Korg Volca Keys

I have itching to get one. Is it still worth it in 2018? I see em cheap on Gumtree for like £70/80. What do you reckon???

All I know is that it seems to be best paired with a Zoom MS-70CDR.

Cool. Yeah I just want something I can play with on the train/tube/bus that's a bit more hands on that the Ipad!!!

I'd say well worth getting for the price of a few nights out, I've had one for a good few years and wouldn't part with it, nice wee bits of kit

  On 11/9/2018 at 4:07 PM, Leon Sumbitches said:

I'd say well worth getting for the price of a few nights out, I've had one for a good few years and wouldn't part with it, nice wee bits of kit

Thanks shouldn't be too hard to get hold of one!!

I love getting gnarly, wretched sounds out of that little box (shout out to Auditor who sold me his) but I highly recommend pairing it with a keyed MIDI controller if you’re going to do anything that’s not sequenced. The touchpads are pretty small.

I had one, it was alright yeah, pretty limited on its own though tbh. If you're thinking of playing it on the tube etc you'd exhaust the possibilities pretty quick imo. Really comes alive with external effects and sequencing.

I'd go for the volca sample instead tbh

  On 11/9/2018 at 11:05 PM, modey said:

I'd go for the volca sample instead tbh

They'd be nice together!

The FM is a nice one too. It does seem like the keys has the most immediate possibilities, if they are a bit quickly exhausted.

I enjoyed borrowing one off a mate but there was something about the sound that was a bit thin, but that's a bit of a minor quibble given the price.

They're best when paired with other instruments. I personally prefer to sequence them through Logic for tunes.

If I had to pick one volca, it would be the keys. I’ve gotten the most tracks out of it. After that, the sample.

The keys, if you plug it in, sounds really good. Super fast to tweak. Really quite versatile one knob per function synth for under $100. I have gotten tons of mileage sequencing it with my tempest.

Also, I love playing the ribbon keyboard and turning the octave knob. Delay is great too.

I have the Volca Bass, Keys, and Kick. The Keys is great to program melodies and analogish riffs. I really like its sound, even though it's quite limited. But for the price, I think it's really good. You can always use it to create loops during the commute and record them in your DAW once you're home. 

I never use mine, it's palette is quite limited. It's a bit dinky sounding, you're not getting anything super lush out of that box.

I've picked up all of them when they were originally released and have used them extensively. Here are my quick reviews:

Volca Keys: Limited and only a couple of steps above a Korg Monotron delay. The sequencer kind of sucks but you can turn it into a 64 step sequencer by using the flux option. It has a smoky, dirty brass sound throughout the entire timbre of the machine that you can't escape from no matter what. When you hook it up to a midi keyboard though it has some nice capabilities. The delay effect is very gritty but it makes for some nice textures. Ironically I found it better at doing bass than the Volca bass. The poly isn't a real poly unless you want to buy a standalone max/msp application or code your own. 6.5 out of 10

Volca Bass: The filter and resonator on this is amazing. You can really make the machine squelch or moan loudly. However, I found that the range of things you can do with the bass is even more constricted than the keys. I found it to be pretty weak as a bass instrument, however, and found it more enjoyable to play like the keys. Bass and keys should have had their names swapped! You can't control the envelopes or amplitudes of the oscillators individually, so often the machine sounded boring after a while unless you program each of the oscillator steps seperately and switch them on and off during performance. Also the parts that you really want to be midi-controllable are not midi-controllable. Only 16 steps. 4.5 out of 10.

Volca Beats: Crap. Even after modded it is limited to kraftwerk-esque sounds. With the bass and keys it kind of works, but by itself or with anything not toy-like its kind of shit. The levels are all wonky on it too so level checks are always necessary when recording. The Volca Kick blows the beats out of the water. 2.5 out of 10.

Volca FM: Best Volca. It's a full DX-7 synthesizer, 1/8th the size. Only 3 polyphony but has an arpeggiator to make up for it. You can even scroll through the algorithms and automate that scrolling to make some wicked sounding textures. The velocity is independent from the keys but that was easily fixed with a software MIDI toggle. I've gotten so much use out of this that I consider it a professional instrument. The onboard sounds are alright but you can either download more off the internet, use an external editor (like i do) or use the knobs to change the carrier and modulator oscillators. I find that I need precision when working with FM though, so I don't use the onboard versions much. 9/10

Volca Sample: Drum Machine with interchangeable samples that can be uploaded. Not a sampler, per se. With some trickery, you can turn it into a granular synthesizer as well. It's pretty straight forward and is great for making 16-64 step patterns and loops. If you are looking for something portable then I recommend it. I use this still to make drum loops and patterns for later use if I'm on the go. 8/10

Volca Kick: The Volca Beats v2.0 Way better and the noise generator is actually useful. It does what it advertises and has enough bells and whistles on it to make it a versatile monosynth and drum creator. I find that is better to do one-hit sounds and record them onto the computer than it is to do full performances with it, which is sad because the entire machine seems built and designed to have hands-on performance in mind. 7/10

Volca Mixer: There are better mixers out there and Korg marketed this in that you should buy two, since there are only 3 mixer inputs and six devices. There is a fourth auxillary mixer input for effects or a fourth instrument, but you don't have the same level of control compared to the other 3. There is compression, sidechaining, muting and stereo expand options but NO PANNING WTF. 5/10

I still think the best setup for the volcas would be 2 samples and an fm, or 2 fm's and a sample. I get some very analogy sounds out of the fm that aren't awashed in dirty brass, even though it is not as intuitive or easily editable as the volca keys. Also of note is that none of the volcas really like amplitude options, whether that be eg's, panning, or accent programming. I find that the lack of amplitude options is what neuters a lot of the volcas more than anything. It's a whole dimension missing that I've only gotten around chunks of by programming software to control the EG levels or volume to act as custom EG's, but it really should not be a problem with these hardware devices as amplitude is a fundamental part of music.

The Volca Keys is a-ok, but great for effects and transitions. I've actually used it as a lead once and it turned out pretty great. You can hear it at 1:20

https://soundcloud.com/mrroque/alfredo-sauce-udkast03/s-8ZbVp

Okay so I just got me a Volca Keys for £65. The front cover of the cardboard box was missing as was the sync cable so I guess that sort of reflects in the price. So far I'm happy. Seems pretty versatile. I think I'm gonna enjoy this thing. If I get bored of it I'll just sell it lol.

Right in poly mode it appears to be slightly out of tune. Anyway to fix it? Also the triggering of the notes seem to glitch a lot. Unison seems fine and fun but poly mode is frustrating. Thoughts?

This might sound stupid, but did you turn the detune knob? Otherwise I have no idea; the tuning should be controlled for. Also, see my review about the poly thing (its not a full poly out of the box. I needed to code my own poly toggler patch, but you can get a software controller here: http://fabriziopoce.com/volcacontrol.html )

Yeah I turned the detune hard left. Might need fresh batteries or maybe you have wait 10 secs from power on like I read on Reddit. If that doesn't solve it I may contact Korg. Not sure entirely myself either.

yeah when I had one it would occasionally go out of tune; leaving it for a few seconds would correct it every time though.

  On 11/13/2018 at 8:53 AM, modey said:

yeah when I had one it would occasionally go out of tune; leaving it for a few seconds would correct it every time though.

Yeah I need to resolve it otherwise it renders Poly Mode unusable. :-(

It's weird that it's only out of tune in poly mode though?