Making a sound longer

Edward · Post by **Edward** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 8:20 pm

I got Volca Sample for Christmas and love learning it. I'm new to making music. I had a basic questions - how do I make a sound longer? For example, I got a piano note? Can I make it last for say 5 seconds or even continuously (sustain stage of the envelope)? Thanks!

volcaPaul · Post by **volcaPaul** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 9:21 pm

You can isolate part of a sample and loop it continuously - but I've not seen any way to loop a section whilst retaining the beginning and end non-looped parts.

Edward · Post by **Edward** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 10:16 pm

volcaPaul wrote:You can isolate part of a sample and loop it continuously - but I've not seen any way to loop a section whilst retaining the beginning and end non-looped parts.

How do I loop it continuously?

volcaPaul · Post by **volcaPaul** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 10:35 pm

Press FUNC+key 11 (Loop On/Off) to turn it on (red led on below key). Then you alter the sample start and length knobs to isolate the part you want to repeat. Short sections basically act as oscillator waveforms. There's a video on youtube where someone just used one sample to compose a track and he uses this technique on there I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THImd641WXk

volcaPaul · Post by **volcaPaul** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 11:05 pm

Just to add to this, once you've set the loop points, you can use the AMP Decay knob to control how long it plays for.Full decay (127) seems to be 10 seconds. Decay seems logarithmic rather than linear though - 64 last just over a second, 100 around 3s, 110 around 4s.

The resolution for start and length is pretty coarse, so the looping will almost always be pretty obvious unless you take it right down to waveform length.

If you wanted a more realistic extended sample, you could always edit the sample in an external editor them import it back via caustic editor or audiopocket.

There's a weird sentence in the manual:

While holding down the FUNC button and the step button 11, press a step button between 1 and 10 to specify the setting.

holding down func and 11 does nothing any different for me than just holding down func - ie it just changes the selected part.

Edward · Post by **Edward** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 1:21 am

Thanks Paul that's super useful!

slug · Post by **slug** » Fri Jan 09, 2015 11:56 am

There's a weird sentence in the manual:

While holding down the FUNC button and the step button 11, press a step button between 1 and 10 to specify the setting.
holding down func and 11 does nothing any different for me than just holding down func - ie it just changes the selected part.

I must say Korgs manuals seem to be getting worse, the Electribe 2 manual I have found to be diabolical. In comparison I have always found Waldorf manuals to be the best, the drum synthesis explanations in the Rack Attack manual in particular are amazing, and with humour.