Korg Forums

[Martino Fenzi]

I have a question related to the the filter of Korg Volca Keys.
I've seen in some many reviews of the product an issue that make me very aftraid, about the Volca Keys filter.
It seems that in certain conditions (when the motion sequencer is on, parameter "smooth" active) the filter is a little bit steppy.
I really don't know why the filter cutoff has this type of beavior, on an analogue system, but what it appear to me is that the filter actually doesn't sound like the Volca bass, or the 700's, or Monotribe, or MS-20...
My question is:
Is there a way to reduce or eliminate "steps" on filter?!?!
I need to be absolutely shure before buying one.
Thank you

[joeyluck]

The benefit of the filter on the Keys is that it can be controlled via MIDI. Thus, you may hear stepping (given the 128 steps). This means you can sequence it using other software or hardware, you can apply another LFO to it, etc. Though, you may only hear stepping at times when the peak is high. Aside from that (and I haven't played one in person) it may sound plenty smooth with a lower peak.

The filter on the Bass however, (which is smoother) cannot be controlled via MIDI.

[Martino Fenzi]

Thank you very much!
One last question:
It's not clear for me if that step can be in someway erased,
In another words, should I work with volca keys only having those steps??
Or are there some parameters can allow me to keep out stepping from my final sound??
And again, thanks for giving me the answers..and I agree with you that volca bass is awesome!! Cannot wait for this!!

[tsutek]

I am under the assumption that the volca keys does not have true RAC operation (like in the Moog Little Phatty for example)? Therefore, the cutoff control is quantized to 7bit MIDI CC resolution ie. range of 0-127.

I found this to sound audibly steppy only when cranking the resonance to the maximum value, otherwise filter sweeps sound "smooth enough". If there is no real RAC in the keys, there is no way to get around this.. 14bit CC support for the cutoff (via a firmware update perhaps? possible or not?) would be sweet tho!

Does anyone know if the LFO on the keys is analog or digital? Haven't heard any steppiness in LFO cutoff modulations yet myself..

All in all, I'll take automatable "steppy" cutoff control over non-automatable cutoff control any day! The keys's biggest strenght IMO lies in its' MIDI CC support / automatable sequencer.