Korg volca mixer
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captain johnson
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Spheric El
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supermel74
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It's great for the range. It's got everything the machines need. Speakers are to make up for the internals being disabled while everything is plugged into the mixer. Volcas come with built-in speakers and have headphone jack-out's. They weren't made with hardcore studio artists as the target market. I can't see why this isn't received as a wonderful device that completes the Volca paradigm.
Stuff I'm using: Umm right now, well there's a Volca Drum, a Micro Freak, an ADX-1, a Pulse, a Blofeld, a UNO Drum, KeyStep/Beatstep Pro/Keystep Pro (one of each), a Circuit, a LiveTrak L-12 and this nonsense: The Brief-case as it was about a bit over a year ago (the the complete ridiculous GAS monster collection here)and here
Personally disappointed it's not battery powered. I don't care about the power sharing aspect as I just have rechargeable in the volca and they last ages. Seems to use this now you will need to be next to a power socket. D
Despite this, if you have two, they do feel very well suited to the volca range and I can understand the power options are a plus for some.
Despite this, if you have two, they do feel very well suited to the volca range and I can understand the power options are a plus for some.
Battery power option would have been nice, I do like being able to use my Volcas with my other battery powered gear any old place using my belkin splitter to monitor it all.MrJed wrote:Personally disappointed it's not battery powered. I don't care about the power sharing aspect as I just have rechargeable in the volca and they last ages. Seems to use this now you will need to be next to a power socket. D
Despite this, if you have two, they do feel very well suited to the volca range and I can understand the power options are a plus for some.
Stuff I'm using: Umm right now, well there's a Volca Drum, a Micro Freak, an ADX-1, a Pulse, a Blofeld, a UNO Drum, KeyStep/Beatstep Pro/Keystep Pro (one of each), a Circuit, a LiveTrak L-12 and this nonsense: The Brief-case as it was about a bit over a year ago (the the complete ridiculous GAS monster collection here)and here
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thehighesttree
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Worst-designed Korg product ever? Maybe!
NO: Sequencer, Motion Sequencing, BATTERY POWER, CLOCK INPUT, PANNING.
...without these it's hard to consider it as having anything to do with the Volca range. For all the cool stuff it's got--like an FX send/return with controls per channel, RCA outs, and those isolators from the Sample--there's some utterly pointless s**t like 2-speakers on the face (the first time built-in speakers have ever pissed me off).
What's worst of all is that it DEMANDS TO BE MASTER OF ALL by acting as a master clock for your Volcas: why, why WHY would they do this?! IT HAS NO SEQUENCER! Wanna sync your whole Volca rig from a larger setup or real drum machine? TOO FUCKIN' BAD cause this ACCEPTS NO EXTERNAL CLOCK!
A good performance mixer would take the idea of the Roland MX-1 as something that can be sequenced and expand upon it with motion sequencing. Take the tone generator out of a Volca FM, slap some inputs and pan controls in that and you're basically there.
The whole thing is about as poor a job as anyone could do filling a simple void. Nothing about it seems well thought-out; it's a conceptual abortion-zombie. Check the Kickstarter Vixen mixer for an idea of what a decent Volca mixer could look like. I want a groovebox-style performance mixer, but without the compromises. I hope this isn't what Korg without Tats looks like.
NO: Sequencer, Motion Sequencing, BATTERY POWER, CLOCK INPUT, PANNING.
...without these it's hard to consider it as having anything to do with the Volca range. For all the cool stuff it's got--like an FX send/return with controls per channel, RCA outs, and those isolators from the Sample--there's some utterly pointless s**t like 2-speakers on the face (the first time built-in speakers have ever pissed me off).
What's worst of all is that it DEMANDS TO BE MASTER OF ALL by acting as a master clock for your Volcas: why, why WHY would they do this?! IT HAS NO SEQUENCER! Wanna sync your whole Volca rig from a larger setup or real drum machine? TOO FUCKIN' BAD cause this ACCEPTS NO EXTERNAL CLOCK!
A good performance mixer would take the idea of the Roland MX-1 as something that can be sequenced and expand upon it with motion sequencing. Take the tone generator out of a Volca FM, slap some inputs and pan controls in that and you're basically there.
The whole thing is about as poor a job as anyone could do filling a simple void. Nothing about it seems well thought-out; it's a conceptual abortion-zombie. Check the Kickstarter Vixen mixer for an idea of what a decent Volca mixer could look like. I want a groovebox-style performance mixer, but without the compromises. I hope this isn't what Korg without Tats looks like.
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supermel74
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Specs are up on Korg's site now including the manual. http://www.korg.com/us/products/dj/volca_mix/
I was wondering what the controls next to width were, turns out they are for the channel compressors. Cool, they need them. I've got a comp sitting on the inserts of both my Volcas (Beat and Kick).
Not too much on the Lo/Hi cut knobs beyond: "Each channel is also equipped with a LO/HI CUT filter that lets you control the low and high frequency ranges with a single knob. The pristine, natural-sounding filters that you expect from analog gear give you complete control over the character of your sound." Hopefully that means filter sweeps. Nothing about filter order so I kinda doubt they will be for doing edm type sweeps.
I like how it's got a send/return feature, but a return level knob wouldn't have gone astray.
How would a sequencer on that mixer add anything if it didn't have three MIDI outputs, as sync carries nothing but the timing pulse? I agree that no sync in isn't ideal, especially considering if anyone owns the entire series they will need two mixers and without a sync in there is no way to master one with another. I guess they would already be used to sync-chaining all six, so not a biggy really.
You don't need to use the built-in speakers on the mixer, just as you don't need to use the ones on the individual units. There is even an on/off switch. With the chance to put 1/4" jacks on the box, it is pretty crappy to still be stuck with something requiring an adaptor for running into an regular mixing console, but that goes with the feel of the Volcas and their instant jam philosophy.
I was wondering what the controls next to width were, turns out they are for the channel compressors. Cool, they need them. I've got a comp sitting on the inserts of both my Volcas (Beat and Kick).
Not too much on the Lo/Hi cut knobs beyond: "Each channel is also equipped with a LO/HI CUT filter that lets you control the low and high frequency ranges with a single knob. The pristine, natural-sounding filters that you expect from analog gear give you complete control over the character of your sound." Hopefully that means filter sweeps. Nothing about filter order so I kinda doubt they will be for doing edm type sweeps.
I like how it's got a send/return feature, but a return level knob wouldn't have gone astray.
So if you want to be in sync with a MIDI rig, what's stopping you from by-passing the mixer and using a MIDI cable to go directly into a Volca then daisy-chaining using sync to the rest? Or the same with if you want to sync into some other device running sync, just go straight into the head Volca.thehighesttree wrote:Worst-designed Korg product ever? Maybe!
NO: Sequencer, Motion Sequencing, BATTERY POWER, CLOCK INPUT, PANNING.
...without these it's hard to consider it as having anything to do with the Volca range. For all the cool stuff it's got--like an FX send/return with controls per channel, RCA outs, and those isolators from the Sample--there's some utterly pointless s**t like 2-speakers on the face (the first time built-in speakers have ever pissed me off).
What's worst of all is that it DEMANDS TO BE MASTER OF ALL by acting as a master clock for your Volcas: why, why WHY would they do this?! IT HAS NO SEQUENCER! Wanna sync your whole Volca rig from a larger setup or real drum machine? TOO FUCKIN' BAD cause this ACCEPTS NO EXTERNAL CLOCK!
A good performance mixer would take the idea of the Roland MX-1 as something that can be sequenced and expand upon it with motion sequencing. Take the tone generator out of a Volca FM, slap some inputs and pan controls in that and you're basically there.
The whole thing is about as poor a job as anyone could do filling a simple void. Nothing about it seems well thought-out; it's a conceptual abortion-zombie. Check the Kickstarter Vixen mixer for an idea of what a decent Volca mixer could look like. I want a groovebox-style performance mixer, but without the compromises. I hope this isn't what Korg without Tats looks like.
How would a sequencer on that mixer add anything if it didn't have three MIDI outputs, as sync carries nothing but the timing pulse? I agree that no sync in isn't ideal, especially considering if anyone owns the entire series they will need two mixers and without a sync in there is no way to master one with another. I guess they would already be used to sync-chaining all six, so not a biggy really.
You don't need to use the built-in speakers on the mixer, just as you don't need to use the ones on the individual units. There is even an on/off switch. With the chance to put 1/4" jacks on the box, it is pretty crappy to still be stuck with something requiring an adaptor for running into an regular mixing console, but that goes with the feel of the Volcas and their instant jam philosophy.
Stuff I'm using: Umm right now, well there's a Volca Drum, a Micro Freak, an ADX-1, a Pulse, a Blofeld, a UNO Drum, KeyStep/Beatstep Pro/Keystep Pro (one of each), a Circuit, a LiveTrak L-12 and this nonsense: The Brief-case as it was about a bit over a year ago (the the complete ridiculous GAS monster collection here)and here
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thehighesttree
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I guess the quill in my ass comes from the fact that the speakers on the other Volcas don't feel like they're taking up space which could've been put to better use. I feel like they want those speakers to fill out the face panel so that it doesn't look so stark and void.
My idea of a sequencer would be 3-4 selectable lanes that would hold 16 patterns of 16 steps (with varying resolution a la Volca FM) of automation for volume/pan-balance/Isolator/FX Send/etc. It doesn't even need anything else like fake-ass stereo widening. The idea of a Volca Mixer is pretty straight-forward, yet they whiffed it with this turd. If they just took the time to write on a whiteboard "what is a Volca?" or, "what should a Volca Mixer do?" then it wouldn't be so far off the mark, but as-is it simply doesn't check enough boxes to fit into the product line. Luckily there's a lot of other goodies from NAMM this year to drool over!
My idea of a sequencer would be 3-4 selectable lanes that would hold 16 patterns of 16 steps (with varying resolution a la Volca FM) of automation for volume/pan-balance/Isolator/FX Send/etc. It doesn't even need anything else like fake-ass stereo widening. The idea of a Volca Mixer is pretty straight-forward, yet they whiffed it with this turd. If they just took the time to write on a whiteboard "what is a Volca?" or, "what should a Volca Mixer do?" then it wouldn't be so far off the mark, but as-is it simply doesn't check enough boxes to fit into the product line. Luckily there's a lot of other goodies from NAMM this year to drool over!