Midi Control Volca Beats

The Korg Volca Beats is a joy to use. The analog tones - kick, snare, toms, and hats - really are the heart of this little machine. They sound so fantastic and their control is minimal but covers a wide range of tonal shaping possibilities. The hats are the standout. The grain knob really has a unique element of sonic control. I bought the Volca Beats, again after having one many years ago, specifically for the sound of the hats. Programming with MIDI notes is the way to go here. You could definitely do a cool one-bar performance on this beast especially getting crazy with the Stutter function but, for my purposes, writing techno-electronic tracks, MIDI note triggering from a DAW is ideal. For fine control, I recommend sequencing your MIDI notes and then recording samples of each instrument for use with sampler instances in your DAW. This way you can adjust the phase of each sample to really gel everything as opposed to having a random analog phase to each tone. Also recording samples allows you to process each sound individually and that is really what a polished & professional sound is all about. The PCM sounds can be cool and sound wonderfully degraded at low pitch settings but honestly you can ignore them and stick to the analog section without losing ANY value to the machine. Korg has delivered almost certainly the best budget friendly analog (and PCM) drum machine with the Volca Beats.

worked perfectly for a volca beats and bass.

I mean, personally I like running my Volca Beats on batteries when I can (because I have a million cords on my desk already), but nice to have this as a backup.

I love it! I specifically decided to go with the Volca Beats for three reasons - to mess with analog, to get used to a sequencer, and of course the price! Anything in the same price range or cheaper seems to be mostly preset grooves or lack a sequencer. If I ever decide to upgrade, then there are lots of options and features to choose from. But for starting out and for the price, it’s great. The volume output for everything but the kick is pretty low, so even though I do jam along with it with my guitar and keyboard, eventually I want to buy a pedal to boost the volume of it. I use it everyday though, and get creative to work around the limitations, so if you are open minded and starting out in the world of drum machines, I would highly recommend this one.

this controller controls EVERYTHING would need it to, and is a cobination of a GREAT midi controller for beats, and an EVEN BETTER control surface...the key for me is the LARGE FONT LCD....no more squinting with reason, i dont even have much need to look anywhere else, it almost feels like a stand alone device....AWESOME NEKTAR

I’ve owned Synthesizers since 1972. I currently own quite a few from several manufacturers, Behringer, Roland, ASM, Elektron, Modal, Teenage Engineering and Korg (Volca FM 2 and Sample 2) to name a few.   10 years in the marketplace this Volca Keys has really held up to the test of time.   Marketed as an “Analogue” Synthesizer in reality the control signals are generated digitally with the CPU using a 10-bit DAC giving it near-analogue resolution. So this is a Subtractive Hybrid unit; an analogue sound engine with digital control so dial tweaks and note info can be recorded into the sequencer/accessed over MIDI. By the way, this is a good thing not a negative at all.   It’s a pretty easy to use, straightforward, with no menu screen, pretty much a dial per function arrangement. Great for beginners but powerful enough for experienced users.   I did notice notice that some dials are translucent and some solid. As a rule I found the solid dials' movements can't be sequenced, but the translucent dials can be sequenced and are backlit red plus flash to denote which parameters are active or recorded in a 'motion sequence' (motion sequencing captures dial movements into the sequencer).  The tempo dials flash in time with the internal/MIDI-clocked tempo and each key/sequence step has its own LED too, convenient for letting you know what's happening at a glance within complex sequences . It has 3 sawtooth wave oscillators & produces great upfront three-note chords, dirty lead/bass lines, ring modulated sounds and detuned unisons. It also features octave/fifth mono modes, a versatile tempo-syncable analogue-style delay that does reverbs/bit-crushing (from the Monotron Delay) freeform unquantised flux recording and 1/1, 1⁄2 and 1⁄4 tempo modes.   It uses the great MiniKORG700s filter. The LFO has 3 waveforms: sawtooth, square & triangle which make for some great modulation variety. The Volca Keys really packs a lot in, it's very versatile and a true value at such a low cost.

what can i say? this plugin KILLS. don't want to worry about MIDI anymore? done. i can't wait to make the phattest beats and sickest synth sounds ever. MOTU is made of a bunch of geniuses and i hope they take over the world of DAWs.

I bought this Midi to help mix beats for short films and video projects for clients. I am also taking an audio engineering class which this might come in handy for. I like that its powered solely by USB. Everything works well and it pairs quickly with Garage band, and most other DAW software. Glad I picked it up.

There is a small delay I am still trying to workout but overall the midi is great! I just started making beats and this is perfect for everything I want to do. The automapping is the key and makes everything so convenient. The product came with a sample trial of ableton live so that is what I am currently working with!

One of the best midi controllers I have ever used. I am able to control my euro rack to my computer and everything in between. Awesome