Free Firmware Update Gives Novation Circuit Tracks Triple The Sample Time

Novation has released a free firmware update for their recently-released Circuit Tracks that triples the groove box’s sample time.

With the firmware update v1.1.5, Circuit Tracks owners now have more than 3 minutes of sample time, instead of 60 seconds. This gives you three times the space for samples, making it practical to use longer samples, opening up new use cases for the device.

For existing Circuit Tracks owners, you’ll be able to update your device to the new sample time capabilities through Components.

19 thoughts on “Free Firmware Update Gives Novation Circuit Tracks Triple The Sample Time

      1. @gadi As far as I know, the reason for a sample time limit would be a lack of memory, which is a hardware thing. That means they should have had the capability of giving the circuit tracks 3 minutes of sample time from the start, which makes it weird that it’s just happening now.

      2. the update doesn’t add any memory but the available memory is now tripled, so if it wasn’t “crippled” before the update, why wasn’t the memory that was already there available for sampling?

        1. Its really not that simple. It is not like there was a bunch of unused memory on it. Maybe they made the memory swapping more efficient or maybe found some way to rewrite some of the other functions so they used less memory, thus freeing up more for sampling. I’m just guessing but it could be a myriad of technical things they’ve refined to allow for longer samples. But to think they “crippled” the unit on purpose is just plain stupid.

          1. “It is not like there was a bunch of unused memory on it.”
            Maybe it is maybe it isn’t. I don’t know but you do so it seems.
            I’m not sure how much is different from the OG but my guess is that Novation knows what it can do by now. Calling it crippled might not be such a ”plain stupid” thing to say. His suspicion could be right. We all know companies do this all the time. Someone will find out, as always. It’s just a matter of time.

            Here’s a thing I do know. I hate we’re forced to use Components in order to get the most out of Novation products now. No matter how you look at it it’s a forced ecosystem and I personally don’t find that attractive. Everyone should know by now those type of products gonna suck when support is no longer available and support is never long enough. (unless a company designed a product to be dead before that time)

            Here’s an idea for Novation.. Make a Circuit with a screen (or with video output) so it’s not half a product and we’re not forced to use components to use it’s full potential. Sell them at double the cost if needed but also make it opensource. Don’t delay, don’t cripple. I know Novation can do this, I’m just waiting.

    1. good question difficult to answer without seeing the source code but this does seem quite excessive. that being said extremely inefficient code has been released in the past for example on the Commodore 1541 flobby drive.

    2. “why did they cripple the device in the first place??!”

      Was the original Circuit ‘crippled’ before they added features like microtiming, pattern chaining, sample flipping, MIDI recording & assignable MIDI channels?

      No – the Circuit was a big success, which meant that it made sense for Novation to invest in firmware updates and hardware updates to the platform. This was a huge win for users.

      Like the previous Circuit, Novation designed the Circuit Tracks with room to grow. Rock-solid updates require a big investment in coding & testing, so it makes sense for them to be listening to end users and prioritizing the features that users want the most.

      Increasing the sample memory is huge. I’d love to see them add the ability to stream big files from the flash card. Who knows if that’s even possible? But it’s safe to assume that they’ve got ideas for lots of cool feature upgrades for the next few years.

  1. Regarding sample time: there are plenty of examples of synths and other digital hardware being released before all features are fully built out. My guess is Novation designed it for more than 1 minute but ran into performance issues when reserving the extra memory; so they lowered it while they continued to work on it. Who knows, maybe it’s capable of 600 sec sample time but they are still deciding what features they may want to add that could also use that memory. What would be cool is if updates were modular so users could choose between more sampling features or more sampling time, for instance. Korg sort of does that with the Logue series where the user gets to select which other feature they wish to load into the User slot, and it’s pretty well implemented.

  2. Still cannot find the full release notes anywhere !?

    @Novation this could be a buying decision!

    New firmware for the bass station 2 was celebrated like a new product – for th CT firmware no info but the sample time ??

    Was pattern sequencing updated so you can sequence like on the old circuit ie.: beeing able to chain any patterns and not just patternsd in a row ?

    So many questions – Where are the relese notes !?

    1. Here you go…

      * Pack sample time capacity increased from 60 seconds to 196.6 seconds.
      * Maximum single-sample time increased to 98.3 seconds.
      * Voice stealing has been reduced in synth patches that make use of high v-sync, density, and attack values.
      * Sticky shift toggle assed in Setup View.

  3. I wish they would resolve the issues with the Mininova Editor. Unusable with current mac OS, Novation is aware of it, but there doest seem to be plans to update.

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