Korg Volca series

If you didn't pre-order, it might be hard to get one once they hit North America. But I'm speculating based on how popular these machines are right now. Everyone and their grandmother seems to want to scoop up these very cheap machines.

Toys are fun. Making music doesn't need to be serious.

sorry if jazz

Has anyone got one of these yet? I'm seriously considering ordering the keys one RIGHT NOW. I'm not sure of the Australian release date though. Would really love one to use with my electribe sampler for some industrial acid stuff. And also for lead synth sounds in my prog band.

+1 for physical modeling groove box.

yeah so I don't think Korg will ever return to the golden era, but i just picked up the original Korg wavedrum, and holy fuck. It's a brilliant concept. It doesn't use any samples (unlike the currently sold Wavedrum) it is 100% phys mod synthesis. It's also not driven by simple trigger data, it actually uses a microphone under the real drum skin head as an 'exciter' for the physical models. So you can hit the rim and get different very realistic and expressive timbers. Goddam it makes me sad Korg is playing into analog synth fetishism right now

Dude, I definitely want to check out that wavedrum!

  On 8/22/2013 at 3:42 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

Goddam it makes me sad Korg is playing into analog synth fetishism right now

What?!?

These are beautiful instruments. And the world doesn't need more of these 80's jazz fusion keyboards you're pining for.

lol, I want both, damnit.

  On 8/22/2013 at 3:42 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

yeah so I don't think Korg will ever return to the golden era, but i just picked up the original Korg wavedrum, and holy fuck. It's a brilliant concept. It doesn't use any samples (unlike the currently sold Wavedrum) it is 100% phys mod synthesis. It's also not driven by simple trigger data, it actually uses a microphone under the real drum skin head as an 'exciter' for the physical models. So you can hit the rim and get different very realistic and expressive timbers. Goddam it makes me sad Korg is playing into analog synth fetishism right now

this sounds amazing. Care to make a video?

  On 8/22/2013 at 5:15 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

These are beautiful instruments. And the world doesn't need more of these 80's jazz fusion keyboards you're pining for.

 

anyway, I just ordered the keys. Excited as fuck. Gonna team it up with my electribe sampler for some sweet rave action, and my friend's 606 for some minimal techno/acid stuff.

  On 8/22/2013 at 1:34 PM, modey said:

anyway, I just ordered the keys. Excited as fuck. Gonna team it up with my electribe sampler for some sweet rave action, and my friend's 606 for some minimal techno/acid stuff.

Cool! Let us know when you get it. I'm curious if all pre-orders will come in at the same time. It SHOULD be at the end of this month...

Well, I'm in australia so probably won't get it for a while yet. Store said late september but I'm not counting on it!

  On 8/22/2013 at 1:15 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

 

  On 8/22/2013 at 5:15 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

These are beautiful instruments. And the world doesn't need more of these 80's jazz fusion keyboards you're pining for.

 

 

You called these things toys, but you'd rather they were like the Korg Oasys?

Seriously, show me a single example of the Oasys that doesn't sound like an 80's Chick Corea record.

I bought one of the original korg wave drums when they came out and I have to agree they're amazing. I also would like one of the volca drums.

waiting for korg to make an analogue physical modelling synth + analogue computer

hehe

Computers are analog already. Transistors, etc.

  On 8/24/2013 at 8:12 AM, psn said:

Computers are analog already. Transistors, etc.

Korg Abacus, out now at all shops

  On 8/23/2013 at 2:58 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 8/22/2013 at 1:15 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

 

  On 8/22/2013 at 5:15 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

These are beautiful instruments. And the world doesn't need more of these 80's jazz fusion keyboards you're pining for.

 

 

 

You called these things toys, but you'd rather they were like the Korg Oasys?

 

Seriously, show me a single example of the Oasys that doesn't sound like an 80's Chick Corea record.

 

as Grant says 'use your ears' and actually wade through some of those patches on the harm visser site. I admit some of it isn't up to snuff it sounds fake and plastic but the stuff that doesn't actually sounds pretty fucking close to being a real acoustic sound. Check out the gongs and singing bowl samples, extremely accurate real 'beating' and richness that you wouldn't even be able to achieve on a recording of a singing bowl.

So basically what you are saying is the entire history of recorded acoustic music sounds like an 80's Chick Corea record, which is an absurd statement

and lets isolate and remove the idea that you don't like the way the Oasys physical modeling sounds (which is a crime) and focus on the premise that why did korg spend probably millions of dollars developing a synthesis engine that was only used in one product? A synth engine which if converted to modern circuit board design and chips could be very affordable. I just don't understand why it's acceptable for a company who's sitting on such wonderful technology to just keep pumping out generic analog synth groove boxes. Also the synth engine on these volcas really sounds kind of weak to me, after hearing some other newer analog synths like the minotaur and mopho and even analog 4 they sound almost sub-standard just in terms of fidelity. Seriously, these things get worse every time i look at them / read about them

they're also pretty cheap though, never forget...

imo these analogs are kinda reactionary to that entire app thing.. something like the signature crappy noisy monotron sound & experience can't really be had with an app, so no wonder these things are successful...

That digital business might be very risky at the moment, too much stuffs going on with mobile devices.. why risk a fancy DSP box to flop in a shortlived economy where there's an abundance of lots of stuff? everything from used 80s equipment to iPad apps & fancy controllers with lots of LEDs? I think it's not so easy to come up with something which costs a ton to research & develop and will actually stick.

Dunno, the TE OP-1 is the only recent example of a successful digital hardware instrument i can think of (edit: innovative instrument... i'm sure boring VA workstations make much more money than a thing like this)... and its whole success is based around marketing its nice UI & industrial design... it sounds like a cheap VST, yet nobody minds this because the thing has a cool factor. who cares about physical modelling?

i don't even know what i'm babbling tho tbh, carry on

lol the DSI Mopho sounds cheap and cheesy as fuck, fucking worst synth engine ever. Fuck that shit. The reason Korg haven't developed the Oasys engine further is that only 3 people ever wanted the bloody thing. Great, so I can make sign extremely accurate synthetic representation of a singing bowl... So fucking what. Not exactly useful is it...

Yeah pretty much. I'd love to have a bunch of physical modelling synths (even VSTs) but the reality is that 90% of the synth sounds that end up going into my songs are analog emulations, and very rarely FM stuff. That said, I pretty much only make synthpop these days, so more power to you if you want to make crazy pseudoacoustic IDM or whatever.

I'm with JE. More physical modeling please. And really it's not about mimicking real instruments at all. It's about pushing the models into extreme areas and modulation that have properties of natural resonances, but sound impossible for an actual acoustic instrument to do. Have any of you played with chromaphone? Sounds so fucking good. Such a wide wide range of interesting sounds can be squeezed out of it. I would absolutely love a chromaphone hardware unit like a machine drum. That and/or sculpture.

some day Matt! we can only dream for now. I almost on impulse bought a mac mini from a friend to make a computer power phys mod groove box using this technique - http://hackaday.com/2013/02/22/arduino-controlled-midi-sequencer/

it wouldn't be that hard to put something like this together, its just a matter of a powerful and small enough computer to put inside with a screen capable of editing on it.

nice!

  On 8/25/2013 at 1:44 PM, 2WV said:

lol the DSI Mopho sounds cheap and cheesy as fuck, fucking worst synth engine ever. Fuck that shit.

i don't think so