Korg Volca Bass Reviews

Powerful Bass Synth

Powerful Bass Synth - Definitely NOT A Toy!!!

Excellent wee synth

I bought this knoing not much about it really but have been pleasantly surprised particularly with the sound quality which is excellent.

Great for the price

Easy to use & jam with - especially if you’ve got the Volca beats / others from the range. Would like the ability to slow down the phrase - like on the Volca keys.

One of the first and one of the best Volcas

There are many many synths in the Korg Volca lineup and it becomes a bit tricky to keep track of them, but the Volca bass, together with Beats and Keys, is one of the first. Out of those three, the Bass is definitely the fattest sounding one! Its sequencer is also quite nice, but I also had huge amounts of fun by plugging a pitch to midi controller into it and playing the instrument using my guitar. In short, this synth has balls!

It says Bass, but it does so much more

The volca bass is one of the few volcas that survived my studio re-organisations throughout the years. And that's mainly because it's so versatile and has plenty of character in its sound.

Don't be fooled by the name "Bass" and that it has a lot of similarities with 303-type of synths. I used the volca bass more often as a lead sound in my tracks than as a bass synth, simply because it sounds really nice in the higher ranges. Layering it with other sounds works pretty well, too! Don't worry, I used it for bass sounds too and it does that just fine.

One thing that I find a bit of a letdown is that the Bass sometimes has a wonky phase when working with multiple oscillators. Because of this phase, it sometimes cancels out the bass frequencies for a brief moment, which might be annoying if you're doing a one-take recording.

Other than that, it's a great little box and is one of the volcas to probably not leave the studio anytime soon for its versatility and possibilities!

I have two of them to play in stereo. I love analog synths and vert happy with two of this and two keys. They r not as beefy as a Moog, but way less expensive. I wish they would send them with power supply and big jack outputs, because almost nobody would play this with phones, and If u want to record u have to find one adapter... Other then that I think they r great value.

dont let size and name fool you - this is a versatile synth

Yes, it is called Volca Bass. No, its is not bass module only. Remember Novation Bass Station? Know those lush pads and nice arps coming ut of it?

This is different story sonically, but there is much more than just bass. Yes you can make any bass sound with 3 oscillators , but also you can get very nice analogue sounds that are far from low end. I like using this as detuned pad, to go Boards of Canada style.

I own more high end analogue gear but this one was my first Volca (have a few now) and gotta say it is a part of every track that i make.

Cons - it would be cool to have external input on that nice filter, no midi out, more features in envelope, but still it is a great device for the buck.

LOVE IT

This Vocla Bass is a lot of fun and sounds great, for anyone who is into music production and wants to get started this is ideal to learn the very basics. Even my father has enjoyed playing around on this.

Fun synth

I really enjoy this Volca synth. It's very versatile with the 3 voices and it's a lot of fun and easy to play. It lends itself well to live jams. You'll sound like an Acid House superstar in no time, as the sequencer is very user friendly. Being a very compact unit, it's sometimes difficult to get to the small knobs but that is to be expected. All-in-all, I really recommend it.

My First Synth

I got into hardware (and analog) synthesisers recently and after some weeks of research and following recommendations from expert friends, I bought the Volca Bass as my first instrument.

I spent several months learning it inside out and I am in love with it. I had the chance to learn a lot about subtractive synthesis thanks to its simple flow that yield to exploration and experimentation.

It is limited compared to more expensive instruments but it has lots of depth and can be used for a lot of sounds, from wobbly basses to some spacey pads. It is so simple to do some acid techno but it can also create soundscapes and drones.

The filter is amazing considering it's simplicity and with a bit of resonance at the right spot, it can be really gritty and distorted.

The only drawbacks that I can list are the limited ribbon keyboard (the Volca Keys has a better one) and the very small knobs that limit the fine tuning of some parameters. Additionally the lack of motion recording is a pity.

All in all, it is a very nice little machine for beginners and for who wants to express their creativity through constraints.

Wonderful

It is a nice underrated synth.

You can do very good bass and lead sounds with it.

I'm using these volca essentialy to make bass lines.

EVEN WITH THE PRICE HIKE!!! STILL A WINNER!!!

Can't go wrong....it ain't a 303 so move on....

But it's one HELL of a beast...

See my mate Nick@sonicstate review this thing...

EPIC 3 OSC MADNESS!!!!

Great little machine!

The volca bass totally surpasses my expectations by leaps and bounds. It's an extremely versatile machine for it's size and really packs a lot in. There are specific dials for each desired control to give you great accuracy in weaving your desired sounds, as well as great function settings to toy with, like active step, which I personally use to create much faster hard-hitting techno loops. Teaming VCO's together gives the volca bass a much richer sound than I imagined it would have.

Pros:

The vast amount of possibilities for such a small price.

The built in speaker & battery power options that make this synth 100% portable and useful for people who want to make music on the go without a laptop - great for bus journeys etc with headphones.

3x VCO's that can be used individually OR in tandem for even more diverse sounds.

Built-in sequencer. Hook this machine up through MIDI / sync and sequence like mad with the rest of your studio. Let it play while you toy with the sounds for some off the cuff deep-house and techno vibes.

Cons:

One positive about this machine is it's size - it's small and portable, but with that comes even smaller dials. It can talk a bit of time to get the tempo dial to be at the exact number you want, for example.

Other than that - no cons. You're getting what you pay for and it works well!

good for starters, campers, travellers....

Great synth for the price

Surprisingly great sounding little synth with a dirty, acid-like sound. When overdriven, it becomes a real beast. Has a nice character and can easily cut through a busy mix. Highly recommend for producing techno music!

Volca bass

This small volca is epic!!!! it's worth every single penny due it is portable and it's built quality is fine for it's price as you expect from korg. The build in speaker is not that good but the output from the 3.5mm jack is fine. The only thing that I don't like is that certain parameters effect all the 3 oscillators together but for the price you should expect certain limitation. Overall I found it useful to create bass lines which I record in my DAW.

First synth

Bought this as my first synth and been using it ever since. It is what got me into synths. It's only drawback is that it is limited. Great for beginners

Good entry level synth

Very cool synth for the price. I would recommend to a newbie to synthesis, but some knowledge of the 303 sequencer will help when using this. Definitely helped further my knowledge. I didnt fall in live with it but I do love the sequencer.

It lacks really deep low end but can be beefed up with eqing.

Enormous value for little money

It's a 3x oscillator, 100% analogue synth, for less than 150 euros. We can stop right there - it's a must have.

Plus it has a really cool sequencer, which is very intuitive and easy to use. Although limited to 16 steps (or one bar). However, you can connect it to your DAW via midi cable, have your sequences running from there, and have as many bars as you want.

Oscillators sound really nice, as well as the filter, which turns into a beast with a lot of resonance. Without running it through any external devices, you can get an overdrive, which is a nice little bonus.

It is marketed as a monophonic bass synth, but it's a lot more. Actually it has a secret. It's not completely monophonic. You can sequence different notes for every OSC if you're using it's sequencer, or set different semitones for every OSC. By these methods you can even get triad chords out of it, which could be useful if you're making dub / techno dub music for example.

Another great thing is that it has an LFO which can go very fast, you can enter the audible range with it. It allows you to get all kinds of weird sounds.

The only complaint would be, that it's build doesn't feel very solid, it's plastic, wobbly, feels cheap. But hey, for this price, it's OK. If you take good care of your equipment, it shouldn't be a problem. And despite all of that, it looks very good.

There's also a little speaker integrated, and it can run with batteries. But I personally, find these features useless.

Overall, excellent product. Definitely a must have if your budget is limited, but you want a proper analogue synth. And Korg Volca Bass is exactly that.

Utility bass machine at unbelievably low cost

To be honest i want expecting to be that good (for the amount of money)! got it just to play around cause of it's size and finally it became a studio resident and a replacement of all my soft synths for the bass duties.

Instant hands on, very easy to learn, understand and come up with a superb sound that will shake bodies and walls! Fantastic filter that can scream very loud and be also very pleasant.

The little knobs feel a bit fragile but no something to worry about. For the price i dont think it could get any better! weldone Korg!