Korg Volca Keys

Many features packed into a small synth. I'm sure this works for some people, but I found it to be way too limited. Although, I know, it's very cheap.

Here are some limitations that I found annoying. Some of these might be hard to guess before actually using the unit:

- It's not polyphonic, it's paraphonic. There are 3 VCO's but they share the same VCA. In practice it sounds like the held notes would be triggered again when you play a new note.
- Although the Keys receive velocity when played live, the sequencer does not record it. So the velocity of every note is 100%.
- No ability to bypass recording midi (key) notes from an external midi-keyboard.
This means that if you simultaneously play live on a keyboard and record your automations on the Volca itself, the notes you played get recorded on every loop, over and over again. You have to record the automation separately.
- Sequencer has only 16 steps. Although the scale can be adjusted: 1/1, 1/2 and 1/4.
- Peak (resonance) cannot be automated or affected through midi.
- No MIDI out. Although you can relatively easily make your own. Similarly to Arturia BeatStep, I would suggest a 1/8 TRS jack (next to the MIDI IN jack).
- Only headphones out. If you plan not to use headphones, you need (half of) an insert cable or some other special configurations.
- The scope of the sounds that you can produce with this is very limited. Although the automation helps a lot, but still.

The volca keys is a nice little box of character. It has plenty of different flavours to choose from and can sound very lo-fi if you play around with its onboard delay and aggressive filter.

I like the fact that the volca keys is a one-knob-per-function synth without any hidden menus or settings. That way you can get really hands-on with it and makes it a great synth to learn synthesis as well.

The only quirk of this volca is that its sequencer starts skipping steps once you plug in a mono TS cable. When using regular stereo TRS cables, I get a really soft and noisy signal from the Headphone OUT. When using a mono TS, it's really loud and clean. But due some technical flaw in the keys, the sequencer might skip steps because of it.

Generally it's a great little box for the money and certainly works well when jamming with other volcas!

Korg have outdone themselves with the volca series and the volca keys is the pick of the bunch. Synced with the beats and bass its just class. Im not a big synt head and dont claim to know much about them but thats the point you dont have to and you can still get a great little groove going. Would recommend them to anyone looking into setting up a home studio or just looking to have some fun. Haven't come across anything else that compares for the price.

One word of warning though you need a 9 volt power adapter as you'll loose hours playing with it and the batteries will break your bank balance. Also the internal sound is not going to satisfy you for long but I expect most buyers will already have an audio system of some kind. I'm using KRK Rokit 5 monitors and the sound is awesome.

I can't really comment on operation, because I've just been using it for a couple of minutes. But GOD, does it sound good !!! The features are of course not that of a 4-digits priced synth, but the sound quality is honestly that of one of them big analog monsters. I'm blown away.

On the minus side, some complex connection setups already created a lot of background noise, while in other situations it's pretty clean... so that aspect is a bit of a coin toss it would seem.

I would have liked shorter minimum decay times on the envelope, but besides that, the bare bone architecture is perfect for showcasing its beautiful sound.