Published
Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 09:08
- Both retail for under $200 and are due out later this year.
KORG has expanded the Volca range of battery-powered synths and drum machines.
The popular, portable Volca series now includes Modular, a take on West Coast synthesis, and Drum, a digital percussion synthesiser. The Modular's colour scheme and eight modules take after Don Buchla's pioneering instruments, featuring the classic West Coast set up of low pass gates, dual function generators, a random source, two FM-capable VCOs with wavefolding, an internal sequencer and custom, microtonal scales. Unlike typical East Coast-style synths, these tools combine to create organic but timbrally complex and often abstract sounds. Including 50 patch points, it's set to retail for $199.
The Drum is built on a six-part DSP engine and promises to offer a broader, more experimental palette than your average drum machine. Rather than working with samples, the Drum works from normal oscillator waveforms, which are then modulated by pitch and amp envelopes, bit reduction, wavefolding, distortion and a waveguide resonator based on physical modelling. All these parameters can be modulated by the sequencer while two randomisation functions are on hand for adding variety to sounds. The expected price is $169.
Watch videos about the new products.
The KORG Volca Modular and Drum retail for $199 and $169 respectively. They arrive later in 2019.