Some more videos popping up.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/volcas/comments/axirly/comment/ei1mldm suggests that youāll be able to choose between 1 or 6 channels, once a bug is fixed.
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Got mine today, here are my first impressions.
It looks really nice, like the colour scheme and the display, the milled out detail on the panel is nice too.
The preset patterns and sounds without any exceptions are patently terrible, Korg should really hire some better people to do these as they all sound very knocky, hard, and basically unpleasant - like the worst of the 90ās cheeeezy rave or modern naff āEDMā sounds that youād skip past, and no smooth or softer sounds at all. It seems like it is trying to hard to sound āard, probably to impress but failing epically. The kicks all have too much sweep, the snares and hihats sound tinny and harsh and the rest are pretty much unusable crap as well 
I get that this is down to preferences but seriously did every pattern and kit need to sound basically like the worst of the 90ās or āEDM broā
I have no interest in using presets and thankfully they are all easily deleted (though the memory still remains 
) but I prefer to hear a little bit of variety that showcase a bit of what is possible.
Rant over, the editing is quite ok, the knobs are a little close together and a bit stiffer to turn than other Volcas, the parameter ranges are a little odd, some have limited range, some have not fine enough precision, but overall not too bad. I was pleased to find out that it is capable of more useful and subtle sounds, it can do passable early analog drum machine type sounds, and typical Kraftwerk type electro percussion and what not, in a lot of ways it reminds me of the Korg ER-1 but a little more parameters and of course no samples for hats and clap.
Sound quality seems pretty good, sequencing is typical Volca aside from the few updates, you can chain all 16 patterns if you want. One other thing that bugged me was calling patterns āprogramsā I thought when saving a program Iād be saving the pattern and the sounds, but nope it only saves the pattern - so why not call it pattern then?
The āmanualā is the crappy tracing paper thin, 1 square meter multi folded, multi language, tiny print, scant on detail, single sheet rubbish we have come to expect of Korg, waste of paper and Iād prefer they didnāt bother. Just put a link to a proper pdf manual and midi implementation chart.
So far I quite like it, only had about 20 minutes on it but if I come across anything else of note Iāll post more.
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Nice quick review - very useful.
Couldnāt agree more - and while theyāre about it, make them readable on phones or a tablet too.
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Yeah sucks, I might do a bit of hacking to see if I can find it like I did for the Volca modular, assuming the drum has serial tx on the PCB that is.
Sounds like it would have been cooler if they prominently stated āno presets - as it is a synth, make your ownā and left them out too!
Thanks for the frank initial impression.
Iām sort of interested in this if it brings some novel sounds for a relatively cheap price, or can provide a cheapie glitch and ding drum & perc track into a bigger elektron box, saving a track or three, and maybe bringing some new sounds.
Midi opaqueness isnāt encouraging though.
itās funny because when I read the Volca Modular manual, I was thinking back to when manufacturers actually wrote comprehensive manuals that explained the theory/background behind each synth component. Moog are still great for this, for example. but I thought the Volca Modular one was well-written (online one at least, I havenāt seen the physical one). maybe they think the Volca Drum is simple enough, you should just āget itāā¦?
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Further thoughs, a multimode digital filter with resonance per voice/layer would have been great, not blown away by the much hyped wave guide, reverb/delay would have been preferable for me.
Oh BTW, midi implementation incoming 
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Well that was easy, I hooked up to the TX point and read the midi stream, so here is the midi implementation chart ghetto style.
Mine was transmitting on midi ch1, midi channel can be changed globally, so I think it is safe to assume that the CC values are only for the active part, a shame.
Notes parts 1-6:
60, 62, 64, 65, 65, 67
CCs - Where two values shown that is for each layer 1&2
Level 7&8
Amount 26&28
Rate 27&29
Select 14&15
Pitch 23&24
Attack 17&19
Release 18&20
Send 12
Waveguide
Decay 117
Body 118
Tone 119
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Any sort of automation transmitted by the sequencer?
No, Iām pretty sure the CC implementation is purely for editing only, it transmits just the notes.
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Thanks for the initial thoughts (and your investigations into MIDI details) and youāre not helping to dissuade me from getting oneā¦ in fact, you failed at that as I just discovered that one of my two preferred retailers has got them in stock and Iāve got some cash swilling about in my Paypal from selling other stuff.
Iāll report back in due course no doubtā¦
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Do post some softer sounds at some point? Iād like to hear someone tweak this who knows what theyāre doing 
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Awesome thanks for the report and for the initial CC implementation! Sweetwater says middle of April for my preorder to ship 
Keeping occupied with my DT sending CC to the Monologue and making my own hardware version of Grossbeat boom 
! Dangit I want that wacky percussion though!
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Here is the official midi implementation (with 2 modality: single channel or split channel). enjoy!
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Just got it yesterday. Itās powerful, innovative and has a few features I didnāt know about till using it like-minded
-You can set individual part lengths
-You can set step probabilities
-You can edit individual step
-You can save kits and patterns separately
I do wish it had solo and not just mute. I also wish it had a global active step in addition to per part, but thatās about it.
These open it up so much! It sounds unique, and itās really fun to play. Iāve owned every Volca, and just about every modern (and some vintage) drum machines. This thing is amazing! Home run for Korg.
(Yes Iām very much in the honeymoon phase and these are my honeymoon thoughts!)
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I am planning to buy a VD, to add to my OT and Soma Pipe. I have little space so it will help me with synthy sounds to sample. Iāve borrowed a friendās MS but coming from an OT itās too limited for my needs. Sample food. Back to the VD the ability to randomise each layer individually and jointly is a real nice trick. I think I will try to buy one next month.
Ooh mine has been shipped!
Gonna pair it with Deluge to add a nice drum synth part to it!
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It has some digital flavor for sure, almost DX-like with the heavy mod and the delay section, in which I noticed a slight stereo image/delay in the Tube setting, though I thought it might be a little thicker.
Probably would run through some sort of analog, direct it can get fairly grating.
So thereās possibility for more bass or synthy stuff too. But there IS quite a bit of digging around in the parameters/envelope mods to find sweet spots.
ā¦all in all from sine to noise you can get a wide range. The overdrive, gain section kind of helps compressing and bit reduction a nice touch. I noticed the randomize only takes effect once per activation, but I suppose that is more usefulā¦your hands can be occupied between this, changing patterns and such.
As always motion sequencing opens up more possibility.
Though I didnāt actually hear the probability going off at all. It says go into edit, press the part and change with value knobā¦ Hmm.
It sounded like the first factory pattern (part 1) had probability, but I went into the menu and there was none. Might have been a chained pattern.
Havenāt found indiv. part length and didnāt check the slice section yet.
Itās going to be a couple weeks just dialing in sounds and patterns I think, which could be a good thing.
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Just started digging into mine yesterday. Its totally rad. Have the DT sending it CC changes and the neat part is that the parameters show up on the KVD screen and you can see the rate and direction of the LFO! TONS more to play with though.
Using the Split Mode Midi implementation - https://www.korg.com/us/support/download/manual/0/809/4259/ It takes up 6 midi tracks but its not really a problem for me as I have only the Korg Monologue needing another track. The DN can sequence itself just fine thank ya very much. Discovered for the first time that there is no ratcheting / retrig / slice (korg term) on the midi implementation of the DT. Thats fine though too really as you can do some really cool stuff with slice on the KVD.
Iām actually really quite impressed with this little monster! But I am truly getting fed up with spending most of my music time trying to troubleshoot DAW issues and why my interface isnāt sending midi (and other misc nonsense) 
Iām becoming one of āthose dawless peoplesā.
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