Half a sandwich. Might leave you a little hungry.

I don’t particularly like my Volca Keys. The Volca FM, on the other hand, sometimes steals the spotlight from my other synths. The killer app for the Volca FM is it accepts all the Yamaha DX7 patches, at least in my experience. It has six operators per voice like the DX7, so, in my opinion, it sounds better than four operator synths (like Yamaha’s own Reface DX). The only real limitation on the surface is it is only three voice polyphonic (the original DX7 was a 16 voice polyphonic). I use Dexed, a DX7 software emulator to upload DX7 patches onto the Volca FM. That amazing feature also begs the question, “Why use this hardware synth when it sounds more or less exactly like the free software synth?” I am still in my absurd dawless phase, so for reasons only important to me, having a piece of plastic and electronics with the word Korg on my rack seems more authentic than my iPad accomplishing the exact same function. All that said, the sounds avail on this FM synth play well with my other analog and digital synths. It does more than those cheesy 80’s sounds, as there are literally thousands of patches to choose from online. To be honest, me not being much of a sound designer and FM synthesis still being much of a mystery, I use the FM mostly as a preset machine, maybe making some tweaks or running it through some effects pedals. I want to rate this Volca higher, but, again, unless you absolutely want hardware with (tiny) knobs, there is a selection of FM software emulators that do the same thing.

From Gear Setup

Little Machine,Great Sound

First week with the Volca FM and i really love it,of course i barely scratched the surface with this machine at the moment,but you can get a lot of amazing sounds,full exploration will be fantastic. If you want to play better with it,you will need a midi controller because like in the Keys,the built in keyboard is not the best choice. Cuckoo´s tutorial is pretty good to understand how to create and save your own patches and everything about this beautiful synth,highly recommended for beginners or experts alike.

Not great

I got this to serve as a basic FM synth. It feels artificially limited. It does not respond to program changes, does not respond to velocity, and only has 3 voices. I could deal with the limitation on voices, but was disappointed about the lack of velocity response when controlling the synth via MIDI. The fact that the synth doesn't respond to program changes is extremely disappointing.

That being said, it serves the purpose I got it for well enough for me to not totally hate the thing. I may upgrade to something better somewhere down the road.

Beginner FM synth

This would be a great starting point if you're looking into FM as a beginner. I don't love the default presets but there's a lot of modulation options and it's capable of some very unique sounds, plus you can load FM presets onto it from the Dexed plugin if you want.

Pattern chaining is a synch!

I have two Volca FM's, reason being ... Pattern Chaining, you can go very long with your bass or general keys sequences using these micro machines, highly recommended.

must have

I always use my Volca Fm to spice up my productions and give them an organic taste. It's a must-have for its capabilities and versatility. You unlock its full potential with Dexed (vst).

My favourite Volca

It has the wonderful FM sound you remember from certain Yamaha keyboards and a nice step sequencer with parameter sequencing but it is limited and I will probably try sequencing it with my Novation SL MKIII or BeatStep Pro in the New Year. A lot of fun just to play as long as you hook up a MIDI keyboard instead of its own rather poor keypad.

Must have as a first synth

It's a very nice sounding synth. Presets are nice, but it gets super complicated when it comes to patching. Be aware that it has 3 voices stereo polyphony.

Great synth for its price!

You just gotta love this little FM synth by Korg. Throw this into a reverb + delay and it's going to sound amazing. For such a low price this is an amazing synth to add to your studio

Sounds great for price!

An FM synth for under $200, that sounds pretty damn good. I would have rated it 5 stars if Korg would include a power supply. I don't understand why they don't include a power supply in the kit, but I would still highly recommend the Volca FM to anyone wanting to get into FM synthesis.

From Gear Setup