Using the Korg Volca Drum Melodically: Sound Design
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- čas přidán 23. 08. 2024
- In which I'm looking at using (or maybe misusing?!) the Korg Volca Drum to make melodic parts. In this part we discuss the sound design techniques we can employ when building melodic sounds.
You can find the free patch editor I built here: synthmata.com/...
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Question: Where's part 2?
Short answer: there isn't one, sorry, and probably never will be.
Long answer: So I spent ages researching and taking notes on how the pitch control mapped to concert pitch, working out what you'd be able to do over midi control, what frequencies were close enough to use musically, which ones weren't, etc. basically hours spent with a tuner and a spreadsheet... And then about 3 days before I was going to record the video, Korg issued the firmware update that enabled Pitch Quantization. So with that in mind, the video would just be:
-Turn on Pitch Quantization
-Hold down a step in edit mode and set the pitches you want on that step
-Be careful about long notes as there's always portamento because of how Motion Sequencing smooths everything - maybe try putting silent / very short notes of the same pitch before the next note, but you're probably OK with plucky sounds, especially spaced out.
And I'm not sure that's worth a whole video.
The research is here if you're interested: github.com/oscillatorsink/volca-drum-melody-research?files=1
There's a fair bit you could talk about with regards to removing the portamento effect. For example by alternating between two parts between note changes and designating them as choke groups, or motion sequencing the release times to 0 in order to effectively turn off a part or layer to the same effect. Also could mention using the slice feature to do drones by putting 16 level slices on each step. Still probably not enough to warrant another video though. Also can get quite messy too.
Also, as you mentioned, the slight detuning of the notes can lead to some characterful sounds which aren't accessible with pitch quantisation, so perhaps there is still merit to the pitch mapping approach? I'd also like to mention while on the topic of detuning that setting the LFO rate to 0 and the amount to +5 and -5 on two tuned layers makes a nice pseudo detuning effect.
@@Zanix_IV Retrokits DUY for Drum on their RK002 takes on the pitch glide:
duy.retrokits.com/6139e360-debf-40ea-8db6-9c8c97eb09e4
@@oldasrocks9121 yeah but that only appears to be with an external controller rather than the internal sequencer. like I mentioned in the above comment there are ways to circumnavigate the glide but they can be quite awkward and often limit the number of voices you can use in a single pattern.
Mind blown. Already was loving my Volca Drum, now I realize how much more it can give. Essential viewing for anyone taking a Volca Drum out of the box today
Which I actually did yesterday!
I got the volca drum as my first synth and was worried I was throwing myself in the deep end but I'm glad because I developed a better understanding about sound design than if I got say the sample first. Cracking machine.
Finally! A comprehensive explanation of the Volca Drum engine controls! THANK YOU!
*"Hello"* there! This is quite interesting. And I am right with you, let's often misuse our gear! Push the boundaries and limits (which are, in the case of gear, mostly mental restraints) 👍 !!!
Amen to that!
Volca drum for me is the perfect synth for every level's musician..it provides so much fun and ideas!
I love mine so much that I've just got a second one yesterday!
Enjoy your second Volca Drum!
@@OscillatorSink I'll enjoy my second every second!
I love the Synthmata for the FM and DRUM. It must have been a lot of hard work. Thank you
Excellent tips. I particularly liked how you used layers with different envelope attack and release times to sweep the harmonics.
Thank you, and yes, that's the tip I'm probably most pleased with myself!
My favorite kind of Tutorial! immediately reproducible on this device and at the same time general sound design concepts of which the application is not limited to the Volca Drum!
Subscribed, Thank you!!
Really looking forward to Part 2, once you get around to record it.
Thank you. And yes, I really really need to get around to it!!
@@OscillatorSink Also looking forward to a vid on percussive sounds on the Modular (again, if/whenever you get around to it).
@@mikeexits oh god, yeah I have to get around to that.
“A deeper understanding of how your gear works.” Bazinga !
I like your musings about your creative process beyond any particular piece of kit. Very well done, thank you.
You approached this in a super methodical way man! Fantastic and super inspiring as usual!
Thank you for checking it out, glad you enjoyed it!
You're a synth philosopher. Love your content. Thanks.
Thanks! I'll take that as a big compliment!
Best description ever: 5:59 “Even at thirteen ... we’re already getting very, very seasick.”
Great stuff, I don't own a Volca Drum but a lot of this seems generally applicable on similar gear and gave me some ideas to try out.
Excellent! That was my intention - so have fun!
Another brilliant video, thank you!
Good news: The new Volca Drum firmware supports pitch quantisation which makes it easier to play melodies.
How can we not love the David Attenborough of sound design. Take a bow sir :)
You honour me!
@@OscillatorSink It's flattery I'm afraid - pour encourager l'ecole de Volca Modular toute suite
@@fincorrigan7139 I've got to get a few more videos out of the way first. Trying to work out how to best approach the Volca Modular - probably section by section like I did with the FM I suspect...
@@OscillatorSink Great stuff, cheers
Thank You for the patch editor, its amazing!
No problem! Enjoy!
Still trying to get sound out of this app, I'll try my irig duo pro and see if that works. It looks so interesting can't wait to get the sound working.
@@mmypainting hi, the website doesn't make noise, it's the Volca Drum that makes the sound, the website is just controlling it.
Brilliant!
I'd love to see a tutorial on you using the Volca Modular as a drum machine, as I'm more fascinated by the sound of that rather than the Volca Drum. :-)
Whaaat, you built a patch editor for the Volca? Looking all over the internet for an example to control midi devices! Awesome work. Keep it up!
Your videos/channel is great. Really appreciate the wisdom.
Thank you! And thanks for watching!
I wish Arturia would do an implementation for Drum on Beatstep Pro like they did for the Sample. I also wish there was a well ordered curriculum for understanding midi deeply, I suppose it's a programming thing tho...
You could select split midi to 1-6 or one single midi channel on the volca drum...
Thank you again for this tool and the info.
Awsome video, thanks!
This is extremely useful. Thanks
Another great video for us music geeks 👍👍👍👍👍👍
My target audience 😉
I like to use the Volca drum as a complex oscillator going through other modular signal flow like through the MS-20 or Neutron.
Man what you are doing is incredible, keep up the good work :)
You're very kind!
Great tutorial, and I love the way your patch editor makes the architecture of the Volca Drum much more obvious. I've programmed some synth editors in the past for Unix platforms (in C and using the GTK+ library), so I'm going to have a go at a standalone editor for the Volca Drum. I mostly program in Java these days, so I'll see if I can knock together something cross platform.
Hey did you make any progress on that project?
@@JaguBuenosAires Obviously I can't speak for Chris, however another Volca Drum editor is available for a small fee online. Haven't downloaded it yet but it looks really good.
korg-volca-drum-editor.jimdofree.com/#cc-m-product-18563472025
Thank you for the video! : ) I want to start with the Behringer's synths. I'll wait for the Proton to be released. And I also want to get TD-3-MO. I'll need a drum machine for them and I was looking at RD-6, but may be the Volca Drum is the better choice for that? It can do anything the Behringer RD-6 can do , right,? And much more on top of that.
@@BPEMETO the rd-6 sounds like a 606 which is a classic sound but...kind of limited. The Volca Drum has a far more diverse sound pallete.
Great tutorial. I'm looking for part 2.
Since they added the Pitch Quantization feature there's not so much to talk about. They added it about 3 days before I planned to record part 2, after doing a bunch of tests and writing up tables of viable pitches and keys... So I don't think there's going to be part 2 now as it's a bit redundant I think?
Again: super helpful! Thank you...
You're very welcome, thanks for watching!
@Oscillator Sink - Korg released Volca Drum Firmware 1.14 today, which "Added a new edit parameter to enable pitch quantization". I am crossing my fingers that this may facilitate melodic playing on the "traditional" concert pitch note scale via MIDI CC control of the pitch parameter!
Yeah, you and me both. Hoping to get a chance to try it tonight.
@@OscillatorSink The updated Volca Drum manual is currently only available on Korg's Japan support site: www.korg.com/jp/support/download/manual/0/809/4196/
The "QPI: enable pitch quantization (semitone)" has been added to the list of additional part parameters accessed via EDIT/STEP.
Yep I was playing with it last night. I've posted my findings on twitter, Facebook etc.
It almost sorta totally works, but I'm seeing some weird behavior...
Oscillator Sink sounds like there some motion smoothing going on. If I step edit the note values it sounds like portamento.
@@geephlips there is, yes. Even when you're "locking" per step, it's still a motion sequence, so it will still interpolate between each step. There are ways to minimise it depending on what you're trying to do - I'll talk about it in a video soon.
Great video thank you ....
It's really an amazing job, thank you !!! when will we get the second part ??? thank you :) !!!
Well since the update that adds a proper pitch Quantization mode there's not a whole lot to talk about now...
too bad :/ ... any way to listen too your music thougth
:) ?
@@38bogos there are a few EPs here: oscillatorsink.bandcamp.com/
But also loads of music on this channel!
So I have the Korg volca drum set up with midi in, sound is on, computer recognizes the interface, I see the program but not the changes I make, even when I save it to the volca. I'm missing something here, should I be connected with sync in/out also?
@@mmypainting assuming that the midi cable is good and is known to work with other devices, you're going from midi out on your interface to midi in on your Volca, the usual issue people have is not having the Volca in the default split channel mode mentioned in the instructions.
Hold REC as you turn on the Volca. If any of the steps are lit up, tap that step to de-select it. Press REC again to start up the Volca as usual. If that doesn't work then it's possible you've turned off the MIDI RX Shortmessage setting in the global settings of the Volca. Details for that are in the manual.
Id assume most sounds would be kinda tinny and metallic due to how the algorithms for the drum sounds are? That could be useful for some styles.
Great video! Did you ever release the second part? I can't seem to find it
I spent ages researching and taking notes on how the pitch control mapped to concert pitch, working out what you'd be able to do over midi control... And then about 3 days before I was going to record the video, Korg issued the firmware update that enabled Pitch Quantization. So that was a waste of time and now the video would just be:
-Turn on Pitch Quantization
-Hold down a step in edit mode and set the pitches you want on that step
'Be careful about long notes as there's always portamento because of how Motion Sequencing smooths everything - maybe try putting silent /very short notes of the same pitch before the next note.
And I'm not sure that's worth a video.
The research is here for what it's worth: github.com/oscillatorsink/volca-drum-melody-research?files=1
Awesome! Didn't realise this update existed but I'll check out all your research anyway so it doesn't go to waste!
Also thanks so much for all your great work! Your videos on the minibrute 2 and volca FM have really helped my understanding of those instruments and synthesis in general. Cheers mate keep up the great work and I hope you're keeping well in this trying time!
Fantastic mate looking forward to trying this out. I was wondering if you knew any ways to get midi out of the drum?
Hi there, there are a few solderless mod kits that clip onto some points on the board that give you a midi connection. I haven't tried them so wouldn't want to endorse anything either way, but have a Google and you'll find them!
excellent video I love my volca drum for it being extremely unquie in creating new sounds I'm blown away with your editor by any chance you patch editor can become a standalone tool?? please let us all know cheers!!!
If you download the source code from my github, it can all be run in a browser on an offline machine. The only thing it pulls from the Web is the fonts so it might not look so pretty is all.
You'll need to download the whole site:
github.com/synthmata/synthmata.github.io?files=1
I could make it a standalone Electron app at some point, but just downloading it and running it in Chrome offline works.
God this sounds so fking epic!!
Part 2?
Also trying to figure out how to turn on the chromatic pitch shifting on the unit itself. Cant find that info anywhere.
It's coming, there's been some illness at home, and my day job has really been kicking my ass this month so I haven't had the time (or energy honestly) to get videos out, sorry.
Regarding your other question, I posted the following on my Facebook page:
VOLCA DRUM UPDATE, UPDATE
Update: the pitch weirdness I described below seems to be something to do with using the Layer1-2 editing. If you're just editing Layer 1 or 2 on its own, the tuning looks good! Happy days!
So, the 1.14 update for the Volca drum adds pitch quantization. This is a big deal if you want to play the Volca Drum melodically. Here are the details as I understand them after some limited testing:
To turn on pitch quantization, you need to be in Edit mode; twist the select knob like you would for bit-crush, folding etc. and at the end you'll see "QPI" - turn that bad boy on!
Now, for that part, when you twist the pitch knob you'll see pitches rather than numbers!
(I have also now added it to synthmata).
@@OscillatorSink No worries man Im a single dad, trust me I understand. I really love and appreciate what your doing though. Thank you
@@OscillatorSink Can't express how much this helps. Funny how easy it was to turn on but trying to find documentation for that tiny detail not so much. again thank you so much and Madd love for what you do!!!
@@deniwastaken it's not at the top of my list. Now that you can turn on the pitch Quantization I've found it hard to work out what there is to talk about honestly. There's a trick for mitigating the forced portamento, but other than that... I don't know that there's much to talk about.
I've used the online patch editor many times before with no trouble, but just tried to use it (same cables, same browser, same laptop) but can't get it to connect to the browser. Any ideas?
Do you have a DAW open or anything else that's stealing control of the midi interface? Have you set the Volca to use a specific channel since you last used it? (you need to have it in split channel mode).
Are not the drive and bitcrushing motion sequenceable? You'd think these items would be for timbre change over time.
Yeah, they don't seem to be - although they can be controlled by an external sequencer, so that's something.
Hello Oscillator Sink, I guess you do not have plenty of time to help your subscribers, but I`ll try anyway. For the last three days, I've been trying to get your online control software to talk to my volca drum, but it just won't react. My midi interface (midiface 4x4) clearly indicates the flow of midi data but the changes I apply won't have an effect on my drum. I tried it with chrome on my iMac as well as on a windows computer with the very same result. Midi data is being transferred but the volca won't react. Is it something about the volca drum's internal settings? Your software looks really helpful and I heavily want to get it to work with my volca drum. Any ideas?
Two things to check initially: your Volca must be running the up to date firmware (you can get they firmware update from Korg); secondly you must be in split channel mode, which you can set using the Volcas global settings mode (the manual covers how to do this).
Make sure both of these are as they should be, and if it's still not working we can try and trouble shoot from there.
@@OscillatorSink Thank you very much for getting back to me so quickly. My VD had already been delivered with t he desired firmware update. It also was running in split mode. However, I switched to single mode and then back to split mode again, just for a wild shot and that actually did the trick. As far as I can tell it's working now. Thanks a lot. You have just saved my weekend!!
Weird, but I'm glad you got it working;have fun with it!
how do you play 2 parts at the same time?
There are 6 sounds on the Volca Drum - you can play all 6 of them at once (unless you have them in a choke group).
Hey, I heard that the midi doesn't transfer different pitch's with an external midi-keyboard, is this true?
That is true.
@@OscillatorSink it's bit of a bummer, I don't understand why they don't integrate this. Imagine how much easier it would be to write melodies... Though the pitch shifting thing makes some interesting melodies too, I find it quite annoying to constantly turn tiny nobs around.
Has anyone else had a problem connecting the Volca drum via audio interface and it not coming up on the MIDI channel pull down screen of synthmata?
What interface are you using and what is shown (if anything) in Synthmata?
Using an m-audio fast track pro and when I’m connected nothing shows up on the menu :/
Appreciate the quick response!
Hmm, that should be class compliant.
OK what OS and browser are you using? When you first went to the site did it as you for access to midi?
Using MacOS Catalina , was trying with safari with no luck as well with Firefox no luck:/
WebMidi is only supported in Chrome based browsers. So try Chrome or Chromium or Opera.
Please, this with volca kick.
Turn the "Bend" and "Time" down. Use Drive and Tone as timbre shaping. Turn on the sustain mode if you need to play long notes. Then it responds to MIDI / the on board keyboard and scales correctly! Done!
Are you Web MIDI developer?
I've developed some stuff using WebMidi, so I guess yes?
My editors: github.com/synthmata/synthmata.github.io?files=1
And my library to help other people build them: github.com/synthmata/ccynthmata
@@OscillatorSink Wow, a musician + syntheist + coder! Unbelievable! I hope you could make a tutourial about Web MIDI development basic someday~ Yes, that's what I really wanna for a long time, I've followed your git since I found the DX7 web editor! I wish there could be a tutourial about how to build a MIDI project at starting \ where you find the information about the specific synth device\ and how to mount/attach them to your PC etc.
@@OscillatorSink Especially the communication mechanism between MIDI hardware & PC
@@littlefrog726 I am thinking about doing a video showing how to use my library actually. Not sure how much of an audience there is for it though (although I know I have at least one viewer now!)
to much talk, sorry
it's a tutorial, sorry. How do you want me to explain things?
If you just want a demo, there are loads you can go watch. Some on this channel even.
Just the right amount, for me!