this guy seriously, not only was he the head of development for the volca series but he can bang out some of the best sounding techno i have ever heard on a promo vid!
The Volca Keys is just about my favorite of all synths. There's so many tricks up it's sleeves, and you can create some really mesmerizing soundscapes with it. I've played it almost every day for a year and a half and I'm still finding new sounds hiding in it.
this is a late reply but do you think they're still great? when the volca fm came out apparently people were saying it made the volca keys age like milk in comparison
@@roujiteku2114 FM is a totally different type of synthesis. I don't like it much because you can't reshape your sounds as you play. So for me, Keys is easily the best. But, if you're someone who likes to just create one really nice patch and save it, then FM is probably better for you.
@@carlrhoads lol I guess you haven't watched my vids. I have a pretty excessive synth collection for a hobbyist. I also like to think I can make the Keys sound pretty dang awesome. :-P Maybe you could check out one of my jams on it and give me your opinion. My top 3 favorite synths as of now are the Behringer (or Octave) Cat, Neutron, and Minibrute. Volca Keys is still one of my favorites though... That crackly lo-fi delay makes some really atmospheric sounds if you're creative with it.
They seem to have sold a lot. Probably quite cheap to make, but nobody minds when the sound is so great, and they're so cheap. You get all the LEDs and knobs for your money. Probably be a lot of people's first synth, or proper one when they move on from the Casio you get when you're 10. My friend started off with 1...
If plugins give you the sound you want, that's OK. I'm a hardware guy, and know that (especially in the case of Polysix and MonoPoly, which still use true VCOs) real analogue synthesizers are like real instruments, where the signal path is formed by lots of small chaotic influences. Most software implementations won't give you that. I'd rather use software for things analogue can not do. The Volca Keys sounds truly phenomenal, and I applaud Korg for making real analogue synths again.
OMG, this guy's so f-ing charismatic! The more Takahashi videos I watch, the more I like him. He just doesn't seem to give a f--k in this video. The British accent tops it off.
I really want the sub phatty and this so I can have a little bit of analog polyphony and the moog sound together. Run this through a moog filter or use it as a full size keyboard for this and vise versa, OH THE POSSIBILITIES!
Namaste MASTERMIND! You create something EPIC! And you made it small, flexible, innovativ, massiv. Also the sound is amazing, like a lot the part at 2:13, very trippy sounds. I guess my TB 303, TR 606, my 2 Polysix and the MS 20 will have a new "friend" soon, hehe.
Korg owns the entire market.. all of the anger I had over the KP3+ and Kaossilator Pro + getting no sampling upgrade has been wiped totally clean with these awesome devices.. Looks like dollar menu and ramen noodles in my future because I must have these!
DONT!, you can chain them together! :) and the version 2 of the monotribe (firmware) is really good. I wonder what can you do with this and the monotribe.
Are there any practical/musical applications for the Korg Volca Keys's poly-ringmod voice? Are there any good demonstrations of its use on youtube? Had mine for a couple weeks now. So far the only downsides to the KVK are: limited loop duration/resolution, no way to store voice presets, not enough save-slots for loops and, loss of delay when you double/quadruple loop length. Other than that, a surprisingly powerful little box.
Can somebody make a DIY version of of that synth without a delay and with more waveforms , dynamic keyboard and MIDI out? Thats would be pure pefrection!
Don't get me wrong, the Volca devices are very attractive, nicely designed aesthetically (a rarity in today's designs) and full of features. However, to me personally (that's just my opinion) a Yamaha QY10 (same size device running on 6 AA bateries, so comparison is not out of place here), with that little Yamaha I could churn out entire multitrack songs with all harmony and chord changes I could ever imagine. Maybe today's music is more about the rhythm, not the harmony (all Volcas seem to play patterns without changing chords at all). I am tempted to get all the Volca set, however, if I don't see a video in which someone actually puts together a song with chord changes, I don't think I spend the money on those, even though it is tempting. Kudos to the ingenuous design and great sound, and staying away from cheesy color touchscreens. Hey, the fact alone that there's no touchscreen could make run to buy these immediately. But I digress...
From what I'm gathering, the thing about the Volca series is the sound quality/analog signal path. Finding something more feature-rich is pretty easy, it just won't sounds as good.
Volcas would be cooler to me if you could make songs with chord changes on it. All the demos I've seen are stuck in one chord. Unless there's no concept of changing harmony in modern electronic music.
Andrew Piatek with those machines you can easily do techno-ish stuff that should not consider harmony, cause that is techno. but if you want to use them to make anything else, just plug the midi.
It sounds great, the only problem I have is that it looks like you can't get square waves without ring mod. Does anyone know if that's possible? Hopefully there will be a simple mod to fix that. If there is I'll definitely buy one, all the other analog poly synths are so expensive.
Since these have a gate / CV input, one easy thing you can do is buy, or make, a stereo splitter cable, from stereo to L / R jack sockets. I did that for my friend, he plugged it into his Gameboy running LSDJ. From there, he just needed a small click sound to play on LSDJ. Run that through the left channel, and LSDJ music through the right. Feed the left into the Volca, and you can sync them together! I dunno if it's supposed to work, but it does! Or did for us anyway, might need to twiddle the volume. If you're not much of a solderer, which I find hard to believe in an analogue keyboard fan, you know you can buy sets of headphone adaptor cables? And there's the one for airlines that turns 2x mono jack into a stereo one? Of course, they work in the other direction too, it's just plastic and metal strips in there. So instead of joining 2 mono channels, you can split a stereo one instead. You'll need a gender-changer cable male-male, and a couple of gender-changers female-female. The latter, though.... You know those adaptors that let you use 2 pairs of headphones in one socket? Well surprisingly that's just metal strips and plastic... so there's your two female sockets connected together, and ignore the male plug. Shonky but works well enough, very cheap and available. Or else just solder a proper one up. But it'll do in a fix. It's nice because studios used to use a "click track" way back in the day when it was all analogue. Like a more versatile metronome. In this case the artists would listen to it through headphones and perform along, but Volcas can do that too.
Dear Takahashi-San, Too late for a firmware request? Please have the FUNC+G# and A# keys select Clock divide 1/3 and 1/6 respectively. In this way, users can supply 24 PPQN clock IN. In any case, can't wait!
I shall do all that is in my power to learn to use the Volca synthesizers -- all three of them: especially because they are so affordable, and therefore within reach. They are of course musically interesting, first of all, but intellectually stimulating and challenging, too. I shall try, if I can, to learn how to use them as musical instruments in their own right; but, once I feel confident enough (assuming I have been able to afford the synthesizers in the first place), I shall plug them into a guitar amp and see what I can do with that kind of rig.
Wes Huffman Yes, or Volca bass. The Korg minilogue and monologue are showing up on ebay and craigslist, used, for a decent price. Same with the volca series
I think so,but anyway I'm getting the volca keys just for the analog sound and the loop function so I can pair it with Tr8 and make some other adjustment on my other synths.
What I'm worried about is how the polyphony works. It's obviously paraphonic since there's only one filter. But on the Korg website it says there's also only one envelope and one amp. So do the three notes have to be at the exact same time?
but that would only provide polyphony if you programmed separate notes in each individual sequencer, you couldn't actually play six notes of polyphony by any means through a midi controller considering there's no midi out.(still better than no midi as with the monotribe) And sync isn't cv exactly is it? sorry for all the questions.
Great video man, thanks. I have a Novation Circuit and would like to get one of these lower end Korg products to Midi together. Which would you recommend? Thank you.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
this guy seriously, not only was he the head of development for the volca series but he can bang out some of the best sounding techno i have ever heard on a promo vid!
ya that last part was decent to say the least
yeah that was a solid jam at the end. loved the bass line
Then i have other meaning what is the best techno sounding :)
The Volca Keys is just about my favorite of all synths. There's so many tricks up it's sleeves, and you can create some really mesmerizing soundscapes with it. I've played it almost every day for a year and a half and I'm still finding new sounds hiding in it.
this is a late reply but do you think they're still great? when the volca fm came out apparently people were saying it made the volca keys age like milk in comparison
Lol it sounds like a toy you need to try some REAL Synths!
@@roujiteku2114 FM is a totally different type of synthesis. I don't like it much because you can't reshape your sounds as you play. So for me, Keys is easily the best. But, if you're someone who likes to just create one really nice patch and save it, then FM is probably better for you.
@@carlrhoads lol I guess you haven't watched my vids. I have a pretty excessive synth collection for a hobbyist. I also like to think I can make the Keys sound pretty dang awesome. :-P Maybe you could check out one of my jams on it and give me your opinion.
My top 3 favorite synths as of now are the Behringer (or Octave) Cat, Neutron, and Minibrute. Volca Keys is still one of my favorites though... That crackly lo-fi delay makes some really atmospheric sounds if you're creative with it.
Gnarly Soundscapes yeah but for example you cant compare its sound to the monólogue that you own!
Hope they never end this project. These things are legendary.
They seem to have sold a lot. Probably quite cheap to make, but nobody minds when the sound is so great, and they're so cheap. You get all the LEDs and knobs for your money. Probably be a lot of people's first synth, or proper one when they move on from the Casio you get when you're 10. My friend started off with 1...
It's not meant to sound like a processed digital synth, it is raw and for synth lovers.
am i the only who smiled from 1:44 through 1:51 specially with the super mario coin at the end.I really like this little synth box
SO MANY SOUNDS AND THAT LAST ONE REMINDED ME OF POKÉMON
So far my favorite demonstration video. I can't wait to purchase the trio of Korg Volca instruments.
Where can I buy a Tatsuya Takahashi?
@dutch menneer:
I do not think Takahashi-san is for sale but you can rent his expertise through Yadastar GmbH.
Contact Yakuza Gang
Introducing Volca Takahashi - It‘s a smart, good looking and Volca-sized device to make easily and intuitively tiny well designed audioware
This product is no longer available!
@@mickypoo4622 on sale in china
If plugins give you the sound you want, that's OK. I'm a hardware guy, and know that (especially in the case of Polysix and MonoPoly, which still use true VCOs) real analogue synthesizers are like real instruments, where the signal path is formed by lots of small chaotic influences. Most software implementations won't give you that. I'd rather use software for things analogue can not do.
The Volca Keys sounds truly phenomenal, and I applaud Korg for making real analogue synths again.
this is by far the best out of the 3. at least for my needs. pretty great. and for the price point you cant beat it!
Just ordered one, it's a legend now, and Korg is a legend for offering such quality gear for affordable prices.
The man has literally sold me a product without even using the word 'buy' :|
Marketing genius
Thank you to korg for wisely making these videos with Takahashi-San. In English!! Domo arigatou!!
can't believe it's been almost 10 years
anyone heard the Mario Bros coin sound at 1:50 ??
Christian Noruego ii
yeah. you are right :D
lmao I was just about to comment on it. xD
lmao
Christian Noruego yea 😂
OMG, this guy's so f-ing charismatic! The more Takahashi videos I watch, the more I like him. He just doesn't seem to give a f--k in this video. The British accent tops it off.
He's sexy and makes some nice IDM
I've just got one and cant wait to start using it. Thanks for the video.
Can’t watch synth reviews unless they are Japanese with a Brit accent.
1:51 sounds like the two notes that play when you turn on the original Game Boy.
You can make good abstract sounds and techno with this gear,sweet
It's going to be very nice for oldskool techno/house stabs & arpeggios.. !!!
Game Changer. Well done, KORG. You guys are special.
i own a VolcaKey, after this video I'll buy 5 more
No you wont
@@Ralph_Sandwich "it's called humour...I mean hyperbole. Learn about it."
@@joemcbee who are u quoting
@@wooflord - Wayne Gretzky - Michael Scott
3:22 i love that! and i want that!
The lick he was getting down with at the end was ignorant! Reminded me of the advent. Bangin'
i think he just turned on a gameboy at 1:50
thtat's what i thought
Such a good sound from a small unit
I really want the sub phatty and this so I can have a little bit of analog polyphony and the moog sound together. Run this through a moog filter or use it as a full size keyboard for this and vise versa, OH THE POSSIBILITIES!
just realized the unison ring tone he plays is nearly the exact sound on the parish of spacedust by gorillaz. what a cool little synth
1:51 Coin :D
Shepuurrrd
So small but still has great sound!
Namaste MASTERMIND! You create something EPIC! And you made it small, flexible, innovativ, massiv. Also the sound is amazing, like a lot the part at 2:13, very trippy sounds. I guess my TB 303, TR 606, my 2 Polysix and the MS 20 will have a new "friend" soon, hehe.
Ultra awesome!!!
The intro riff sounds very good!
Ok, we've got these awesome boxes, mono/poly rack extension in reason, and the korg M01D for 3ds coming soon. Korg, you are taking all my money D:
Korg owns the entire market.. all of the anger I had over the KP3+ and Kaossilator Pro + getting no sampling upgrade has been wiped totally clean with these awesome devices.. Looks like dollar menu and ramen noodles in my future because I must have these!
Dude, that was awesome!!!
It's out in Japan now. Us in about a month, or go to eBay if you can't wait. I can...but only just. I will certainly be buying all 3.
Nice
DONT!, you can chain them together! :) and the version 2 of the monotribe (firmware) is really good. I wonder what can you do with this and the monotribe.
Pre orderd!
Are there any practical/musical applications for the Korg Volca Keys's poly-ringmod voice? Are there any good demonstrations of its use on youtube? Had mine for a couple weeks now. So far the only downsides to the KVK are: limited loop duration/resolution, no way to store voice presets, not enough save-slots for loops and, loss of delay when you double/quadruple loop length. Other than that, a surprisingly powerful little box.
I believe so, yes.
Can somebody make a DIY version of of that synth without a delay and with more waveforms , dynamic keyboard and MIDI out? Thats would be pure pefrection!
Would be a nice project indeed!
Keys with beats sounds incredible!
Awesome!
I feel like this could make one hell of an arp
this is modern classic :) Have it, sold it, bought it, sold it again and... bought it again. That's how good it is :)
Tata we miss you, come back please
good job that thing looks awsome.
Good demonstration!
What are you asking about? They are stand alone instruments. You plug it in and play sounds on it.
just wish they had a proper 1/4" audio output
Pure genius 👍
Love it, its on my top list now.i love 💘 jamming with korg volcas....
Keep on jamming positive vibes❤💚🤩❤💛💙🧡
There's an article on Create Digital Music wherein the designer reveals that the delay effect is a routine run on the Volca's microcontroller.
I think midi would be ideal for these. IF you are talking about the knobs, live with it. They seem great for the price.
Crazy stuff, I like it.
Don't get me wrong, the Volca devices are very attractive, nicely designed aesthetically (a rarity in today's designs) and full of features. However, to me personally (that's just my opinion) a Yamaha QY10 (same size device running on 6 AA bateries, so comparison is not out of place here), with that little Yamaha I could churn out entire multitrack songs with all harmony and chord changes I could ever imagine. Maybe today's music is more about the rhythm, not the harmony (all Volcas seem to play patterns without changing chords at all). I am tempted to get all the Volca set, however, if I don't see a video in which someone actually puts together a song with chord changes, I don't think I spend the money on those, even though it is tempting. Kudos to the ingenuous design and great sound, and staying away from cheesy color touchscreens. Hey, the fact alone that there's no touchscreen could make run to buy these immediately. But I digress...
From what I'm gathering, the thing about the Volca series is the sound quality/analog signal path. Finding something more feature-rich is pretty easy, it just won't sounds as good.
Volcas would be cooler to me if you could make songs with chord changes on it. All the demos I've seen are stuck in one chord. Unless there's no concept of changing harmony in modern electronic music.
Andrew Piatek with those machines you can easily do techno-ish stuff that should not consider harmony, cause that is techno. but if you want to use them to make anything else, just plug the midi.
Andrew Piatek Experiental Electronic Music
TurkeyGaming Karlheinz Stockhausen? Okay, I get it.
im not too interested in the volca beats but the bass and keys are fantastic bits of kit
It sounds great, the only problem I have is that it looks like you can't get square waves without ring mod. Does anyone know if that's possible? Hopefully there will be a simple mod to fix that. If there is I'll definitely buy one, all the other analog poly synths are so expensive.
Poly Ring - So that's how Matthew Smith created the music for Manic Minor on the ZX Spectrum.
Nice video Mr.Takahashi. Cool vintage Tannoy monitors behind you ;-)
Another item on the list.Thats a must a polyphonic analog synth for 111€
Track at 4.25 sounds very good!
Not even halfway through and I was like yes I do need this
I'm sold.
your voice is great
Real cool!!
Nice Tannoys 😻
are there any plans to offer midi chaining to allow added polyphony with added units?
Since these have a gate / CV input, one easy thing you can do is buy, or make, a stereo splitter cable, from stereo to L / R jack sockets. I did that for my friend, he plugged it into his Gameboy running LSDJ. From there, he just needed a small click sound to play on LSDJ. Run that through the left channel, and LSDJ music through the right. Feed the left into the Volca, and you can sync them together! I dunno if it's supposed to work, but it does! Or did for us anyway, might need to twiddle the volume.
If you're not much of a solderer, which I find hard to believe in an analogue keyboard fan, you know you can buy sets of headphone adaptor cables? And there's the one for airlines that turns 2x mono jack into a stereo one? Of course, they work in the other direction too, it's just plastic and metal strips in there. So instead of joining 2 mono channels, you can split a stereo one instead. You'll need a gender-changer cable male-male, and a couple of gender-changers female-female. The latter, though....
You know those adaptors that let you use 2 pairs of headphones in one socket? Well surprisingly that's just metal strips and plastic... so there's your two female sockets connected together, and ignore the male plug.
Shonky but works well enough, very cheap and available. Or else just solder a proper one up. But it'll do in a fix.
It's nice because studios used to use a "click track" way back in the day when it was all analogue. Like a more versatile metronome. In this case the artists would listen to it through headphones and perform along, but Volcas can do that too.
Velly Niiiice , I ll Be Back.
It remind me the sound of Darkstar !
Dear Takahashi-San,
Too late for a firmware request?
Please have the FUNC+G# and A# keys select Clock divide 1/3 and 1/6 respectively.
In this way, users can supply 24 PPQN clock IN.
In any case, can't wait!
is there any input that you could process say your voice if you wanted???
he's like an asian Jonny Greenwood
Federico Bejarano this machine made me think of radiohead.
LOL
Robert Pattinson**
so cool
oh... my... gooaaad!! this is what I's bean waeitin foer!
I shall do all that is in my power to learn to use the Volca synthesizers -- all three of them: especially because they are so affordable, and therefore within reach. They are of course musically interesting, first of all, but intellectually stimulating and challenging, too. I shall try, if I can, to learn how to use them as musical instruments in their own right; but, once I feel confident enough (assuming I have been able to afford the synthesizers in the first place), I shall plug them into a guitar amp and see what I can do with that kind of rig.
Good luck on your quest, Captain Autismo
did you do it dude?
I hope they release a Volca Keys2 with more polyphony, and expanded effects, like the FM2.
Please release this track !
do the sequences transpose across the keyboard ? otherwise you are stuck in one key and whats the use in that.
fell in love with this ❤
what is that little TV in the background? I feel dumb I can't remember any word to describe
it's in oscilloscope.
thank you very much
how many sequences can the bass and keys store?
Do you think this would be a good place to start for me to get into synthesis?
Wes Huffman Yes, or Volca bass. The Korg minilogue and monologue are showing up on ebay and craigslist, used, for a decent price. Same with the volca series
i like that old school oscilloscope in the back there
tats my beloved
can the mini korg do all of the things the different volcas can do?
I think so,but anyway I'm getting the volca keys just for the analog sound and the loop function so I can pair it with Tr8 and make some other adjustment on my other synths.
Not sold on these Volca things yet
There are 27 keys. It can play up to 3 notes @ the same time
prove it. i haven't seen any documentation or video examples of this anywhere!
What the monitor in the background with the audio wave called?
Oscilloscope ?
What I'm worried about is how the polyphony works. It's obviously paraphonic since there's only one filter. But on the Korg website it says there's also only one envelope and one amp. So do the three notes have to be at the exact same time?
I'm getting one!!!!
but that would only provide polyphony if you programmed separate notes in each individual sequencer, you couldn't actually play six notes of polyphony by any means through a midi controller considering there's no midi out.(still better than no midi as with the monotribe) And sync isn't cv exactly is it? sorry for all the questions.
Great video man, thanks. I have a Novation Circuit and would like to get one of these lower end Korg products to Midi together. Which would you recommend? Thank you.
I know this is a volca but couldn't you make bass sounds with this too?
What is the device with the soundwave on it at 0:08
Frank Reynolds Oscilloscope
Maybe some where in the ~500 odd comments it's already been mentioned.
It would have been great if you had shown a close up of the dial settings.