Korg Volca Beats Analogue Rhythm Machine

Excellent value small factor drum machine. The analog sounds are all good but range from fantastic (kick) to hmmm not so good (snare), although the snare is better "in person" than it seemed on videos of people eager to mod the capacitor onto the circuit board. The PCM sounds are all very quiet compared to the analog ones though which means you would have to turn all the analog sounds down and then turn the main volume up which is fiddly and will probably get noisy. Love the colours of the unit though: feels like a 1970s hot tub, sports car, chocolate fondue set or something!

but I have had trouble integrating it into my rig. That said it sounds good but can be noisy when recording. An interesting form factor and nice control of sounds and sequencer records parameters so has lots of potential but so far I am not able to totally take advantage of all this though I do plan to have another go at the Volcas and see if I can use it with my Novation SL MKIII.

The Volca Beats is part of a series of small, but versatile line of synthesizers known as the Volca range. It has 6 Analogue sounds and 4 PCM (Sampled) Sounds (which cannot be swapped out). People have an issue with the snare, as they feel that it does not have enough punch, but why? You don't need that extra punch, especially when layered with the kick and claps. The Hihats are reminiscent of the Roland C78 Hihats. The volca does offer a speaker for more portability but you can run this unit into headphones or a soundcard. My two issues with this is the low output level, meaning the signal has to be compressed when recording into my soundcard, and the only output on this device is the 3.5 mm Jack meant for headphones that are aimed at the average Joe. I wish that it had a 6.5 mm jack to route to my soundcard, making for a much louder signal.

Big fan. This is a fun machine to play around with. I like running it through crazy effects and tweaking the stutter button on the high hats.

I am Volca User of the first hour and of all 3 analog Volcas I use this most often, And especially the kick and the hi-hats! For me the perfect warm fat bass drum, both for electro sounds, as well as to simulate a "natural" kick.

I also like the analog toms, as well as Clap and the other PCM percussion sounds.

The Hi Hats are especially fun when you loosen rigid 16-figure figures using triplets with the help of Motion Record and Stutter. In general, Motion Record can generate very lively grooves. This also applies to the slightly weaker snare drum, which I like to use for subtle ghost notes, as it is perfect for that.

However, if you can handle soldering iron: There are numerous MODs for snare, MIDI-out, single outputs etc ... Because the biggest drawback for me and therefore a star deduction is the restriction to 16 steps at the sequencer, This can only be avoided with an external sequencer. Everything else can be done - with a bit of skill change yourself thanks to moding-friendly PCB.

It was my first approach with the synth/drum machine world and I use it in every situation, especially when I play on solo shows or in duo. It's an honest drum machine with some good sounds. I think that on the track "Interfuit" you can hear a good example of it: https://lepiccolemorti.bandcamp.com/track/interfuit

Nice little drum machine, with a nice little feature to mix up the beat. The 808ish kick is to weak for my taste.

The Kick is awesome, you are limited in sound shaping but you get a lot of bang for the buck. Great for getting into drum synthesis. And a funny little tool for on the run jamming. I like it but it's not my favourite synth of the Korg Volca series (which is the Korg Volca Keys).

DONG I wish. I bought a metal cowbel and smapled it with the VOlca Sample... did the trick and then some.

To be honest, I don't like it enough to use it as the main percussion in a track, but it is good at adding an analog feel to the drum part in a track. It's also surprisingly good at making some messed up, cool sounds which I love to do.