Korg Volca series

@the bro ... i found a couple of places in the uk that said 4th of october, so i reckon most of uk should have them in the next week or two

Really nice that they've thrown in some samples with the beats. And tuning for that.

i can't decide which to get: bass or keys. it's a good problem.

  On 9/29/2013 at 3:17 AM, Hanratty said:

i can't decide which to get: bass or keys. it's a good problem.

I want the other two (bass and drums) now.

Does the keys make good bass sounds? Does the bass make good lead sounds?

^ That's what I want to know. I'll probably end up getting the bass as well though.

Does anyone know what the MIDI implementation is like, ie. does it receive MIDI on a certain channel or is it omni? I'd like to use it in my hardware setup—eg. Yamaha QY70 on ch2–9 and 11–16, ES-1 on ch10 and Volca on ch1.. would that work?

  On 9/29/2013 at 11:41 AM, th555 said:

Does the keys make good bass sounds? Does the bass make good lead sounds?

Check this out, some pretty sick lead sounds, even moog-like.

[youtubehd]zxF4oANrzSk[/youtubehd]

I'd say bass is the better all-round option, also, cutoff controll on Keys is obviously very stepped, you can hear it in all reviews. You can midi control it though, while on Bass you can't.

  On 9/29/2013 at 11:41 AM, th555 said:

Does the keys make good bass sounds? Does the bass make good lead sounds?

Good question. I think the keys seems to be the most versatile but I'm thinking of getting the bass.

We're going into a great era of digitally controlled analog synths. Remmeber how a few years ago we were all talking like "why does nobody make cheap anlog synths" and now everyone's doing it. Great!

  On 9/30/2013 at 1:06 AM, th555 said:

We're going into a great era of digitally controlled analog synths. Remmeber how a few years ago we were all talking like "why does nobody make cheap anlog synths" and now everyone's doing it. Great!

Well the only guys making cheap digi analogues are Korg really. The rest are still pretty darn expensive comparitively speaking.

Yeah, Korg's stuff is pretty damn awesome though. I'm seriously considering getting the new ms20 when I get the money together.

this video has me thinking just as a midi out performance sequencer the beats module could be useful

Just saw the sonic lab review from the Volca Bass and I'm quite impressed. I regret I midified my Monotribe... The Keys looks cool too but since I heard how the filter sounds (this stepping thing) I'm not so sure. Anyway, I'd be interested to hear some other watmmers takes on these synths!

A nice side-effect of the volcas finally releasing is that people are practically giving away their monotribes these days. I'm picking one up for $35.

  On 9/30/2013 at 5:38 AM, modey said:

Yeah, Korg's stuff is pretty damn awesome though. I'm seriously considering getting the new ms20 when I get the money together.

It's good, and by far the best monosynth in it's price range, but be aware that it has pretty miserable midi lag. Like, guaranteed to always be painfully off-beat. I don't think it's because it uses VCOS, because I dont have the same issue with my dark energy. it's probably just inefficient because it's midi slapped into a complicated vintage circuit.

How painful are we talking? I'd probably just play it live tbh, so it's not really an issue.

You're probably alright then. It makes a very good live instrument. No lag on the keys themselves, and seemingly on the usb midi output, although I can't imagine why that is.

the midi in lag is around a quarter note at 135 bpm

lol wat?

  On 10/1/2013 at 5:55 PM, ganus said:

the midi in lag is around a quarter note at 135 bpm

What?

You're talking about the new MS-20?

I find this hard to believe tbh.

yeah you must be doing something wrong, ganus

either that or your synth is broken

My Volca Keys is in the mail

woot woot

only took 4 months

Yeah, that's way off, sorry. kind of a visual/audio thinker so I am a bit dyslexic about numbers

I've checked mine in a daw and it's really off by about a little less than an eighth note at 135 on both the usb midi port and the midi port, which is still quite significant.

  On 10/2/2013 at 9:26 AM, ganus said:

Yeah, that's way off, sorry. kind of a visual/audio thinker so I am a bit dyslexic about numbers

I've checked mine in a daw and it's really off by about a little less than an eighth note at 135 on both the usb midi port and the midi port, which is still quite significant.

I watched some YouTube videos of MS-20 mini midi demonstrations and they're definitely not that bad. If I had to guess I would say roughly 20 milliseconds, if that. Maybe there's something else in your chain that's causing lag...? Are your buffer and delay compensation settings optimized?

  On 10/2/2013 at 9:44 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 10/2/2013 at 9:26 AM, ganus said:

 

Yeah, that's way off, sorry. kind of a visual/audio thinker so I am a bit dyslexic about numbers

I've checked mine in a daw and it's really off by about a little less than an eighth note at 135 on both the usb midi port and the midi port, which is still quite significant.

I watched some YouTube videos of MS-20 mini midi demonstrations and they're definitely not that bad. If I had to guess I would say roughly 20 milliseconds, if that. Maybe there's something else in your chain that's causing lag...? Are your buffer and delay compensation settings optimized?

An eighth note at 135bpm is more than 200ms, that sounds like there is a serious error somewhere.

20ms is bad enough, that would still be very noticable.