Features:

  • Three note true analogue synthesis with one knob per function for easy hands-on tweaking
  • 16-step sequencer with Flux mode for non-quantized free flowing loops
  • Sync In and Out allows clock sync of multiple instruments from the volca Series
  • MIDI In for note entry, plus external sync and control from your DAW
  • Play anywhere with the built-in speaker and optional battery power
Musical Experimenter?

Lots of fun, but be prepared to take a bit of time to figure it all out. That for me is the adventure! I use mine with the Volcabeats and Volcakeys plus a Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter and the M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 Active Studio Monitor Speakers as a set. The Belkin splitter is used in reverse to combine the signals of the three Korgs--a very cheap and simple mixer. The speakers are helpful since the tiny speaker in the Volcas is kind of small. If you like to experiment with music and electronics, you have a lot of excitement waiting for you here. Korg VOLCAKEYS - Analog Synth Machine Korg VOLCABASS - Analog Bass Machine Korg VOLCABEATS - Analog Rhythm Machine M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 Active Studio Monitor Speakers - to add a bigger sound Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter (Black and White) - a very simple way to connect the output of the various units together on their way to an outboard speaker. Use it in reverse of normal splitter function to bring the sound of the various units together. Belkin Mini Stereo Dubbing 3.5mm Plug Cable for Kindle Fire, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Android, Smartphone and MP3 Players -6feet - connects Volca to the Belkin reverse-splitter. One is needed for each Volca.

Volca's and PO's - portable fun.

After buying a Volca or two I wondered if maybe these would sync with Pocket Operators - and they do! Now I have 5 of the Pocket Operators and 4 Volcas, along with a Behringer Model D, Korg Monologue and some other older gear and having blast tying them together. These are easy to play with and pretty quickly you get the hang of it. I also have a lot of Android and IOS music apps, but I really like the Volca interface. It would be crazy to have the Volca's as app(s) for phones and tablets. Just picked up the Korg SQ-1 to see how that works with PO's and the Volca's. It's sort of "Tabletop" modular.

The Kick is only the beginning

Does kicks really well, but this thing is so much more than that. Great little analog groove box. I've got an MS-20 Kit, and this Volca really exemplifies that particular sound. I could probably create most of the possible sounds from this Volca through my MS-20, but the sequencer/motion sequencing capabilities are phenomenal for coming up with dirty rhythms (something that can't be done through the MS-20 unless I recorded and mixed multiple tracks...which I'd rather not do). As with any Volca you do get a bit more noise compared to a high-end synth, especially when you've got the tone knob cranked. Of course, you can remove that noise through processing if you'd wish. So far, it hasn't been an issue for me at all. At this price point, these Volcas really can't be beat. And remember, don't be fooled by the name. The Volca Kick is a quirky little one-voice analog monosynth.

Not a full-featured sampler, but still an extremely portable, accessible, and versatile groovebox

The Volca Sample is the 4th addition to the Volca lineup (I own the Volca Bass also), and arguably offers the most versatility. In fact, I was looking for a fairly straightforward beatbox, and struggled between this and the analog drum sounds of the Volca Beats. Ultimately, I felt like the Beats had a few weaknesses (snare not very popular; limited arsenal of sounds) and that I could cover most of the Beats' sounds plus a whole lot more with the Volca Sample. That being said, I think this is a 5-star product...provided that you educate yourself in advance of what it does and doesn't do. It's an extremely small plastic box that runs on 6 AA batteries and features no slot for external media (USB, SD card, etc.). I don't know how you reasonably look at those specs and expect this to be a $150 mini-MPC. But if that were your expectation, yes, you'd be a little disappointed. The Volca Sample is special from the other Volca machines in just how flexible it can be towards a variety of needs. You could load it up with acoustic or drum machine samples and have up 10 instruments loaded with 8-instrument/note polyphony. You could load up a series of tuned notes and generate a walking bass line using either motion sequencing/automation, or by setting the same sample to different pitches. Pitch control is handled very well on the Volca Sample, in my opinion. You can change pitch with a numerical up/down value, or by semitones (2 octaves down all the way to two octaves up). This is done by the speed knob, and while lower pitched notes are basically the same sample played back more slowly, you can edit sample length, decay, and other features to balance things out. In fact, the 4x4 matrix with mini knobs in the gray section are 16 step programmable sampling parameters for you to adjust. Not only can these be adjusted for each sample, but you can live record automation or program the changes to occur at different steps. Is it a professional caliber sampler? No. Is it accessible to all levels of users and deceptively powerful for a battery powered, affordable device? Absolutely. SAMPLE EDITING & iOS INTEGRATION - Some of the biggest complaints about the Sample are that the device was marketed as requiring an iOS device to change and edit samples. However, I view that as one of the device's selling points, and an excellent 3rd-party app from the Caustic developer quickly emerged to allow even more power over sample creation and uploading (I believe this is also available for Android and PC). iOS integration is a strength of the Sample, in my opinion, because there is such an insane wealth of affordable music content in the iOS app store. The Caustic Volca Editor easily links up with an app called AudioShare to import samples stored on your device, or imported from a cloud service like DropBox. Aside from uploading obvious samples (like .wav files of 808/909 sounds available all over the web), you can create your own without leaving your iPhone or iPad and store them in AudioShare. For example, I recorded a simple C2 note in a great app called iFretless Bass, sent it to the Caustic Volca Editor via AudioShare, and had a pitch tuned electric bass sound available on my Sample, and the whole process took maybe a couple of minutes. Some tips/caveats: Some people have complained about the 4MB storage limit on the Volca, which is admittedly quite small. The best way to deal with this is to use the Caustic or AudioPocket editor and identify some of the longer factory samples (1 second or longer) and target those to be replaced. There are 100 sample slots for storage, but whatever you upload needs to be in place of something else, so you can free up more storage that way. Generally speaking, the Volca Sample is better suited for "one-hit" brief samples like a drum, brass hit, or clap. Sampling can also involve longer clips like 5-second guitar riffs, but the Volca Sample really isn't suited to handle that. The fact that patterns are limited to 16-step single bars is another oft-cited problem with the entire Volca series, but there are workarounds. You can set different patterns and chain them with Song mode, or trigger them with the ribbon keys. Part of the fun of the entire Volca series, however, is taking a very brief and straightforward musical idea and then mutating with filter sweeps, modulation, and effects. The Sample excels at that, and the sound quality is great (through headphones or monitors though, just skip the built-in mini speaker). I like the "Analogue Isolator", which is basically an fancied-up name for a 2-band EQ, but which allows for some additional tone shaping and automation possibilities. MIDI ISSUES - Unfortunately, the Sample isn't controlled via MIDI the way you might expect it to be. My understanding is that the 10 different samples respond to different MIDI Channels (1-10), as opposed being triggered by separate pads/keys on a single MIDI channel. That's a bit of bummer, but less than the other Volcas, since Live Play actually responds quite well with the touch keys (and quantizes to nearest 16th note), and you'll spend most of your time programming grooves with the step sequencer anyway. It does not respond to velocity control, though you can set the "Level" for each sample. One final note - I think some of the negativity for the Volca Sample comes from the fact that what it offers isn't as "rare" as the Keys, Bass, and Beats. There are desktop and even mobile sampling apps that do much of what the Volca Sample does, and perhaps even more cheaply. In that sense, it isn't the same "freak of nature" that my little Volca Bass is, belting out warm, analog tones from an inexpensive, battery-powered box. But that doesn't make the usefulness of the Sample any less impressive - this little box really can do a ton. While the other Volca devices surprise you with quality of their sounds, the possibilities with the Sample are limited by only your imagination and willingness to experiment. UPDATE (06/28/2016): Just a quick update on my review to attach a picture showing how much of a giant nerd I am, as well as the versatility of the Sample. I created a micro-sized table showing all the instruments uploaded to the device, as well as a table showing how many semitones away different notes are (since I am pretty bad at music theory). All of my pitched samples are tuned to a "C" note, so it becomes pretty easy to generate basslines and simple melodies using these charts for quick reference. The Sample allows you to load the same sample in multiple instruments slots, and since you have 8-note polyphony, you could program chords or even set up a custom keyboard where each note is within the scale/mode of your song. Again, this more of a hobby/amusement for me than serious music production, but I love exploring what this little device can do and even pushing it do things musically that it wasn't necessarily "intended" to do.

Amazing machine. You want this.

The Korg Volca Keys is an amazing product at a remarkable price. It's immensely portable, at about the size of a VHS tape. It runs on batteries (which last a surprisingly long time) and has an on-board speaker. You can clock-sync it to other Volcas (try slaving any other Volcas to the Volca Beats, which has a tempo display). You have true 3-note, analog polyphony. You have a handy on-board keypad that works great for lead runs (especially useful for long slides with the portamento turned up). There's a MIDI-in jack. The sequencer is great - it's a 16-step sequencer, but you can run it at 1/4 tempo to create 64-beat patterns. You get some fantastic sounds. It looks amazing. The plain fact is that you want this machine. Now, there are a few things you should know. The size of the control face means that live tweaking, though imminently doable, requires some dexterity. The headphone jack is a 1/8" mono jack, so you have to account for this in your setup. The signal path is a little noisy. The VCF cutoff pot noticeably steps when the resonance is up. The (great) sequencer is limited when using the 1/2 and 1/4 tempo features. The oscillators only output sawtooth waveforms. The LFO can only interact with pitch and cutoff frequency. The 3-note polyphony shares a single envelope generator, so the velocity of subsequent notes lowers the volume of earlier, held notes. The keypad is unsuitable for quick chord playing. Do you get more than you pay for with this beauty? Absolutely. Yes! You want this machine. Will it replace all your other synthesizers? No, of course not! It's a $160 plastic box. If you had $500 or $1000 to spend on an analog synth, you wouldn't be looking at this anyway. You'd be getting the Minibrute, the Minilogue, or the Sub 37. If you have $500, get the Minilogue and tell me how it is.

Fun, powerful, and portable little machines

Korg's Volca series is great, but it would probably be helpful to know what you're getting into ahead of time before purchasing. While there's a lot of videos on YouTube, and some busy topics on Reddit discussing the merits of these machines, I think I fit pretty accurately the target audience for the series to help speak on whether or not they might be right for you: I’m an amateur to synthesis and have minimal space for gear, a low budget, and an affinity for low-fi sounds. That being said, I started with the Bass about a year and a half ago and admittedly didn't really understand the thing, or how to use it in my workflow that at the time was primarily just clicking around in the DAW. After jumping over that hurdle and learning the various functions and controls, the thing really opened up. While it's certainly got a tinny/metallic sound to it and is by no means your classic acid machine, the thing really screams and can make some great sounds. Granted, I don't have years of experience with higher-end synthesizers to compare against, but that leads into my next point, which is that these machines are just fun, especially for someone starting out working with hardware. I've seen complaints about them being 'toys', or limited in what you can do with them, and while I won't argue the merits of that based on some folks' perspectives, the small, portable nature of them makes them a non-invasive addition to a small space and perfect for picking up and messing around outside of the desk or studio environment. The price tag encourages buying them over time, and since getting the Bass, I've added the Beats, FM, and Keys to the mix. They each have their own quirks and limitations that encourage creativity. As well, they're powerful enough to be useful, and rather than being overwhelming machines (a bit like the Microbrute is for me as still-an-amature), they're in most respects easy to learn. The FM's a bit of it's own story though, as FM synthesis is complicated by nature. I'm hesitant to purchase the Sample, simply due to the lack of an audio in. Maybe the iOS app is convenient and easy to use, but it still adds an extra layer to getting sounds on the machine. Which brings me to another point: if you're considering either the Beats or the Sample, you might look first for a used ES-1 or ER-1. They're roughly the same price, but a bit more versatile (although bigger), and at least in comparing the ER-1 to the Beats, sound considerably better (the Beats snare issue is annoying, but not a total deal breaker if the other pros outweigh that con). In summary, I think these are really great, affordable little machines. Without the hassle of buying old buggy hardware, you get some new portable things with a lot of potential. If you’re looking for machines with ‘recordability’, though, these probably fall more in the jam-box or accent-to-other-machines category. Have fun!

So much fun

The Volca Sample provides endless hours of fun and entertainment. I’ve been loving getting creative and making beats. I was making music within an hour of taking it out of the box, never having used a sampler like this before, and proceeded to learn new functions daily for at least the first week that I owned it. Tons of YT videos available for tips, tricks and techniques. One tip... instead of wasting money on the power adapter spend about the same and get an 8 pack of amazon basics rechargeable AAs. The volca comes with batteries and this thing lends itself to portability meaning often far away from outlets. And batteries seem to last forever. At least 10 hours of use on one charge.

Amazing product at a crazy price

After years of working with softsynths off and on as a hobby, this is the first hardware synth I've ever owned, and it's terrific. It's a portable little box you can play around with anywhere, but you can also hook it up to a sequencer or keyboard controller over MIDI and use it as a sound module, so it's nice and versatile. Between the 6 different modes (unison, poly, and unison ring are my favorites so far) and the 7 octave range, you can get a lot of different sounds out of this synth, which is great. You also get a bunch of knobs (especially given the size of the box) that you can use to get the tone you're looking for, and almost all of them (the mode, the octave, and I think master volume are the exceptions) can be saved as motion sequences in the 8 pattern memories or controlled over MIDI. One thing that could either be good or bad (for me, it's a big positive) is that it has a pretty distinctive sound, especially the filter. It has a brassy quality to it that makes it stands out. I would definitely listen to some sound samples before buying it so you know it's for you -- if you're looking for a more generic-sounding synth our some other quality in particular, this may not be exactly right. And I love the fat bass tones I can get out of this, but if you're looking for a filter with more of a bite to it or you want to be able to do acid lines, the Volca Bass may be a better choice. Like I said though, I personally love the sound. For the price, there are no downsides to this synth. Having said that, if I could change anything about it, I wish they could have squeezed in an aux in like they did with the Monotrons. I'd love to be able to run other sounds through this filter and the delay. I also kind of wish they could have squeezed in waveform controls for the VCOs and a step sequencer (the Volca Bass has both of these). But even without any of those, this is a great little box that can produce some killer sounds. I absolutely recommend it.

Great drum machine, or cheesy techno box

I think all the Volca's are lumped into one group, and so the Volca reviews are grouped together as well. Mine is for the OKGO version of the Sample. With so many different sounds, so many sounds at once, stereo panning, and motion sequencing, you can really get a lot of sound going at once with this thing. If you're into techno, this little device alone is all you need to be a one-person band. I use it as a drum machine, and it works very well for that purpose. I do plan on replacing probably all of the sounds on it with more standard-ish drum sounds when I get the chance.

Full Reviews