Just launched my first video from the “Analogue Meets Digital” mini-series. In this episode, I’m showing how to connect the Volca Bass and the MicroKorg (MK), so that the former can be used as a sound expander module of the latter.
Most of the work is in putting OSC1 to work with the incoming audio. The MK can accept Mic level, or Line Level. On the other hand, the Volca output is at headphone level, which is a little bellow Line level. So some care must be taken to have the analogue signal go strong enough into the ADC of the MK, but not that hot that will start clipping.
I already done a similar video on my personal YouTube channel, just to test the idea of publishing videos. Still I was quite surprised on how well these two work together. Despite the MK sounding very analogue-like (with adequate programming), having all the oscillators from the Bass helps creating a very fat sound. The digital circuitry also helps taming the filter of the Bass when it starts to scream, and of course, this setup gives you a multimode filter you can use to further shape the sound of the Volca. The EQ, MOD and delay effects of the MK help giving more depth and shape the tone of the relatively rough oscillators and filter of the Volca Bass. It was also quite pleasing to see that the Ring Modulator and Sync of OSC2 respond nicely when OSC1 is on Audio In duties.
All in all, I found most sounds that came out of this MicroKorg/Volca Bass hybrid were perfectly usable in Drone and Berlin School Music. Indeed, just yesterday I decided to fill the first few minutes of the video (before I start playing the MK) with a small 3-minute track of drone music, made with this setup.