Korg Forums

[totalcult]

Hi all,

I read on another forum that the Volca FM doesn't respond to velocity - can anyone here confirm / deny this? Seems like a bit of an oversight if it's true.

[volcafmquestion]

It does and it doesn't.

It completely ignores (as far as I can tell) any velocity information sent as part of a NOTE ON message. So whether you send "90 4B 10" or "90 4B 7F", the velocity will be exactly the same. Since the NOTE ON message is where velocity-sensitive keyboards send velocity information, the velocity of a given keypress doesn't get through to the Volca FM.

But it does respond to the VELOCITY specification in the MIDI implementation chart. So if you send "B0 29 10", the velocity is set to $10 and subsequent notes you play become very quiet; if you send "B0 29 7F", the velocity is set to $7F and notes become very loud.

(This basically reproduces the physical velocity slider - set and forget, rather than receiving velocity input along with each keypress. So maybe it's by design, part of the instrument's character, and won't be fixed. It would have been nice to at least be able to turn it on/off as a secret startup setting though.)

[totalcult]

That's a great answer - much more comprehensive explanation than I'd read elsewhere.

Thanks.

[kjw]

I was thinking about getting a few Volca FMs so I asked Korg UK about this and they said there are no current plans to change this frustrating MIDI behaviour.

Does the slider definitely not affect existing notes too? I've not had a chance to play with one so far.

[akozlov]

[zombieman]

I imagine there are things that could be done.

MIDI Solutions make a product Event Processor (and a plus version) that I think would be able to map the note on velocity to a control change and send the note on afterwards, for example. Bit pricey though, but is a useful "swiss army knife" MIDI utility box.

Also I know there are iOS apps that can filter and remap events which might or might not work (e.g. MidiBridge and Midiflow). I'm not 100% sure though - for example, MidiBridge's Stream Byter can "clone" a message (and remap on the clone), but the original goes first, which is the wrong order for what would be needed here.

Someone will I'm sure find a solution before too long if Korg don't fix it in a firmware update.

[JoyrexJ9]

Can't decide if this was:
- An accidental bug
- Deliberate design decision
- A hardware/software limitation within the Volca FM they couldn't get around

I'm baffled as to why it was designed this way, so I'm hoping it'll be fixed in a later firmware, but if it's a hardware limitation - we're stuck with it.

[Dragan]

[OpAmp]

Hi,

According to me it is a design choice. The DX7 engines is (very) sensitive to velocity and the Volca is intended to be compatible to some extent. Anyway, almost all keyboards are velocity sensitive. But, the volca has no real keyboard, it is more like a series of buttons, and thus no velocity information available. So enter the velocity slider.

A possible way to implement this in SW is to have MIDI driven sound engine and a microcontroller scanning the different knobs, buttons, sliders and map these to MIDI message for the sound engine. This gives a clear split in sound engine and control.
The buttons you easily map them to Note On/Off events (with fixed velocity). The slider, you map it to a custom velocity CC message. And you expose this MIDI API also on the physical MIDI DIN interface. There you go.

So, I think, with a rather simple SW update, it should be possible to combine the velocity slider position into the velocity field of the Note On messages generated by the buttons. This makes the velocity CC obsolete and gives nice support for external MIDI keyboards.

Let's hope that Korg implement this in a SW update, because this is really a shortcoming of the Volca FM...

Bye.
_________________
microKORGXL, Kaossilator Pro, monotribe, SQ-1, volca fm, Kross 88 BK
Alesis SR18, Akai Miniak, Fender Strat, Line 6 Spider II 112, Zoom MS-50G

[kjw]

Nick Batt of sonicstate also disappointed by velocity over midi on otherwise awesome Volcanic FM, 03:30 and 17:27,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySj-bSy2zgw

I'm going to hold off purchase and hope they address this.

[JiggyWig]

If you're hooked up to a Mac you could use MIDIpipe to change each note message to cc41+note sequences. From everything I've heard that would seem likely to work. Still waiting on my FM to be shipped, so I can't say for sure, but that's the first "solution" I'm going to try.

I understand the decision to have the slider since the keys are not velocity sensitive, but I would have thought they could have accepted MIDI velocity input, then they could have had the velocity slider be a sensitivity control instead. That would have given them best of both worlds surely?

[kjw]

Bit tedious having a computer on just for this, but a useful guide on using pizmidi to deal with the Volca FM velocity bug:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC-T3ec41Y4

[totalcult]

Aaaand, those clever folks at Retrokits have created a firmware variation for their "intelligent MIDI cable" that solves this issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhG2nlbwFv0

Nice!

[jreign]

Glad Retrokits made a firmware rather than a whole new cable for the FM. Got this cable last week.
_________________
Korg Gear: Electribe Sampler, Volca FM/Sample/Bass/Keys/Beats, Monotribe

Non-Korg: OP-1, PO-12/20/28

[hztirf]