The Volca Beats is a drum machine with analog and PCM voices and a layout that is mildly reminiscent of classic Roland drum machines like the TR-808 and the TR-909.

The machine is great, the only regreat is the snare sound which is a bit flat and not noisy

The Volca Beats is an impressive little analog/hybrid drum machine with powerful sounds, but also some notable limitations even beyond some of the functionality constraints common to the whole series

Great little drum machine, perfect balance of toy like fun and a serious sound

The Korg Volca Beats is a great little drum machine, especially given its price

Hook up a $50 MIDI keyboard & you have a pretty decent analog synth.

Awesome synth, i love the sounds you can make with this is really amazing!

Over all this is a GREAT synth, but if you are looking to be the next Rap Artist or Dub Step artist, this is not the tool for you

If you want to take it even a step further then you can hook up midi to further control the VolcaBass and allow for much more control via a controller or DAW.For the size, portability, capabilities (with some limitations), and price point this little machine is a great synth that will make a good addition to any setup.

With a controller and a midi cable you could have a pretty cool synth for under $300, but then again, for that price you could have the microbrute which is a better unit in many ways

Great price, prompt shipping... product is exactly as described.

The Korg Volca Keys is an amazing product at a remarkable price

Good to learn on and pretty amazing sounds and great price point.

If you want a close 808 clone for a great price get one

But I got it at a great price and decided I had to try it out, with the option of selling it at no loss if I didn't dig it

The Sample offers a more diverse experience and is arguably the more "useful" of the two, but the Beats remains a very enjoyable drum machine with a character of its own.

There is no "ACCENT" feature, which was a key feature on the 808 and other popular drum machines.

It's an unfortunate oversight because the kick drum and toms are actually surprisingly good

The Volca Beats is an impressive little analog/hybrid drum machine with powerful sounds, but also some notable limitations even beyond some of the functionality constraints common to the whole series

The Korg Volca Beats is a great little drum machine, especially given its price

Korg's recent adventure into classic analog electronics produces some interesting instruments and the Volca series first three releases, Beats, Bass, and Keys, are no exception.

But with synthesizers - and especially affordable ANALOG synthesizers - true polyphony is actually somewhat rare.

the Volca is as close to perfect as you can get for the

That led me to look more at the overall landscape for affordable analog synthesizers (which, until quite recently, was a sentence that wouldn't have made any sense).

the Volca is as close to perfect as you can get for the

It's a portable little box you can play around with anywhere, but you can also hook it up to a sequencer or keyboard controller over MIDI and use it as a sound module, so it's nice and versatile

But even without any of those, this is a great little box that can produce some killer sounds

In that sense, it isn't the same "freak of nature" that my little Volca Bass is, belting out warm, analog tones from an inexpensive, battery-powered box.

They are cool boxes but consider the size (may be TOO small) before buying.

For 150$ this is a mind blowing product worth 10 stars not even 5.

Amazing product for the price, works great as a mini synthesizer

Well, I don't want to bash the product and feel like I kind of did here.

The Korg Volca Keys is an amazing product at a remarkable price

It is a very nice product and Korg is a reputable company.

I wish it was a better way to upload samples into it other than using an iPhone or aftermarket app

Active Studio Monitor Speakers - to add a bigger soundBelkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter (Black and White) - a very simple way to connect the output of the various units together on their way to an outboard speaker.

Active Studio Monitor Speakers - to add a bigger soundBelkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter (Black and White) - a very simple way to connect the output of the various units together on their way to an outboard speaker.

This is a great way to get those digital drum machine sounds and one-offs like sirens into your Volca Rig

Depending on the swing setting, and the type of sound, you can get some really funky grooves this way

The Leds that flash and highlight motions are a great idea and addition for workflow

I've seen complaints about them being 'toys', or limited in what you can do with them, and while I won't argue the merits of that based on some folks' perspectives, the small, portable nature of them makes them a non-invasive addition to a small space and perfect for picking up and messing around outside of the desk or studio environment

A great addition to other volcas to use as a drum machine.

It's a great addition to the Volca series & I can't wait to explore the world of sampling in a rudimentary fashion.

The addition of Swing was sorely missed in the other Volcas, and it definitely does the job here.

If you like to experiment with electronic music, the Volca is a riot!Korg VOLCAKEYS - Analog Synth MachineKorg VOLCABASS - Analog Bass

The Caustic Volca Editor easily links up with an app called AudioShare to import samples stored on your device, or imported from a cloud service like DropBox.

For example, I recorded a simple C2 note in a great app called iFretless Bass, sent it to the Caustic Volca Editor via AudioShare, and had a pitch tuned electric bass sound available on my Sample, and the whole process took maybe a couple of minutes

If you know that your primary goal is to use your Volca for single note bass grooves or lead tones, get the Bass.

For those who have programmed multiple operator FM synthesizers, like the DX7, should easily figure out the Volca FM.

Finally, Korg threw in a delay with time and feedback controls.

The volca bass sounds pretty much like the korg monotribe as far as quality goes, it's simple & great

Korg should be ashamed for putting out a machine that is so poorly executed

Korg did themselves a favor by making a series of cheap, well-made analog-ish boxes for those who like actual gear with which to interact.

It would be simple enough to swap out the PCB's with the problem if only Korg made them available as they do for many of their larger products

I can get great bass sounds out of it when needed, but also plays nice for leads

And I love the fat bass tones I can get out of this, but if you're looking for a filter with more of a bite to it or you want to be able to do acid lines, the Volca Bass may be a better choice

I bought the volca bass by mistake (I was actually looking for the volca sample for my project), but damn that thing was the best - excellent fat bass sounds, beautiful tweets, far easier to use and get started than the volca keys, far more responsive to just noodling around to get improvised bass-lines

This was actually another reason I preferred the Bass over the Keys

I bought the volca bass by mistake (I was actually looking for the volca sample for my project), but damn that thing was the best - excellent fat bass sounds, beautiful tweets, far easier to use and get started than the volca keys, far more responsive to just noodling around to get improvised bass-lines

Though well built, it's easy to 'back pack' (though I put it in a padded book cover to preserve the knobs' knobularity) and, if you're careful, whatever crazy cool thing you created while waiting outside the mega market can be recorded when you get home -- or sooner if you carry a digital recorder (and some of our phones fit that bill with the right cable -- mind the impedance though).It impressed me -- not as much as my Bass Station II, but it really impressed me.

This is a neat little analog rhythm machine that is very simple to use, lots of fun to play with, and actually sounds amazingly good when recorded or integrated into a proper system (and by that I mean, send the audio out into a nice compressor, slap a bit of reverb or delay on it, and this thing is fat!!).I played with it in a store and wasn't too impressed, even with headphones

the crazy thing even came with batteries & a built-in speaker!

The one thing I don't like is how the midi channels are set up

This thing isn't super versatile -- it only does a couple of things

Good three-note combinations for rock bass are +12, 0, and +5 or +7 across the three VCOs

You can have a lot of fun with the LFO controls (pitch and cutoff in particular) to create undulating rhythms by holding stuttering notes that you can then tweak as much as you like

There are a lot of ways to vary up your parts in playback mode, including switching VCO groupings (I like to go from 3-note to 1-note to hear the chords I've made turn into more complex-sounding independent single-note parts), turning sustain on and off, muting individual VCOs, turning on and altering the LFO pitch, and on and on

Could not get more than one note to work at the same time via MIDI, but poly works fine on its little keyboard

I have the Xkey 37, and it's MUCH easier to play accurate 3-note chords with a keyboard versus the mini keys

First the bad: Snare sucks, PCM sounds are mediocre and the output is noisy

Instead the snare sounds really good for an analog snare voice even when heard through the unit's internal speaker.

This was almost certainly left off to save space and/or difficulty to control, which is great, but still, can't accent hits.- Snare is not ideal

First the bad: Snare sucks, PCM sounds are mediocre and the output is noisy

the Volca is as close to perfect as you can get for the

I haven't tried any of the computer apps, but Caustic Editor for Volca Sample is free on both iOS and Android

This is a very fun unit and the caustic editor for iOS is definitely nicer than Korg's

For example, I recorded a simple C2 note in a great app called iFretless Bass, sent it to the Caustic Volca Editor via AudioShare, and had a pitch tuned electric bass sound available on my Sample, and the whole process took maybe a couple of minutes

On iOS, I use AudioShare (it also supports AudioCopy) to get samples into the Caustic Editor app, and it has tools for trimming samples and such as well as a whole set of effects you can apply to your samples to get them ready for the Volca -- chorus, compressor, etc

This is a very fun unit and the caustic editor for iOS is definitely nicer than Korg's

most of the modes only enable you to either make number "foggy" noise or all-out scratchy noise.

While I would need to experiment with recording some more to determine if it's truly "line level" output, it certainly can power a quality pair of headphones through the 3.5mm jack, and while there may be some faint hissing or extraneous noise in the background, it's totally acceptable and impressive how good it is at this price

I mostly sample patterns and single hits and process them in my DAW so the noise really isn't an issue

The kick drum tone is worth the price of admission alone, and the snare has a gritty, complex texture that to my ears is more interesting than the snare of the 808, 909, or similar drum machines

It seems like most people use this for drums, but I use it to create weird sounds and textures

The biggest, most annoying problem with the OKGO unit though is the TERRIBLE lettering

The biggest, most annoying problem with the OKGO unit though is the TERRIBLE lettering

Giant OKGO is bad enough, but then red lettering on black background or light graylettering on white background!!

If you add a capacitor, the snare suddenly loses the distortion and sounds like a typical 808 snare sound

When a 104 capacitor is placed directly across this position C78, the snare distortion problem is ...fixed...and it sounds clean and sharp and crisp