#82

Have you see the Pajen FM firmware? If might be an option for the sounds you’re after too

#83

Not too much into classic fm sound. Prefer a more obscure oldish synth character.
My guts say keys my adventurous self says modular. I wanna limit myself to 1 for now to build into my portable mini instrument.

Besides midi in mod i dont see much hacks for the VM and the 3 oscs of the keys are tempting.
Anyone knows if there are hack points on the Vm pcb for more voice break outs to blend kinda pseudo more voices?

I suppose i womder if the Vm can do 80% of the keys sound but much more.
I dont think so. Another contra would be having passersby in my instrument wich does the buchla pretty great and easy to use.

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#84

I have both the Volca Modular and the Keys. They are really different beasts. Especially the Modularar has a very distinctive sound that isn’t usable in every kind of music. I think the volca keys is much more versatile usable albeit being more limited in sound possibilities.

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#85

Could you give an opinion on how good these mate up and are intergrateable into each other?
Like making one synth out of both

#86

They’re not meant for it at all and I would advise against buying them for that purpose. Volca Modular’s pitch tracking is not its best feature which mean it’ll not be playing terribly well hooked up and stacked to another synth and/or keyboard controller.

I completely second the fact that Volca Modular is not what I’d call a “versatile” synth. It’s a deep synth that allows you to be very creative and varied with the process and sonic signature it proposes to you, but you’ll never make it sound anything else than what it’s designed for. I happen to love it and found a lot of different use cases for it. But it’s the use cases that differ, not the sound / nature of the synth which is always very recognizable.

The keys is definitely more versatile if that’s a concern.

#87

I haven’t played the modular at all, but I would describe the Keys as being good for standard analog monosynth sounds (sawtooth + low pass filter; detuning; handy options for fifths and octaves), paraphonic chords (hit all notes at once or the envelope and filter get retriggered), and has a surprisingly flexible and crunchy delay built-in. And, those things are pretty much all that it does.

I would consider it a good intro to subtractive synthesis, in that you get one envelope, one filter, one lfo, and three oscillators.

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#88

Thank you guys for your thoughts. I do have a backround in synths jupiter 4 was my first and is missed painfully.
I would say keys reminds me of that vintage synths like JP4 and string synths while the modular reminds me of moog modular and pink floyd. How can i say no to any of those 2

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#89

Experiment with granular synthesis use Mutable Instruments Clouds to process sound of Korg Volca Modular (to control some parameters of Clouds also, by 3.5mm cables, wire-tipped cables, and alligator clips)

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#90

If you have experience with a JP4 a Volca is just a shadow of that.
Why are you looking at a volca and don’t get something bigger?
The volca’s are a bit toylike synths. You can have a lot of fun with them and I even use them in productions. But they remain quirky toys compared to a full blown synth.

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#91

I found this with my Keys and sold it quite quickly after feeling like I’d discovered the limits of it within a short period of it.

Now I’m using the Sample with single cycle waveforms which, thanks to the Pajen firmware, offers 4 voice polyphony and offers up to 100 different wave shapes at a time.

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#92

I have my reasons to stay portable and inexpensive with diy hacking fun. I dont collect synths.

This however doesnt sound toy like at all to me and given i have a fixed filter bank to feed // back i think i can get a lot out of it. Just really not sure if the rocky road or the silk road :slight_smile:

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#93

They both have a very distinctive sound with lots of character. And there is nothing wrong with toys :smiley:

Next option after a volca modular would be this imho. (and a lot less toylike, way more expensive)

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#94

Ah, if you have additional gear to pair it with it offers much. I have a Vermona Retroverb Lancet now and wonder if I would have dismissed it as quickly if I’d owned that when I had the Keys

#95

Yup naked they are a bit weak i agree, someone knows if the modular reverb can be used with external sources? I think it sounds cool. I have enough delay wich would make keys less fascinating

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#96

I really wish (this is a wish, feel free to keep going if this “debate” is very important to you) we could avoid the “toys instruments versus not toys instruments”. It’s probably the debate I dislike the most even worse than digital vs analogue (and I really dislike digital vs analogue).

They’re all toys, you’re never gonna cook food, build a house make an organ transplant with a synth, wether it’s a Moog One or a Monotron. Similarly, you’ll be able to reach great creative depth, subtelty, emotions, using either a Moog One or a Monotron, so maybe both of them aren’t toys in the end? Whatever.

The Volcas are cheap, some synths are less cheap, cheap gets you limitations, volcas are well concieved within those limitations so that if you came for what they offer, they can be of great use for as long as you need what they offer.

Some other synths have less limitations or more sturdy components and so they’re more expensive.

Toys are things we play with to enjoy our time and have fun. They’re by definition either all synths, and to some extent all instruments, or no instruments at all, depending on how you consider music.

The Volca Modular is wonderful. Extremely characteristic in the way it sounds, but there’s a lot you can achieve with the way it sounds too that it’s not easy to achieve even on much more expensive offerings.

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#97

And limitations are so valuable for creativity

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#98

The combo 0-coast/0-ctrl is way more expensive BUT extremely cheap if you compare it with the real Buchla Easel!

And about toys vs instruments. It depends on how we use them. Some people may “play” with them, some others might study them deeply and create proper compositions. Then they are instruments. That’s the distinction for me at least. Can you make a serious composition with a volca modular? Yes you can. But like always you gotta make the hours and dive deep.

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#99

Sometimes I quite like the “toy” label just because it’s almost like a challenge; a gauntlet being thrown down. I enjoy using things which are regarded as basic (often even by myself) and finding the paths least taken within those. I do entirely get your angle though.

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#100

I agree on your ideas about the word toy for instruments. But for me it still feels logical to use those words. I would happily use other words. To me the word toy or not describes exactly the difference in feel to me between the O-coast O-cntrl cobination VS the Volca Modular, which i think are very similar synthwise. And i own the volca modular because it is cheap and i don’t own the O-coast O-cntrl because it isn’t.

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#101

See, whilst I do own the 0-Coast/0-Ctrl combination, I also really enjoy the “throw it in a bag and play it wherever I am” nature of the Volcas and iOS tools so may well get a Modular at some stage too. They’re different things with different up/down sides, I think. Both absolutely valid in their own right