I sold a bunch of gear to fund a Rytm, but the FM I could not bear to part with!
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Best review yet!
I do have it doing some wicked FM percussion but itās taken a bit more work than through the Machinedrumās EFM or Monomachineās FM+ system.
You just have to fight through the DX7-ish-ness of the thing and the default sounds which immediately started reminding me of everything I hated about 80ās pop radio. But now Iāve got some killer industrial sounds going on that I imagine will be really fun to sample. (Itās also kindof fun to pair it with the original Monotron as a dirty filter to get it a bit more like what I imagine can be done with the DX200).
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Yes I donāt care much for the typical DX7 sounds myself.
I have a few boxes to get the sounds I want but I fancy the Volca for couch time and also like the warp step business which I am sure will be great for the kind of rhythmic oddness I crave.
Iāll wait until Black Friday and see if can pull the trigger on itā¦
This guyās channel is so good! Thanks for sharing!
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Oh boy, mine just arrived. Already lost an hour in tweak heaven. Itās incredible how much unexpected variation you can squeeze out of the minimal controls on this thing. Really beautiful, alien sounds. Had a Volca sample for a while but it always felt constrained, confusing and messy to me - this one feels different, comfortable, like the innards fit better inside the Volca casing.
Itās quite exciting to play a synth where you have no idea what sound will emerge from the next tweak.
Also! The idea to have velocity on a slider rather than keys seems weird at first but itās actually a stroke of genius, because it gives a new interpretation and interactivity to all those old DX patches without breaking compatibility. For those who want to play FM the traditional way thereās always the Reface (which I own as well and is very good).
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i love the idea of the volcas and ive owned them allā¦ the issue i have is the noise they all makeā¦ its fine if youre messing around, but boosting them to a decent level to compress/add to a mix just gives me a horrid hissā¦ not even a nice hiss either like a cat purring ā¦ more a disgusting electrical pissing hiss that smacks of, āoh they wont noticeā¦ get em out the door theyre cheap anywayā im surprised they havent released a ākorg volca noisegateā yet and cashed in further
I do know that the volca keys emits a steady 18kHz whine (or somewhere around there), but IME the sample and the bass are workable.
Thereās a way to mod the outputs I believe, the pcbs have a lot of patch points, so perhaps someone handy with a soldering iron could come up something that would improve the SNRā¦ Although the surface mount design makes this difficult I imagineā¦
Multiband expansion can often help considerably, but not ideal.
Interesting how the pocket operators seem to have less noisy outputs, but of course theyāre all digitalā¦ But stillā¦
workable yesā¦ but a company with that legacy - there shouldnt be any thing 'workable ā about their gearā¦ it should be perfect without the hissā¦ they are all the sameā¦ tried them allā¦ the ākickā was the worst
My KArp Ody, M1 and wavestation all have a good output stage, so I know what you mean.
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im dreading my korg monologue arriving and having to sell itā¦ but i just need a decent mono synth and its the best looking one ! i have a funny feeling it will go as soon as i try itā¦ i dont mind some natural noise from analog but the hiss over layered volca tracks in a mix is unbearable for my tastes
A dumb question regarding your hiss issue. Have you experimented with different cables and a DI box? Just remembered my friend exhibiting major hissing with his volca bass - Turns out he was using the cable that came with the volca, and some kind of interconnection issue caused considerable hiss. When we changed to a different cable which had different wiring (TS instead of TRS IIRC), the hissing was considerably reduced.
Strange. I donāt remember the Keys being noisy when I had it, and my newly purchased Kick is nearly silent, not that it gets much of a chance to be quiet 
I took the time to check the noise pb a few months ago.
Volca Sample was by far the most noisy (nothing to do with any cable).
Volca FM the most quiet.
Have not noticed any noise with the volca FM.
The beats, on the other hand, is noisy, but charmingly so.
I compared my units a few months ago and established the following :
FM noise < Bass < Keys < Sample (sold Beats)
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its okay messing around with them but they all have a hissā¦ all the volcas, if you listen on headphones and monitor the levels that wayā¦ sure enough they are cheap machines unless you get hooked into buying all of themā¦ i just dont know why korg dont address the hissā¦ the kick was the worstā¦ to bring it to a level you need to mix it at without eqing the life out of it. its korg issue, not mineā¦ im just pointing out the obvious
Had same experience here (but from memory I think mine was maybe opposite to what you describe, if mem serves - worse with a mono cable, better with a stereo one). Still a little hissy with the new cable but way better and not enough noise to stop me using them in recordings. Big fan of the overall character of the volca keys, noise included 
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Still would love to hear how the direct out mod changes the sound quality of the keys. Havenāt found much intel wrt it online yet.
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Iād be interested in knowing about a line out mod for the FM.
Iām trying to run it into my Monomachine so I can filter/effect it, but it sounds terrible. Itās either too quiet to be able to bring it up to the level of the rest of the tracks, or it clips really easily. I assume itās due to the headphone amp spec on the Volcas because it sounds great through headphones. I guess it just doesnāt play nicely with a line level input.