Korg Volca Drum Physical Modeling Drum Synthesizer Reviews

Small, but powerful. This thing sounds amazing. More of a rhythm synth because you can program all the sounds yourself. Drum kits can be swapped in and out. Amazed at the grooves possible. I call it the budget Perkons.

The Korg Volca Drum is a super fun & creative percussion synthesizer. This Volca definitely is unique. It offers six parts each with layers of two individual sounds per part that can be edited separately or together. Programming is very immediate and the controls invite tweaking without having read the manual. However there are a few settings that aren't immediately intuitive which are accessed with the edit/step button and then scrolled through by the select/parameter knob. These potentially overlooked settings really do add to the sound giving bit reduction, wave folding, overdrive, panning, and gain adjustment. The three distortions here add a bit of grit to the sound and in my experience don't degrade the sound too much either, being mostly consistently useable at maximum settings. The motion record opens up the sound design potential quite a bit even if it is a shame that motion recording isn't available for the resonator parameters. I especially enjoy motion recording the rate of the LFO modifier. So many types of synthetic percussion can be made with this synth and, with choke groups, you can treat multiple sounds as a single instrument set. Programming on the Volca Drum is a joy. I plan on holding onto mine probably forever.

Great little drum machine! You can get some unique dub sounds and the interface is easy to use. Good little drum synth for electronic music!

Wow. this thing is awesome. this is my personal introduction to the volca lineup, and after watching Cuckoo's tutorial on what it does and why it's awesome (check it out if you haven't. you can find it by searching 'cuckoo volca drum' on youtube), i went for it. Absolutely no regrets. For $... this thing gets more use than my Maschine. It's so fun to make random bleeps and bloops. I'm sure it's not for everyone, but for those who are interested in creating percussion sections that aren't tried and true (808, 909, etc), this can be a really useful instrument. One thing to note, that nowhere i've seen has really touched on, is that it has a 16 step sequencer, BUT you can chain the sequences together, so basically you can have up to a 256 step sequence. Also, it has a build in speaker which is goofy and weird. I didn't even know that when i bought it.

It takes a bit to learn the multiple button meanings, but it's worth spending a little time to get to know this drum machine. It has a lot of capabilities. Do not be fooled by its diminutive size (thank you auto-correct). This thing can sound big.

This is one of the most interesting Volca Machines so far. It reminds me of the early Electribe ER-MK1 Drum Machine with many features that you can spend hours on end teaking and plaing around with to get different sounds.

It does drums extremely well, as well as doing some really strange and experimental sounds. It's a perfect match for the Volca Modular that I also purchased. It's LOUD! Unlike the Volca Drum that was/is a very quiet drum machine but still great for what it does!

If you like "experimental" Drum machines that don't only do drums, give this a try.

Highly recommended and great service as usual from Sweetwater! Thank you.

The Volca Drum is way more powerful and flexible than its tiny size and approachable price would suggest. This is my first synthesizer, and I can say having all the controls for shaping sounds right up front and easily organized has made for a fantastic crash course in synthesis. And while it's inexpensive and relatively accessible to pick up and use, I have heard some beautiful beats made with the Drum by folks with more experience.

The sound quality is great-- less so through the very small internal speaker (makes sense), but when connected to good speakers, you can tell the Drum is producing rich, deep sound.

I was also impressed by the build quality. Yes, it's an all-plastic chassis, but it has a satisfying weight and doesn't feel cheap or too delicate. I can even trust my 4yo to jam on it without too much anxiety!

There are only a couple of drawbacks. The first is that the more advanced functions of the Drum (e.g. slicing, accents, automation, and even managing saved kits & programs) are pretty well buried in key combinations, which makes it trickier to discover and experiment with. I chalk that up to fitting just so much functionality into a tiny form factor, though, so I take that as a valid tradeoff.

The more annoying drawback-- and my reason for knocking off half a star-- is how kits and programs are managed. Kits and programs are saved into one of sixteen banks (accessible by the sequencer keys), which makes recalling them a bit of trial and error. In addition, there's no built-in way to back up kits or programs; the best solution I've found is to craft all your work with a patch editor on the computer and then flash the Drum with the results via a MIDI connection. This works fine, but sucks all the fun out of tinkering with the sound on the Drum itself. If I were using the Drum for serious gigging, I'd be stuck with this patch editor option, or else painstakingly recording my work to a paper-based patch book (which might be fun, but awfully arduous).

All in all I'm a very happy Volca Drum user. If I were getting very serious with synthesis then the lack of backup/sync options would certainly steer me to a more fleshed-out solution, but while I'm just tinkering and learning the basics, the Drum has been worth every penny.

At first I was regretting buying this. After I got some time to Mess around with it and watch Cukoos tutorial, It is probably my favorite volca....I own them all except for the Nubass and Modular. It has Depth and sounds great. The sequencer is cool with the slice function and probability function. I would recommend it.