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Korg Volca series

DerWaschbar

By DerWaschbar
in EKT General Discussion

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modey Grand Master

modey

Posted
Posted

Yeah just get a 9v one and make sure the polarity is correct (depends which way you fit the plug). I've never had the current be too much or too little with those adaptors, and I use them for pretty much all of my pedals, synths etc.

I think the reason Korg don't include them is so they can have one box that can be shipped anywhere, perhaps? Also, probably to keep costs down.

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Entorwellian Mentor

Entorwellian

Posted
Posted

Make sure you keep an eye out on the milliamps too. You want it on the dot or over the number, or else you will fry the transistors in your poor volcas. I think they require 900 mA so if you get 900 or more you will be ok. And make sure you get a 9V one with the right jack. Best off getting one of the universal ones or one from the Korg shop

 

God damn Korg. Stop being bastards with your power supplies. Its a long-going issue with them.

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  • 1 month later...
andihow Experienced

andihow

Posted
Posted

did you guys see the new sampler they made? http://www.korg.com/us/products/dj/volca_sample/

i like that they gave it that old school akai color scheme, kinda wack that you need iOS to load samples onto it, but that may change as they released an open source SDK (http://korginc.github.io/volcasample/) so somebody should port it to android soon.

 

pretty cool thing apparently, reminds me of a stripped down version of redrum, think i might pick one up

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b born droid Experienced

b born droid

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Did a search but couldn't find anything. On the Keys, is it possible to programme automation for individual steps? Sometimes I only want it for one step, and I can't manually move the knob back and forth quick enough.

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Silent Member Grand Master

Silent Member

Posted
Posted

I'n pretty sure you can do that easily by only setting the wanted step as active and record the wanted parameter setting to that.

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Audioblysk Grand Master

Audioblysk

Posted
Posted

 

Someone offered me the bass for 75$, probably like gonna take them up on that....

Take it. If you hook it up to a midi keyboard it makes for some very nice warm lush pads. Using it like a 303 is for chumps.

 

 

Oh shit, I didn't see that you could have each osc play different steps... So cool...

 

Getting it this upcoming week.

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Entorwellian Mentor

Entorwellian

Posted
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Sorry for bumping an old ass thread but I wanted to write my trip report on modding the 104d capacitor into the Volca Beats to mod the snare:

 

Initially it was difficult getting the screws off of the back and the circuit boards. Make sure you have a good set of precision screwdrivers on hand because i was worried I was going to wear out the notches in the screwheads with the amount of force that was needed to be exerted. The ribbon board was also hard to get off with the way it was placed too and ended up having to pull it by the wires (a big no no) but everything on the board was labelled clearly, but very tiny.

 

http://www.animalfactoryamps.com/single-post/2016/09/20/PSA-The-Korg-Volca-Beats-Snare-Mod---now-easier I ended up using this guide to help me with the soldering parts onto a surface mounted device board and took me 5 attempts to get it right. The actual soldering part isn't hard but the contact pads for the c78 slot are only a few millimeters apart and challenging to put a through-slot component into. I ended up heating the two contacts with a fine-tipped 15w soldering iron for no more than 2 seconds and globbing a small amount of solder to both, one at a time, then sticking the capacitor ends into it. Afterwards I reheated the capacitor ends near the solder and applied a bit of pressure to make sure it was in. I don't feel like it was the best solder connection but it held enough to be bent back down and placed back in the case.

 

The snare sounds a lot better (a mix between an 808 snare and the korg ms-10 filter sound) and if you are into making acid or really wanting a more cleaner, fuller, better-decaying scare then i recommend getting the mod. To an untrained ear through I can understand the differences might sound minimal though, or use the stutter a lot or use the drum machine for more kraftwerk-like stuff then you probably won't notice much of a difference either. Afterwards though I don't think I would do the mod again because working on SMD is very nerve wracking if you aren't dexterous or have lots of experience. You are better off finding an electronic store and paying them $30-40 to do it for you.

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sweepstakes Grand Master

sweepstakes

Posted
Posted

Hey, cool, thanks for bumping this thread :)

 

Coincidentally last night I got the app I've been working on doing RetroKits type things with the Beats. It's a much nicer machine when you've got velocity sensitivity...   

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Entorwellian Mentor

Entorwellian

Posted
Posted

Cool :D

 

I built a thing like that too in puredata that used the midi cc part levels and a 16-step array as a rudimentary accent. Would love to get one of those retrokit midi cables for the volca sample to have the chromatic pitch playable on a keyboard.

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  • 2 years later...
TheBro Mentor

TheBro

Posted
Posted
19 hours ago, th555 said:

https://ranzee.com/volca-fm-firmware-1-09-unofficial/

https://ranzee.com/volca-sample-unofficial-firmware/

Pajen´s custom firmware for the FM and Sample, most notably adding velocity from midi input to the FM, and chromatic note triggering to the sample (!!!!)

That's cool even though I don't have these.

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Taupe Beats Experienced

Taupe Beats

Posted
Posted
On 4/25/2020 at 1:04 PM, th555 said:

https://ranzee.com/volca-fm-firmware-1-09-unofficial/

https://ranzee.com/volca-sample-unofficial-firmware/

Pajen´s custom firmware for the FM and Sample, most notably adding velocity from midi input to the FM, and chromatic note triggering to the sample (!!!!)

This made my day, that Volca FM update is wonderful! As a wacky loop generator this is a great little box.

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user Veteran

user

Posted
Posted

Installed the fm update somewhere last week. Don’t think it’s entirely working for me, some parameters seem unaffected, but this may have to do with the editor I’m using with it. 
Either way it is incredibly cool that someone did this and ups the usability a whole bunch for me, have had a love/hate relationship with the fm but this may swing the pendulum towards Cupid’s chubby little fists. 

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sweepstakes Grand Master

sweepstakes

Posted
Posted

I spaced on these firmware updates. Hot damn, I'm excited about the volca sample!

There's something really special about that machine. I don't know what it is, maybe it's just me. It's cheap in a delicious way. I installed the firmware last night and can't wait to have a proper play with it with some MIDI. At the very least the polyphonic mode seems like a fun way to turn my Monologue into a poor man's paraphonic synth.

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