I have sold my Volca Keys and Sample. Time to move on I guess. This means that I will no longer be able to support my webapps connected with volcas. I will keep them on the web for now. Get in touch if they stop working.
Right now I want to focus on getting better at piano/keys and care a bit less about technology. Thinking about getting rid of Model:Cycles and some guitar stuff also. We’ll see.
iPhone web app controlling machine track parameters.
Simple web app that randomizes the chosen machine track parameters trough WebMidi CC’s (MIDI Control Change).
Choose the machine you want and a track => instant random preset. Just save the pattern our save it as a preset.
This is a “soft” randomization. Tuning, Delay and LFO parameters are left out of the equation for quicker and more usable results. I’ll try to incorporate the LFO later. On some machines the LFO can be a big help. But randomizing it is pretty wild. So I will need to find only a few of the LFO parameters that will work or make it an option to select.
Recorded on iPad with camera app and connected Model:Cycles trough USB sending the audio to the iPad.
Limited compatibility. Check the WebMidi standard and use compatible web browser.
I’m working on a bigger project for the sample but its taking time. So here is a little preview.
This one is like magic. Just find your voicing and go! The original synth wave number 46 consists of 4 samples that are tuned over the key range. The problem here is the looping. You can loop the sample on the Volca, but it plays the whole loop only. You cannot separate the attack portion of the sample. But you can do it the hard way and create the sustaining part of the sample separately. Which is what I did.
For download there are 6 files. One file containing attack portion of four chord samples. You choose the sound by selecting the “start” and “length”. Four files with the sustained portion that can be looped – start 0 end 100). In a demo below there is also a mini-drum set you can find in the last file. Again you select the sounds with “start” and “length”. There are 2 kicks, 3 snares a rim-shot and 2 hi-hats from the EM-1 sound set.
The reason for this “economy” sound management is that you need only an iPhone to load 6 files for a whole sound set. I use it a lot because I don’t need a PC, Vosyr etc. I store the files on my iCloud that way I can import them to the Audiopocket app again just with an iPhone.
Anyway. Lets hear it. Or better, play it.
MIDI CC to “shape” utility
Testing the idea of sending MIDI CC to the Elektron Model:Cycles’s for chord machine “shape” change. You can test the app here https://wavesontable.com/chordmachine.html
There are “skips” in the changes of shapes from Maj to min caused be a delay in midi communication. Not sure if it’s possible to eliminate it. Recorded on iPad with camera app and connected Model:cycles trough USB sending the audio to the iPad.
Exercise in Korg Volca Sample – sample import, creativity and a few concepts testing.
I have a Korg Volca Sample for some time but haven’t played that much with it due to the complicated way of getting the sound in. I have tried the Vosyr but to me it force you to do a lot on a PC in advance and the loading times of the whole memory sets is a killer. I am more towards shorter samples a moment of surprise when switching samples and also slightly not knowing what exactly is in the sample memory.
I have created a simple web app with chromatic keyboard and more features coming later.
Now that I really want the Elektron Model:Cycles i was thinking “Play with what you have and don’t spend on more gear”. So I did. And lately I have found that the native iOS app for sample transfere AudioPocket supports importing from iCloud. That’s great because it makes the sample import process way easier and you are able to do it computer-less. Well you still need an iOS device. But it works!
While working with my iPhone7 and AudioPocket i tried to sample a few things from the iPhone mic. And at first I was very disappointed. I was monitoring the results from the phone speaker and it was noisy and bad. Later I checked the recorded samples on headphones and there were a lot less noise and obviously better sound overall. Trust me I have home studio gear and know how to use it. But with a 2 year old kid around, less and less time for music you want to be quick, simple but still have fun. That’s why I try to use as less gear, wires, computers as possible.
The results below are two tracks – loops just for fun. I was trying a few things here.
Track 1 – have one sample with the entire drumset of 808 style sounds. It is chopped on different track for kick, snare and hi hats by sample start and length. Track starts with a kick from this set and iPhone recorded sample of a child wooden block xylophone together with recorded ukulele sample (same in track 2) that is reversed and pitched up. Then comes in a sample from an E-MU Morpheus pad set ( https://rhythm-lab.com/e-mu-morpheus-samples/ ) tuned and filtered to taste. Finally there is a ticking sample of recorded Korg Monotron that is looped to match the tempo of the beat simulating a delay effect with set decay and some automation. Recording of Monotron from speaker to iPhone mic is fun but noisy. The sound is filtered to get rid off that. But for sound effects its usable.
Track 2 – have a recorded kick sample from an inflatable balloon “kicked” with a finger. Hi hat and snare are some generic samples. There is also a sampled ukulele (same as in track 1) and the bass sound is looped single cycle waveform (FM synth sound) with some envelope that is copied to two tracks and slightly detuned for fatness.
Utility webapp useful for setting up some of the parameters on an old Line6 POD (first 1998 edition).
I remember that the users manual a book like brochure for my Line6 POD called POD pilot was such a cool thing. With all the pictures of the modeled gear and story behind it. Other gear, pedals had only a b/w copy of a manual or worst an pdf on a CD/link. This was very different in many aspects.
This small utility webapp is called POD 98′ navigator and should be useful for setting up some of the parameters on an old Line6 POD (first 1998 edition) that are not controllable trough the knobs and front panel switches.
I made this to control the reverb type switching from spring to hall. Also to work with the effect parameters. Mainly the Chorus 2 settings. I remember there was a cool “stopped” settings when you go to zero with the “predelay” parameter and everything else zeroed. It creates a cool stereo wide effect.
If there will be interest and time I may add more parameters. The main idea is to control the device from its knobs and use this only for the hidden controls. Maybe you use a Ctrl panel, your DAW, other Midi CC app. This is just more simple and you really don’t need anything else to install to run this.
On iOS i use the Web Midi browser (linked below) on PC a chrome browser.
My three funny attempts for covers with different instrumentation.
I have left my keyboard player post in the Faith No More Tribute Band that plays here in the Czech republic after 6 years. Just to focus on other things and have enough family time.
Going back trough the repository of files and song documentation I have find my three funny attempts for covers with different instrumentation. So here they are.
Preview of a little tool for the Korg volca sample. Simple software keyboard.
This is a preview of a little tool for the volca sample. Simple software keyboard to play the notes of the selected parts chromatically. May be useful.
New app is here. This one is oriented on the live use of the volca keys synth. The layout is geared towards mobile specifically iOS. This web app sends MIDI CC data trough connected midi interface to KORG Volca Keys synth for quick preset loading. The idea is to use previously captured patch data from volcakeyspatch app for 6 patches. Thanks to the app you will have a bank of your own 6 presets ready for quick loading to the volca synth.
Volca keys patch is a web app for controlling sound data of Korg Volca Keys synth. It offers a simple user interface in a web browser environment. Thanks to the webmidi standard (https://www.w3.org/TR/webmidi/) it works on supported browsers including mobile.
The basic idea is to control the sound with the onscreen controls and saving the results in form of “patchdata” as text file for later use. This can be done with a lot of apps, DAW’s etc. This is just the lightweightest version to me and hopefully will get some use by other users.
The random patch generator is especial fun for quickly getting very different sound out of the volca keys. By tweaking some crucial parameters like vco egint or lfo vco int to zero you get quickly some very usable sound. You can listen to results of quick random patch changes on my soundcloud here.
If you have some suggestions please comment here on wavesontable.com I have a few ideas to incorporate into the design like custom webaudio based lfo’s, obviously a better preset management, some midi filtering (using the Novation Launchkeys knobs for control) and tweaks to the random generation pattern.
The app runs on Bootstrap 4 for good responsivity and uses a webmidi.js javascript library by Jean-Philippe Côté https://github.com/djipco/webmidi for easier interaction with the webmidi API standard. The knobs comes from Anthony Terrien jQuery.Knob library (https://github.com/aterrien/jQuery-Knob).
