Korg Volca Drum Only | Techno Live Jam

#dawless #dawlessjam #dawlesstechno
Can I perform a live jam using just the Volca Drum, putting what I've learnt from owning an Elektron Digitakt for about a year now? Is this thing just a 'toy' - or is it simply fun to play?
The Volca Drum has a sequencer with parameter locks, pattern reloading, step jump for fills and a wild send FX in its reverberator. That makes it very much like a stripped back Elektron in its workflow - but with an interesting synth engine, I suppose it is more like the Syntakt than the Digitakt. Still, its a great little instrument and I'd recommend it as a starter machine to anyone wanting to get into playing live electronic music and wanting a drum machine to learn on. DAW people who look down on hardware as "not being able to do this or that" don't get that making music is meant to be fun and creative, and not just a bland experience of audio engineering, of 'producing content'.
This jam was recorded into Ableton Live 11 and given a light mastering to bring it up to level for KZbin. No extra FX have been used beyond the send FX on the Drum itself.

[@a-tx228]

Nice jam

[@humanharddrive1]

sick jam mate

[@Empirism]

Lo batt xD xD, great jam

[@Jackhno]

🤣🤣🤣

[@tuesss]

Very impressive. I know Volca Drum is capable of producing great sounds with surprisingly complex automation, but I could never make a full track which would sound so cohesive and varied at the same time.

[@InkyDaCaT]

Thats awesome 😁🙌

[@johnh.8055]

What the hell.....thats awesome....great job

[@koalemos1679]

My volca drum was too noisy so I sold it. But my favorite thing to do with it was make a keyboard sound, copy it across all 6 parts, then tune it to a pentatonic scale. Boom. Really nice sounding synth. You can put them all on a choke group and have a mono synth.

[@Jackhno]

Nice idea. Might try it sometime. It's a shame about the firmware not allowing you to play parts chromatically over MIDI. It might be worth getting the Pajan firmware installed to get more MIDI features available

[@Jackhno]

I don't find the noise an issue, as I don't use the Drum as my main drum machine. I don't find mine that noisy anyway, especially in the mix, but it can be worked around if necessary using a noise gate or a noise filter. It's best just to work with what an instrument is, and the Volca Drum is good for providing rhythmic texture. My Microfreak sounds very digital and thin with it's one oscillator but by making it work, using chorus and FX, I've both become better technically at using gear and also make use of its sonic limitations as a feature of the sounds I created with it. You can definitely tell when I'm using the Freak - but people enjoy the music nonetheless, and I think that's what's most important 😊

[@koalemos1679]

@Jackhno You can't play them with a keyword but I did also use my Octatrack's MIDI channels to sequence the 6 voices and used parameter locks to change the pitches. It gets a little messy because of the envelopes but it does work and it can sound really good.

[@Jackhno]

@@koalemos1679 do you know about the Pajen firmwares for the Volcas Drum and Sample? They're free to download third party updates that improve the MIDI capabilities of the boxes, plus a couple of other bits and bobs. Basically doing what Korg should've done but they have a reputation of not finishing their products. Look at the Drumlogue. It has so much potential but it's had one small update and that looks like all it's getting. Same for the SQ64. Once I've reached the limit of what I can do on the Volca Drum performance-wise, I may get the Pajen firmware installed on mine and have a refreshed machine to play with.

[@koalemos1679]

@@Jackhno When I had my volcas Pajen was only available for FM and Sample 1. The drum would benefit from a hacked firmware. I love my Hacktribe. Korg just left so much money and functionality on the table with their gear. I really don't get it.

[@alexwulf3950]

If you have the patience to place accents, slices and chokes it can do a fulfilling beat.

[@rijksvoorlichtingsdienst4427]

Randomizer

[@Jackhno]

@@rijksvoorlichtingsdienst4427 yes, the Drum also has Elektron-like probability per step for each track and that can make your loops more interesting. I think it's best for adding spice to hats and snare rolls if used sparingly, as too random starts to sound a bit wrong - unless that's what you're particularly going for. Now if there was conditional locks to make it play once every other time and so on, or tracks playable at half or quarter speed, that would be really powerful and turn the Volca from a one bar machine into something more fully-fledged capable of four, or even eight, bar loops. Something for the Volca Drum mk2, maybe?☺☺☺

[@Medniex]

noice.

[@johnh.8055]

Will you come over and play with my machines lol

[@Jackhno]

Sure, what have you got? Volca Sample, Elektron Syntakt?😉