Hello Jared. Good for you! I'm sure you'll enjoy it. One piece of advise: do a dry recording of each of the factory samples. You might want to recover only one or two sounds in the future and having to re-load all factory samples is a pain (takes too long, and you have to restart if any little error occurs in the process). Have fun with your volca! Cheers
Thanks for the tips, didn't know there is a song mode on volca sample ! could be a simpler and cheaper alternative to korg electribe recording sample from my actuals synths :)
Hi Didier! I doubt you can use the volca sample as an alternative to the Electribe sampler. For once, the volca is not a sampler, but a sample playback device with a builtin sequencer. So sampling directly to the volca is impossible (you can upload samples, but it is not a real-time process as you can do with a proper sampler. Otherwise, the processing of the samples is much more basic. Nowadays I trend to think of the volca sample as a kind of ROMpler drum machine with some one-hits. It does not make it a bad machine, but don't except electribe-like features. I hope this helps you understand the limitations of the device. Thanks for watching and commenting. Cheers!
Yes, really helpful ! I've been doing some research too in the meantime. Just bought my volca sample 2 days ago and really happy about the features, mainly the song mode and speed motion record ! Planning to use Puredata and my synths to create the samples. I'll try at least to make good music with my actual stuff before buying an electribe. The volca sample just filled the missing sounds in my previous patterns :) Thanks again !
Hello Eric. I'm glad you find them useful. If you happen to have any suggestion for future tutorials, I'd be glad to hear them. Thanks for stopping by. Cheers!
Hi Rob. Sequencing Patterns into a Song (or kind of song) is the maximum you can do with the Volca Sample. You have to look into some Yamaha gear for what you are asking for. I know both my RM1x and QY70 can have the behaviour you describe in one way or another. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Cheers!
The biggest problem I'm having is mot being able to find my saved beats I write out a bar. Save it to 1, next one to key 2 etc. Then they're all over the place! When you save them do you have to select the slot with the sample nob too?
great tut! thanks for that! gotta try to understand it now using the sample. the 5/4, you can use in combination with the other volcas? do you have to set the sample as the master then?
Hi +Max Krieger . The 5/4 time trick only works on the Volca Sample, since it is the only one with a Song Mode. The sync between the volcas is one tick (voltage peak) for each 4 steps on the seq, so it won't send any complicated timing or pattern change information. Despite that, I have used the Volca Sample in a 5/4 compass and the other volcas in 4/4 (or even 4/2) to create some freaky polyrythms.
So if i upload all my samples when i go song mode it will play then as a track? Saying that I like try make my own with step mode love my volca only had it less than a week I've used it pretty much every day lol
Hi Andrew. I'm not sure I follow you. Each song can sequence up to 16 patterns, each pattern has 10 parts, each part is associated with a particular sample. Let's suppose part 1 of all your patterns refer to Sample 001. If you upload a new sample to "slot" 001, all your patterns will play with whatever is in the Volca sample memory under "001". I hope this helps. Cheers!
Very interesting what i am missing is the swing function and how to assign different samples to different keys when using live recording ( combining sample 1 with sample 45 in live recording)
Hi Volca Community, Can anyone please help me? I save patterns into parts on the Volca Sample but when I enter song mode and the machine travels through the parts, my patterns overlap. Kind regards.
Hi Philip+, thank you for answering so promptly. So, I enter step recording mode and play in my steps. I then use find and memory to assign that pattern to a part(eg part 1). Then, I play another pattern, and save it to part two. This is so that, in song mode, pattern 1 will play through and then pattern 2 will come in after it. I load one of the last 6 memory slots to enter song mode, and give the patterns a save number as shown on the display. I press play and pattern 1 will play, and then when part 2 is reached, pattern 1 will continue to play, while pattern 2 plays over it. What am I doing wrong? Is it what I'm inputting on the display? Please help! 😨 PS. Apologies for the lack of video. Kind regards
This is very very strange... Are you using the latest firmware? It might be a bug on an old version of the firmware. This is my best guess, given the info supplied. I hope it helps.
Phil.....I want to connect this unit to a Microkorg through my receiver or coarse...and then record music on my 4 track Tascam recorder. Should not be too hard to set up, right? I just have not figured it all out yet. Thanks Man!
Would saying you can make full songs on this thing be a bit of a misnomer? If you can only string together 16 patterns at the most, that will come out to just a fraction of the length of an average song. It's still a decent length of sequence, but not enough to fill an entire song. Am I understanding this correctly?
Hi Ryan. A sequence of 16 tracks can make a decent background track. Personally, I prefer the term "Pattern Chaining" Korg uses for the electribe and Volca FM (I think it also uses this term for the Kick, but I'm not completely sure about it), but Korg decided to go for this nomenclature... Cheers!
So if i understand this correctly you can chain sequence patterns together in song mode? So instead of being limited to the 16 steps only one pattern offers, you can have them play pattern 1->2->3->4 and so to get a full tune?
Yes. However, while on Song Mode, yon can not edit any of the patterns.... it is more akin to transforming the Volca into an auto-accompanying machine.
+Michael Manning Hi! In Song Mode you don't clear the data, you just re-assign which pattern goes in which slot and/or use Active Step to disable the slots you don't need.
@@Philipplus my bad, 5:30 where you are using active step and adding in the snare. Its tone changes just curious how as I am not able to re-create this on my sample.
@@HrafnNordhri Hi There is no automation, but I do hear a subtle change in tone. I'm guessing it is a compression artefact (for the snare that comes right after the kick sounds a little bit more muffled). I honestly cannot remember if I used a compressor on the audio track, but it can also be the compression built-in to the video encoding. I hope this helps. Cheers!
a little help please. So i've got the drum kits from the OP-1 synced into my volca sample. I went to Teenage Engineering's Soundcloud and downloaded the sounds from the drum kits, used audiofinder to chop each sound out then long story short, I synced the drum kits from the op-1 to caustic editor and put them on the volca sample. i have a little guitar 3 chord chord progression chopped into three parts and it sounds pretty cool. I've made my first pattern. My goal is this. Copy my first pattern so it is on slot 1, 2, 3, and 4. Then keep 1 & 2 the same, throw the 2nd chord on slot 3 with the same beat but just the next chord in the progression and do the same with chord 3 on slot 4. But for the life of me I can't figure it out. PLEASE HELP thank you
Hello Steven. I'm guessing you have each chord on its own sample inside the Volca Memory. Lets say part 3 on the sequencer is the one with the chord sample. Also, lets assume chord 1 is stored as sample S.051, chord 2 is on S.052 and chord 3 on S.053. You have your basic pattern stored on Memory Pattern 1. You can now copy it (save it) to Pattern 2 and Patern 3 (still in pattern mode). Still in pattern mode, load Pattern 2 (which will sound the same as pattern 1), and replace the sample on Part 3 from S.051 to S.052. Now pattern 2 will play the same pattern with a different chord on it. Still in pattern mode, load Pattern 2 (which will also sound the same as pattern 1), and replace the sample on Part 3 from S.051 to S.053. Now you can go to Song Mode (lets say, load song 1). You can put Pattern 1 in the first two slots (to have two bars with the first chord), then put Pattern 2 on the third slot and Pattern 3 on the forth slot. You'll now have the chord progression 1-1-2-3. I hope I understood correctly your problem and this helps. Cheers!
Philip+ You are the man. Thank you so much. I'll give that a shot but I'm sure that's perfect. Wow. Thank you so much for the in depth explanation. Just picked up a microkorg as well so I can't wait to get down with both at the same time. It's gonna be sweet.
Thank you so much for this! There is NO way to record/edit steps in real time across all patterns correct? Meaning, have the Sample play through every pattern, with the ability to record or edit steps. Basically turning it into a long MIDI sequencer. I know it's not really designed to be melodic (have the same question about the Volca FM, I have both).
Hello EG. Ys, unfortunately song Mode is only a way to launch saved sequences in a given order. For longer and more flexible sequencing you have to use an external sequencer. I think this also goes for the Volca FM. I hope this helps. Cheers!
I believe the latest firmware of the BeatStep Pro is able to assign one MIDI channel to each of the drum parts (within the drum track of the sequencer), this is great for sequencing the Volca Sample. ;) Cheers!
duz anybody else have issues w going into initial song mode. tryin to fig this out b4 mon. i dont wanna send this back. such a great machine i dont wanna part w it while i send for a new one.🎃
Hi Mac! How are you doing? The Alt is just an indication that parts 9 and 10 are in a choke group: when you triger one of them, the other will stop playing immediately. It is nice for hi hats and similar stuff (you can put a closed hat on 9 and an open hat on 10, and then when you trigger 10 and then 9 the sound or the open hat won't overlap with that from the closed one). There is nothing for the user to activate or de-activate regrading this feature. I hope this helps. ;) Cheers!
Hi Naked4FunTV Use FUNC+WRITE and then one of the S1 to S6 positions, just like if you were saving a pattern, but using one of the song slots. I hope this helps. Cheers!
Hey Thanks, Then I got it, but real question is, can 10 different patterns in every song slot? cause I don't see other utility of the song mode cause it runs parts one after another and it will be nice if he can run every pattern 8 times and then change to next ( but it doesn't) so will be nice if it can be possible to use that slot as memory for preset pattern let's say ( I hope I explained myself good!
Hi Naked4Fun Inside the Volca's memory, a song is just a 16 long array with the reference to the memory slots that are to be played in succession. That kind of advanced pattern chaining is not easy (as far as I know it is impossible) to do with the Volcas, as the MIDI specification lacks a way to automatically load sequences (using for example a Program Change message). I hope this helps. Cheers!
Hello Davi. Unfortunately, Song mode is the highest level of pattern chain possible with this device. You can manually change from one song to the other by loading the new song at the appropriate time (the change is instantaneous and not at the end of the bar/pattern), but there is no way to either do song chaining or to load songs using an external sequencer. I hope this helps. Cheers!
