For all the people raging in the comments, I suspect there's a translation error at work here. I bet in Japanese "the two are similar" was translated from a phrase like "the two side-by-side."
In Italy we say "sono c*lo e camicia" (they are b*tt & shirt 😂 ). This funny expression in fact is not particularly vulgar or coarse and is very common here, this means they share a strong complicity (still, I'm Italian but I would like to know what is the logic link between b*tt and shirt, one day or another...😂 who knows??). By the way, they are not properly "similar", in fact they are VERY different, but sure, they work perfectly together!
This is actually very good video. The reason being is that it demonstrates two opposite synthesis methods. Sure, and additive synthesizer would be ideal to compare to the Volca Keys, which is a subtractive synthesizer. However, FM, just like additive synthesis builds sound from ground up, which is opposite to what subtractive synthesis does. My personal choices for subtractive and additive synthesis are the D-50, and the DX7, respectively. But it could as well be the Volcas if I were getting into synthesis today. I'd like to see more Volca Keys and Volca FM pairings.
+Andrew Piatek "...subtractive and additive synthesis are the D-50, and the DX7, respectively"? Roland's LA synthesis uses some subtractive-style techniques (filters, envelope, LFO) but both are digital, and neither is additive.
+Dominic Arkwright D-50 is a subtractive synthesizer to me. When I don't use the PCM sound generator in it, the D-50 is simply a square wave generator with variable pulse width (sawtooth is obtained at filter stage) and low pass filter. Pure subtractive synthesis. DX7's algorithm #32 is purely additive synthesis. Sure, something like Kawai K5 would be ideal for additive synthesis, but I think I'd prefer FM, it's far quicker to built sounds from bottom and going up using FM than additive synthesizer. With a subtractive synthesis you remove stuff from top to bottom. That was my point. Envelopes and LFO can be applied to both subtractive and additive synthesis, as well as FM. The difference building sounds is going from the bottom and adding harmonics (additive, FM, PD, etc) or removing harmonics from top to bottom (subtractive synthesis). Whether something is digital or analog is quite irrelevant. The reason that most analog synthesizers are subtractive, it's because it's easier to implement. Additive analog synthesizer would be very expensive to provide separate oscillator for all those harmonics.
+my4trackmachine They can get close. They actually complement each other since one synthesis method builds sound from ground up by introducing overtones, while the other goes from top to bottom by removing overtones. You would be surprised how fat, expressive, and analog-like an FM synthesizer can sound.
+Andrew Piatek As a firm lover of my DX7 I can agree that FM can sound close to analog but it is always an approximation. Imitating things like filter sweeps is still a struggle for FM. As FM is based in essentially tricking the ear into hearing harmonics through intensive high rate modulation rather then reducing harmonics like in subtractive, the characteristic differ from the ground up.
my4trackmachine That's the whole point with FM that you can obtain sounds that are very difficult to do with subtractive synthesis. Of course you won't get subtractive type of filter sweep, who needs that? Filter sweeps are cliche and overused. With FM, you can get very unique and expressive sounds. Sadly, the Volca FM does not respond to keyboard velocity, that's a big shortcoming.
I am entirely aware that FM is great for obtaining non subtractive sounds. That is why I use it. I am not sure what you are arguing here. My whole point in my first comment was to state that the title of the video was not right in its claim that the FM volca is the same as the volca keys because of the synthesis types. you responded by saying that FM is capable of subtractive type sounds. Now you are saying that FM's is best not as a subtractive synth emulator because it doesn't do it well. It seems like you just proved my point. I am not sure where you are going with all this or if you are fully aware of what you are talking about.
+my4trackmachine Well, my point is as follows. Synthesis does not end on subtractive synthesis. To me, there are three fundamental synthesis methods: additive, FM, and subtractive. I put FM in the middle on purpose, because FM is similar to additive synthesis in the sense that it builds sound from ground up starting with the most fundamental sound: sine wave. FM is also a fantastic means of obtaining quickly what would take very painstaking work using additive synthesis. Now, once the concepts of additive and FM synthesis are fully understood, the subtractive synthesis becomes far more meaningful. Now, it is possible to obtain uncanny fat sounding analog-like textures using FM. I am not not talking about filter sweeps, I am talking about something more expressive and musical, like using velocity of the keyboard to obtain those different nuances. For instance, a brass patch on the DX7 can sound super expressive an analog-like. That's my point. You can get sawtooth wave using FM, and you can get a sine wave by collapsing sawthooth into sine using filter in subtractive synthesis. So, there are more commonalities between the two. It's after all about the waveforms and being musical. To me, the master synthesist is the one, who can obtain the same sound using different synthesis methods. Now, harmonic sweep in FM is going to sound different than harmonic sweep in subtractive, because these are two different tools. Harmonic sweep in FM is done via the modulator, whereas in subtractive it's done by the filter. Other than that, there are more similarities between subtractive and FM than there are differences. If you can't believe that a DX7 can sound like a subtractive synthesizer with a cutoff controller by keyboard velocity, you can watch my video titled Yamaha DX7 Brass. So, in a musical context, you can emulate subtractive synthesizer very well with FM. That''s the power and beauty of FM, and that's why I can never get enough of it. Then, going to subtractive synthesizer is an icing on the cake. You can get pulse width modulation, ring modulation, and FM, too, with a full featured subtractive synthesizer. And some FM synthesizers use filters as well. Which may seem a bit awakward to build from sine wave up, and the collapse back to sine wave with the filter, but if you just want to do harmonic sweeps, it may make sense. But from musical point of view, FM and subtractive share more in common than they differ.
Among the volca range, their core capability is extremely similar; they both sequence and play up to 3 separate notes (so chords, bass+melody, etc) so they're somewhat like sound modules each of their respective forms of synthesis! It's a little module, little number of notes you can play and has on its onboard keyboard, little number of steps, little number of possible parameters that each have knobs compared to their big brethren, but they sound completely different cause one's subtractive analog and the other's digital frequency modulation! But in reference to my saying 'little,' the thing with the Volcas is each one isn't nearly capable of doing everything (like a roland groovebox, korg electribe, trition work station, Maschine, Logic, etc), but they bring the crux of one special type of electronic instrument music type to your fingertips. Really, these are the two that are most effectivley used by keyboardists (whether playing a multinote or monophonic line, chords or bass, spanning the keyboard or not) - when you plug in a 61/77/88 key full size keyboard, playing MIDI into these just gives them gobs of expressive instrument facilities at the fingertips. If you want to "play" them often, rather than make a sequence that runs for you while u play other shit, these are the two you can really play (its a dual focus on playing its sounds from a keyboard and/or the sequncer wheras with the beats, sample, and bass they're more oriented toward you programming the sequencer to put out the sounds. So for those three, you basically always get a stable tempo, grid-like obviously digital/mechanical output wheras with the keys and FM you get that the same from the sequencer, but and/or you can be playing it in free time, live, all notes handtriggered on a MIDI keyboard (wheras its impossible to play fully on the ribbon controllers of every vocals that will sound the notes, they're just fine for programming the sequencer but you don't want to perform on them - well you can perform on the keys and FM like they were a piano (up to 3 notes), and for me that often inspires or goes along with the 16-step sequence programming.
Dave Daves frankly, I think you hit the nail on the head of why I'm so frustrated with my recent purchase of a volca keys and why I'm thinking about swapping it for the bass and now skeptical about the fm despite it's cool sounds. If the intention of how you're to use the keyboards are similar, which they seem to be, then I'd either better learn how to work with these limitations or steer clear. While they're mostly not similar, it is seeming like this fundamental difference between a keyboardist and someone just programming automated beats (I'm the latter) does unite the two units. The arp on the fm does seem like it could be useful though 🤷🏻♂️
Great video man, thanks. If you had to pair any one Korg Volca product with a Novation Circuit, which would you pick, maybe a second choice as well. Thank you.
it not precise adjustment anyway, big rig or lil box? I do not know why ppl be so skeptical about the size of the box? it is 21 st century electronics age
You dont own that many synths, do you? I used to think at one time that analog subtractive and frequency modulation were the only types of synthesis. I have a Korg Z1 and it has both types of synthesis shown here. But the Korg Z1 has 13 types of synthesis so its not the norm. A Waldorf wave table synth would blow your mind! Happy noodling!
Relating to this Video? You have much more possibilities with the FM, since you can choose from 1000s of patches to import (apart from programming your own) while the keys has very few possibilities in generating different sounds... FM can do strings, bells, bass, leads, FX, Drones, ....
yeah very similar, both are boxes of the same size that produce sounds.
aaand both are produced by korg!
I am also some of those things.
@@inchoat3 produced by korg?
😂
For all the people raging in the comments, I suspect there's a translation error at work here. I bet in Japanese "the two are similar" was translated from a phrase like "the two side-by-side."
in the description above "volca fm and volca keys are like twines." But languages are peculiar nonetheless.
In Italy we say "sono c*lo e camicia" (they are b*tt & shirt 😂 ). This funny expression in fact is not particularly vulgar or coarse and is very common here, this means they share a strong complicity (still, I'm Italian but I would like to know what is the logic link between b*tt and shirt, one day or another...😂 who knows??). By the way, they are not properly "similar", in fact they are VERY different, but sure, they work perfectly together!
Volca Keys is by far my best friend ❤
This is actually very good video. The reason being is that it demonstrates two opposite synthesis methods. Sure, and additive synthesizer would be ideal to compare to the Volca Keys, which is a subtractive synthesizer. However, FM, just like additive synthesis builds sound from ground up, which is opposite to what subtractive synthesis does. My personal choices for subtractive and additive synthesis are the D-50, and the DX7, respectively. But it could as well be the Volcas if I were getting into synthesis today. I'd like to see more Volca Keys and Volca FM pairings.
+Andrew Piatek "...subtractive and additive synthesis are the D-50, and the DX7, respectively"? Roland's LA synthesis uses some subtractive-style techniques (filters, envelope, LFO) but both are digital, and neither is additive.
+Dominic Arkwright D-50 is a subtractive synthesizer to me. When I don't use the PCM sound generator in it, the D-50 is simply a square wave generator with variable pulse width (sawtooth is obtained at filter stage) and low pass filter. Pure subtractive synthesis. DX7's algorithm #32 is purely additive synthesis. Sure, something like Kawai K5 would be ideal for additive synthesis, but I think I'd prefer FM, it's far quicker to built sounds from bottom and going up using FM than additive synthesizer. With a subtractive synthesis you remove stuff from top to bottom. That was my point. Envelopes and LFO can be applied to both subtractive and additive synthesis, as well as FM. The difference building sounds is going from the bottom and adding harmonics (additive, FM, PD, etc) or removing harmonics from top to bottom (subtractive synthesis). Whether something is digital or analog is quite irrelevant. The reason that most analog synthesizers are subtractive, it's because it's easier to implement. Additive analog synthesizer would be very expensive to provide separate oscillator for all those harmonics.
FM synthesis is very different to subtractive synthesis. The sounds they generate gives extremely different results.
+my4trackmachine They can get close. They actually complement each other since one synthesis method builds sound from ground up by introducing overtones, while the other goes from top to bottom by removing overtones. You would be surprised how fat, expressive, and analog-like an FM synthesizer can sound.
+Andrew Piatek As a firm lover of my DX7 I can agree that FM can sound close to analog but it is always an approximation. Imitating things like filter sweeps is still a struggle for FM. As FM is based in essentially tricking the ear into hearing harmonics through intensive high rate modulation rather then reducing harmonics like in subtractive, the characteristic differ from the ground up.
my4trackmachine That's the whole point with FM that you can obtain sounds that are very difficult to do with subtractive synthesis. Of course you won't get subtractive type of filter sweep, who needs that? Filter sweeps are cliche and overused. With FM, you can get very unique and expressive sounds. Sadly, the Volca FM does not respond to keyboard velocity, that's a big shortcoming.
I am entirely aware that FM is great for obtaining non subtractive sounds. That is why I use it.
I am not sure what you are arguing here. My whole point in my first comment was to state that the title of the video was not right in its claim that the FM volca is the same as the volca keys because of the synthesis types. you responded by saying that FM is capable of subtractive type sounds. Now you are saying that FM's is best not as a subtractive synth emulator because it doesn't do it well.
It seems like you just proved my point. I am not sure where you are going with all this or if you are fully aware of what you are talking about.
+my4trackmachine Well, my point is as follows. Synthesis does not end on subtractive synthesis. To me, there are three fundamental synthesis methods: additive, FM, and subtractive. I put FM in the middle on purpose, because FM is similar to additive synthesis in the sense that it builds sound
from ground up starting with the most fundamental sound: sine wave. FM is also a fantastic means of obtaining quickly what would take very painstaking work using additive synthesis. Now, once the concepts of additive and FM synthesis are fully understood, the subtractive synthesis becomes far more meaningful.
Now, it is possible to obtain uncanny fat sounding analog-like textures using FM. I am not not talking about filter sweeps, I am talking about something more expressive and musical, like using velocity of the keyboard to obtain those different nuances. For instance, a brass patch on the DX7 can sound super expressive an analog-like. That's my point. You can get sawtooth wave using FM, and you can get a sine wave by collapsing sawthooth into sine using filter in subtractive synthesis. So, there are more commonalities between the two. It's after all about the waveforms and being musical. To me, the master synthesist is the one, who can obtain the same sound using different synthesis methods.
Now, harmonic sweep in FM is going to sound different than harmonic sweep in subtractive, because these are two different tools. Harmonic sweep in FM is done via the modulator, whereas in subtractive it's done by the filter. Other than that, there are more similarities between subtractive and FM than there are differences. If you can't believe that a DX7 can sound like a subtractive synthesizer with a cutoff controller by keyboard velocity, you can watch my video titled Yamaha DX7 Brass. So, in a musical context, you can emulate subtractive synthesizer very well with FM. That''s the power and beauty of FM, and that's why I can never get enough of it. Then, going to subtractive synthesizer is an icing on the cake. You can get pulse width modulation, ring modulation, and FM, too, with a full featured subtractive synthesizer. And some FM synthesizers use filters as well. Which may seem a bit awakward to build from sine wave up, and the collapse back to sine wave with the filter, but if you just want to do harmonic sweeps, it may make sense. But from musical point of view, FM and subtractive share more in common than they differ.
Among the volca range, their core capability is extremely similar; they both sequence and play up to 3 separate notes (so chords, bass+melody, etc) so they're somewhat like sound modules each of their respective forms of synthesis! It's a little module, little number of notes you can play and has on its onboard keyboard, little number of steps, little number of possible parameters that each have knobs compared to their big brethren, but they sound completely different cause one's subtractive analog and the other's digital frequency modulation! But in reference to my saying 'little,' the thing with the Volcas is each one isn't nearly capable of doing everything (like a roland groovebox, korg electribe, trition work station, Maschine, Logic, etc), but they bring the crux of one special type of electronic instrument music type to your fingertips. Really, these are the two that are most effectivley used by keyboardists (whether playing a multinote or monophonic line, chords or bass, spanning the keyboard or not) - when you plug in a 61/77/88 key full size keyboard, playing MIDI into these just gives them gobs of expressive instrument facilities at the fingertips. If you want to "play" them often, rather than make a sequence that runs for you while u play other shit, these are the two you can really play (its a dual focus on playing its sounds from a keyboard and/or the sequncer wheras with the beats, sample, and bass they're more oriented toward you programming the sequencer to put out the sounds. So for those three, you basically always get a stable tempo, grid-like obviously digital/mechanical output wheras with the keys and FM you get that the same from the sequencer, but and/or you can be playing it in free time, live, all notes handtriggered on a MIDI keyboard (wheras its impossible to play fully on the ribbon controllers of every vocals that will sound the notes, they're just fine for programming the sequencer but you don't want to perform on them - well you can perform on the keys and FM like they were a piano (up to 3 notes), and for me that often inspires or goes along with the 16-step sequence programming.
Dave Daves frankly, I think you hit the nail on the head of why I'm so frustrated with my recent purchase of a volca keys and why I'm thinking about swapping it for the bass and now skeptical about the fm despite it's cool sounds. If the intention of how you're to use the keyboards are similar, which they seem to be, then I'd either better learn how to work with these limitations or steer clear. While they're mostly not similar, it is seeming like this fundamental difference between a keyboardist and someone just programming automated beats (I'm the latter) does unite the two units. The arp on the fm does seem like it could be useful though 🤷🏻♂️
To me the volca keys sound much more musical .. the FM sounds harsh .
Harsh is guud
They don't sound similar to me, even through the laptop speakers. Also the workflow doesn't seem similar.
They are nevertheless similar in size :)
Great video man, thanks. If you had to pair any one Korg Volca product with a Novation Circuit, which would you pick, maybe a second choice as well. Thank you.
it not precise adjustment anyway, big rig or lil box? I do not know why ppl be so skeptical about the size of the box? it is 21 st century electronics age
I want to buy one of these .. which one do you recommend?
I just ordered FM, cuz people told me that thing is really close to DX7
so yeah, wish me luck
What would you recommend to pick? If I just want to loop music, which of them is better? I want kinda like OP1 but cheap stuff :)
what did you pick and how did it work out for looping?
Cool have you tried programming your own patches yet?
Why are so many people running these on batteries when at home? How long does a battery charge last anyway?
It's bullocks they don't come with plug ins there like 40$ extra! Batteries suck! Unless you're at a park or on bus with head phones!
kinda like how cows and lions are the same because they are both mammals?
James Thomas 😂😂
I got a keys, wondering if I should get a volca bass or volca FM.
INGSOC bass. Get the bass
You have a Keys already, so I would go for the Bass
I plug my Volca Fm into a Marshall bass amp. Can't stand the sound coming out of its tiny speaker 🤪
No! NO and...NOOO!
You dont own that many synths, do you? I used to think at one time that analog subtractive and frequency modulation were the only types of synthesis. I have a Korg Z1 and it has both types of synthesis shown here. But the Korg Z1 has 13 types of synthesis so its not the norm. A Waldorf wave table synth would blow your mind! Happy noodling!
keys do sound better
Relating to this Video? You have much more possibilities with the FM, since you can choose from 1000s of patches to import (apart from programming your own) while the keys has very few possibilities in generating different sounds...
FM can do strings, bells, bass, leads, FX, Drones, ....
Muy buen video, aquí un tutorial en español de funcionamiento básico: czcams.com/video/TCtm8INFraQ/video.html
@cat and biscuit no amigo no es spam solo quise mostrar un vídeo de mi canal. Saludos
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LOL no you dont know what youre talking about.