Music with Machines shared this video demo of mods for the Korg Volca Beats that add individual outs and a tweaked snare sound.
The video demos four different patterns, with and without external processing.
The mods follow the documentation at 2btech. MWM adds:
“I first added a 0,1 uF capacitor (104) in C78 place resulting in a better snare sound but with a short decay. I then realized the 1 uF capacitor (105) was a cooler mod because of the longer decay but didn’t want to remove the 0,1 uF. So I put a switch to choose between one of the 2 capacitors.
At the end, I did the Mark Steiner snare mod which is a shortcut between 2 points and which give a 909ish sound or industrial 80’s sound (your own taste will find the right word). When the Mark Steiner mod is ON, changing the capacitor with the other switch has no effect.
The mixer is a Phonic AM440 with AUX send modification (originally the AUX is pre-fader, I turned it into a post-fader).
The high hats are going into a Zoom MS70 cdr and then to the mixer. The AUX send is feeding the other Zoom MS70 cdr and then goes back to the mixer.
The PCM sound is going into a Joyo JF07 flanger and then to the mixer.
The TOM sound is going into a Tech21 Sansamp GT2 and then to the mixer.
I made 4 patterns, first without processing and then with hardware processing. I could achieve a much better sound/mix in my studio with a better mixing desk but I couldn’t do this video in my studio (which is not at home).”
Have you modded your Volca Beats? If so, share your experiences in the comments!
Better late than never ??
Cool cool
Why spend that much effort on a such a cheap piece of kit?
Why?
I can think of 3 reasons:
Fun;
To see if it can be done;
A sense of accomplishment.
Price has nothing to do with productivity, sound quality, making good music and so on…
some of the most suit after gear was a “cheap piece of kit” until someone did with it something desirable
That’s a perplexing question; would you really prefer modding a device that’s more expensive? Why is “cheap” a downside?
Personally, this sounds pretty cool to me. That you can dig into the guts of a synth (especially one so inexpensive) and tweak it to your own tastes is pretty neat. It’s like programming your own patches instead of using presets, but with dirtier hands.
How did you do for individual outs?
Just forget all this snare nonsense and buy a Volca Drum instead.
it’s virtual analog so not possible to have individual out or modding the sound engine electrically.
attempt to solder cables on to SMD components can harm, if it is not done with the right hands!
soldering iron can harm everything with the wrong hands.
Did this a while back, well worht it and added a way to rack it in my eurorack
My Volca Beats has been modified to have MIDI out and interchangeable capacitors.
Here is a video showing off the interchangeable capacitors:
https://youtu.be/qoCgn2zTOfw
Here is a video using the Volca Beats to sequence a Multicassa via CV.OCD:
https://youtu.be/rNOVwmKOCD8