RS017 KORG Volca Kick: Just for Kicks!?

Pretty much the first thing I got, when I got back into playing around with actual hardware, was a Korg Volca Beats. For the little money I spend, I was amazed to see how much you could really get out of this little black box. Plus, as it runs on batteries and is really tiny, being able to take it literally everywhere (even if it‘s just the couch) was simply amazing. So soon, you might know this story, I had amassed quite a few Volcas. Maybe the oddest one I got, was the Volca Kick, featured in this video. I really only bought it because I got it dirt cheap off someone who I believe really needed some money quick and I didn’t use it much when if first got it (hence all that dust). I’m pretty sure that’s the fate many Volca Kicks out there share at the moment, laying around in some corner (or shelf) catching lots of dust.

So recently, when thinking about what to do my next video about, I dusted it off (Ok, I might need some dusting practice…) and for the first time really tried out all the features and possibilities, starting to film right on the spot. As I had seen during research on You Tube, I tried spicing it up with lots of FX (who would have thought that using lots of reverb and delay on a machine that is supposed to do bass drums is actually quite a good idea).

So is it just for kicks? Well it does kick ass quite a lot as a mere bass drum generator, but it does all sorts of other kicking too, like hard and deep into your stomach pit, when delivering some super low sub bass, or piercing your eardrums with some sharp whining squelches.

0:00 Intro
0:22 Introduction
2:10 Shaping a Bass Drum
3:33 From Bass Drum to Bass Line (and back)
5:49 Motion Sequence Bass Line
10:00 Melodies?
13:00 Fun with FX
17:32 Conclusion
18:06 Outro