChrome or Edge, a USB cable, two clicks. Going back to the official firmware takes the same steps in Novation Components.