Korg Volca Bass (2013)

Volca bass is a portable bassliner with sequencer: a mix between Electribe series and previous Monotribe synth of course ispired by all-time Roland Tb-303.

VOLCA: is a budget series of 4 machines that can be synched together:
- the drum
- the keyboard
- the sampler
- the bass
- the Synth FM

BASSLINER Main panel features a segment display, 12 knobs, 8 buttons and 16 steps multi touch keyboard. An internal speaker is included for instant gratification on your bed or office.

Front panel terminal connectors:
- Sync I/O
- Midi input
- headphones (only out) mini jack out.

Power supply 6 x 1.5V AA batteries or external PSU 9V (not supplied by Korg- model KA-350 ) polarity + in center. Auto power-off function.

VOICE architecture is based on 3 oscillators VCO with same structure: 2 waveforms (square or saw) with a detune range of +/-1 octave.
Each oscillator can be played individually or stacked in 3 combinations or so-called "groups":
- all VCOs are indipendent
- all VCOs stacked in unison play
- VCO1 + VOC2 are stacked together+ indipendent VCO3.

 

 

FILTER a 2-poles resonant lowpass analog filter with glide option. According to Korg it is derived from the one on classic vintage synthesizer MiniKORG 700S but is sounds more like recent Mini-Ms20.

LFO a single modulator (shape: square / triangle) with variable depth, frequency sync option and 3 destinations:
- LFO to filter cutoff
- LFO toamplitude
- LFO to pitch.

 

ENVELOPE a single EG with 2-stages AR (the Sustain can be activated following release amount) shared between:
- oscillator amplitude
- filter cutoff.
The VCA gate and velocity can be set only by Midi trigger but no original ACCENT control from TB.

SEQUENCER up to 3 tracks and up to 16 steps (number of steps can be defined for odd tempo). Notes are entered by external Midi or using the Volca steps.

 

 

 

SYNC internal sequencer can be slaved to:
- Midi clock
- trigger pulses out interface: each step sends out a pulse (with possible polarity inversion) to another for chain linking to other Volca machines, but I managed to synth this to other vintage machines.

 

 

MIDI notes can be entered only 1 VCO channel per time and it is NOT possibile to play the 3 VCO individually by Midi, in addition there are only 11 Control Change are implemented - the list is not even reported on the "manual" Here's the CC list
TECH: a custom MIDI OUT modification can be easily made - click on vid below for TUTORIAL modding-

 

 

 

MEMORY :
- 8 setups (sounds / patches / sequencer)
It is not possible to export sequences but paper and pencil ... that's vintage too.

 

 

RELATED FAMILY:

	Volca BEAT - the drum machine VIDEO
	Volca Keys - the synthesizer VIDEO
	Volca SAMPLE - the sampler version VIDEO
	Volca FM - based on the famous frequency modulation Yamaha DX7 - VIDEO

 

 

VST PLUGIN / SAMPLED VERSION some free and commercial samples set:

	name	price	link	demo
	polynominal.com	FREE kontakt sample pack! a little gift for you. Full 2 x 73 samples : raw square and saw. No resonance with open cutoff VCF.	-File 1 SAW -File 2 SQUARE	n/a

 

AUDIO DEMO

	volca bass + drum
	internal sequence
	another internal sequence
	test: filter range + resonance
	test: LFO on pitch
	test: LFO on VCF

 

VIDEO CLIP SELECTION official Korg video demo2 VOLCA jam