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Volca Keys MIDI Out Mod – step by step

Adding MIDI OUT capability to the Volca Keys means an already great little (and cheap)
instrument can also be a really hand tiny MIDI controller and sequencer, so you can use the
Volca sequencing to control any sounds you like.

There is a bit of information about this easy modification online but not much that relates
specifically to the Volca Keys rather than the Bass or Beats. The electronics involved are really
simple, the more complicated bit is making a midi socket actually fit somewhere on this compact
little case!

Here’s a video showing my modded Volca Keys controlling Logic’s EXS 24 Sampler Instrument
– but you could use it to control any MIDI controllable hardware or software. In this case the
sampler is playing samples of my vibraphone. You can see me use MIDI Monitor to show the
incoming MIDI messages from the Volca Keys – this is a really useful free program.

See below for how to do the mod yourself.

Volca Keys with MIDI OUT mod - step by step instr…

instr…
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What you need:

a 5 pin MIDI DIN socket (such as this one)

some wire
a drill to make the holes in the front panel and preferably a step drill bit
two small nuts and bolts to hold the MIDI socket in place
a needle file, small screwdriver, soldering iron, solder…
some heatshrink tubing if you like

Remove the batteries and unscrew the three countersunk screws across the top, the three
across the bottom and the one in the middle. They’re marked in this photo with yellow circles:

Now carefully open the Volca Keys as the four wires connecting the batteries and the speaker to
the PCB are a bit fragile. Don’t worry if you do break them from the PCB though – I did this a
couple of times and it’s easy to reflow the solder and stick the wires back in. It will look like this:
Now we can see the three points that we need to connect to a 5 pin MIDI DIN Socket – just
underneath the brown and orange wires you can see points marked TX, VD and GND.

Use a flathead screw driver or something similar to tease the white plug all those brown wires
are going into out of the white socket and unscrew all the screws on this PCB marked with a
white circle.

Remove the mode and footage/octave selector knobs from the front panel and the PCB should
come apart from the front now.

I want to put my MIDI out socket next to the MIDI in socket but there is limited room between the
panel and the PCB to squeeze it in so I’ve made a spacer using an old plectrum, it’s about 1mm
thick. I drilled three holes for the MIDI socket in it and trimmed the outer edge. It would be easier
to just use a washer or spacer, I think 16mm would fit around the DIN socket, but I couldn’t find
one lying around so knocked this up. You could use anything, you just need to raise the socket
slightly up above the front panel.
Next I marked and drilled the large hole in the top panel for the MIDI socket. I used a step drill
bit – these are REALLY handy for making holes like this, check them out here. I think the hole is
about 16mm but with step drill bits you can just keep going until you get to the right size – very
useful as it saves having loads of slightly different sized bits.

Next I filed down that raised plastic lip to make room for the two holes for the nuts and bolts that
hold the midi socket in place, then drilled the two holes, fixed the socket in place and bent all the
legs slightly – again just to make it fit between the front panel and the PCB once we put this
thing back together.

Cut three lengths of wire to go from this socket to the points on the PCB we saw earlier. I used
this 0.6mm solid core wire because you can bend it and it will stay in place, which makes
soldering the connections easier. I also used heatshrink tubing over the connections, partly to
make sure we don’t get any short circuits but mostly to appear professional in this blog post. The
lengths of wire need to be about 15-20cm long I think – best to give a bit of extra length so
things are easier if you want to open the Volca Keys up again in the future. I’ve labelled which
wire will go to which connection on the PCB below:
Now slip this back into the front panel and put back all the screws in the holes marked with white
circles. You need to remember which of the three wires is attached to which of the three legs on
the MIDI socket. You could use different coloured wires or mark the loose ends of the wires.

Now solder the three wires to the three points we identified earlier and tuck the excess wires
underneath so they don’t get in the way in between the keyboard and the battery compartment
when we put this back together.

Put the whole thing back together and put those seven countersunk screws back in place. Put
the two knobs back on the pots on the front – put batteries in or connect a power supply and
test!

It sends MIDI clock based on the tempo, and all the pots send MIDI CCs except for PEAK,
TEMPO and VOLUME. PLAY sends start and stop messages. Here’s a video with the pots
assigned to controlling the settings of the sampler instrument:

Korg Volca MIDI Out mod - knobs assigned to CCs

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And here’s a handy image and a reference table for what MIDI Control Changes the different
knobs send with the decimal numbers and standard names:

Mode selector 40 / Balance (fine) / the six positions are 11, 33, 55, 77, 99 and 121

Footage / octave 41 / Controller 41 / again the six positions are 11, 33, 55, 77, 99 and
selector 121

VCO DETUNE 42 / Pan (fine)

VCO PORTAMENTO 5 / Portamento time (coarse)

VCO EG INT 43 / Expression (fine)

VCF CUTOFF 44 / Effect control 1 (fine)

VCF PEAK None

VCF EG INT 45 / Effect control 2 (fine)

LFO RATE 46 / Controller 46

LFO PITCH INT 47 / Controller 46

LFO CUTOFF INT 48 / General purpose 1 (fine)

EG ATTACK 49 / General purpose 2 (fine)

EG DECAY / RELEASE 50 / General purpose 3 (fine)

EG SUSTAIN 51 / General purpose 4 (fine)

DELAY TIME 52 / Controller 52

DELAY FEEDBACK 53 / Controller 53

TEMPO Doesn’t send a CC but changes MIDI CLOCK speed

VOLUME None
Posted on April 4, 2015. Posted in blog | Tagged korg, midi, midi out, mod, volca, volca keys

How to use a Yamaha DD-5 to trigger a Korg Volca Beats

There are lots of old Yamaha DD-5 drum machines available very cheaply. I just had a quick
look on eBay and there are four of five all for around £20-30. We actually got this one for free as
my girlfriend works in a music shop, someone tried to sell it to them but since it has no resale
value they didn’t purchase it. At the end of a fruitless day trying to sell it to other music shops, he
came back and gave it to them because it wasn’t even worth him carrying it home!

They’re essentially cheap toys. The sounds are bad but they do have some retro charm. The
potentially useful thing about them is that they do have a midi output, which made me wonder if I
could use it as a set of midi drum pads to trigger a decent sounding drum machine such as the
Korg Volca Beats.

By default the pads send the notes A1, E2, A2 and D#3 which is not much use. It is possible to
change these notes (read how in the manual here) but it’s a bit fiddly since there is no screen.
This was the first thing I tried and I got it working, however I was disappointed to find that when
you turn the DD5 off and on again all these changes are lost, so it’s a bit of a waste of time.

So the next obvious thing to try is to remap the midi notes it sends using Logic. This way when
the DD5 sends A1, I can convert it to C1 so it triggers the kick sound on the Volca.

Instructions on how to do this are below, or if you prefer you can just download my
working Logic Project file here and play around with it.
Obviously first you need to connect the MIDI OUT of the DD5 to the midi input of your
soundcard/interface and the MIDI IN of the Volca to the output.

First step was to check/set the midi channel on the DD-5 which is not too complicated. Hold
down PAD ASSIGN and press TEMPO UP/DOWN to change it or press TEMPO UP and DOWN
at the same time to set it to 1. (Since there’s no screen I use Midi Monitor to check what’s going
on). I set it to 1 for simplicity. Then I set the Korg Volca Beats to receive on channel 1 too – hold
down MEMORY while the Volca is turned off and then turn it on and you will see the channel
displayed on the screen. Select channel 1 by pressing Kick then press play and record at the
same time to save.

Then in Logic create a new Software Instrument track and choose ‘External Instrument’ as the
plugin. (Important: dont create an External Instrument track as you can’t use MIDI FX such as
ChordTrig on them.) For MIDI Destination select your soundcard, for MIDI channel select 1 and
for input select 1. Then on the track between the External Instrument plugin and the EQ you’ll
see ‘MIDI FX’. Click this and choose ChordTrig. Select Multi, double click Clear to get rid of any
default mapping. Then Click learn. Now for each note from the DD-5 (A1, E2, A2 and D#3) you
need to select it on the top keyboard then choose a note to map it to on the lower keyboard. To
map them to the Korg Volca Beats Kick, Handclap, High Tom and Closed Hats sounds I use
A1>C1 , E2>D#1 , A2>D2 and D#3>F#1. Unclick learn and close ChordTrig. Now try hitting your
DD5 – hopefully it’ll be triggering the Korg!

If you want to link the DD5 pads to other Volca sounds, here is a full list of the Korg Volca Beats
midi notes and numbers:

KICK C1 36

SNARE D1 38

CLAP D#1 39

CLOSED HAT F#1 42

LO TOM G1 43

OPEN HAT A#1 46

CRASH C#2 49

HI TOM D2 50

AGOGO G3 67

CLAVES D#4 75

Of course you could use this method to trigger any synth or drum machine software instrument
on Logic or any external synth or drum machine that receives midi.
If you use Reason rather than Logic, this blog shows you how to do the same thing.

Posted on December 31, 2014. Posted in tutorial | Tagged beats, dd5, drum machine, korg, midi, volca, yamaha

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