I love my Digitakt for drums, but sometimes I just don’t feel like sample diving, and would rather craft my own sounds. This has me looking at the Volca series - more specifically the Volca Drum and the Volca kick.
Obviously the drum can do way more, but there’s something about the kick’s simplicity/specialist attitude that I love. It’s also analogue, which would be a good counterpoint to all the ultra flexible/digital sounding machines in my setup (Virus, Digitone, Digitakt).
The drum does seem amazing though, and might even fight off my Machinedrum lust if it can get in to that territory. Would be interested to hear people’s experience with these.
Dont like the kick…and i think i will eventually flick my other 3 volcas, they are limited, and get samey quick…they are fun at first but its easy to get rinsed with their limited scope…i tried the kick for quite some time in a store and wasn’t into the sound.
I think some of the drums from the DN and the virus are excellent, more versitile, and better sounding than the volca kick…but if you are looking for a juxtaposed analogue sound for kicks that are simple…what about a DFAM or even a simple little analog like a microbrute or SH 101 just for analog kicks…
when you do get rinsed with their sound they have far more uses and applications as actual synths and even just external filters ready to employ for other interesting tasks.
Only thing is that beater smack is hard to replicate with one osc, noise and envelopes…i still add samples of beater smack to the analog kicks in the ARmkii…come to think of it, just get an AR…
I own DT, Volca Kick, and Volca Drum.
Rarely use them these day as I’m spending time on more complicated synths, but what I can tell is :
you have limites desk space ? Volcas are great
you wanna create big variety of sounds ? Volcas might not be the best. As Adam9 wrote, after a while you achieve sounds in the same scope, hard to move from it.
you have small budget? Volcas are great
About VKick :
very nice companion to DT. As it is mono, fits perfectly with DT mono sampling. Can create great subs and basses, that can be sampled and mangled by DT.
It has a special sound, a bit noisey sometimes, personnaly I found it gives some character.
If you want create fast and esaily sounds in analog kick scope, and a few basses, that s the weapon of choice.
BUT, if you have some space on desk, and wanna have bigger sound creation arsenal, the Korg Monologue can be veeeery nice too.
About VDrum:
Needs some time to get use to, sometimes tedious to program. It has a specific sound character, and really focuses on digital perc drums.
Is stereo, and its resonator FX sounds great
Sampled by DT, it loses a bit of its spirit, I find. But sequenced by DT it becomes a monster, really. It opens up a crazy universe, and the DT midi sequencing power makes it even more amazing.
If the demos you hear are fine for you, if you like this kind of sound, then go for it.
I’ve got the DT, a volca drum & volca beats. I like kick on the beats, the rest of the sounds are servicable too but not much range to sculpt your own sound.
the Drum on the other hand has a lot of depth and rewards time spent working the synth engine.
+1 on the volca drum and +10 for sequencing it with the DT +100 for the resonator.
I agree it can take a while to get into - honestly it took me a year, and even then I only really learned it when I took it somewhere I could only have 1 battery-powered box.
resonator is awesome for everything from straight delays to crazy space noises.
Step-jump is great for fills when jamming (much better than beats).
I like using it for growly FM basses and even chords (eg use two parts = 4 layers = 4 note chords, all with different timbres and can even pan them out for stereo chords).
I’m paring my DT with a Volca Sample on occasion.
It’s nice to have some extra percs, when the 8 tracks of the DT are pretty busy already.
Also when externally manipulating the sound of the VSample, like with a DN, it will sound amazing!
I found the Volca Drum fiddly and the kicks were more IDM kinda kicks, not capable of much variety.
I got one good tune out of mine and it took lots of processing.
Maybe check out a Jomox Mbase, or find contentment with samples.
Yea! Nothing wrong with TR-06, especially if one only needs kicks. 909, 808, 606 kicks, with plenty to tweak.
Load up a sine or saw wave. Craft a drum sound out of that. Resample and reprocess as required. DT has literally everything you need to synthesize drum sounds.
Or sample some waveforms from your DN. Craft samples out of those.
Maybe also consider a Model:Cyles? If you’re trying to fill a MachineDrum-sized hole in your heart on a budget, the M:C may be just the thing you’re looking for
The M.Base is such a monster. I’m sure it wouldn’t be the case now as I’m more seasoned but I could never get those kicks to sit right in the mix when I owned one lol.
@ OP I know its a totally different price range but if you really want to get into synthesizing drum sounds the Nord Drum is brilliant and they’ve come out with new ones since I owned mine. Can also be sequenced if you don’t want to sample it.
