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Volca FM and velocity
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totalcult



Joined: 08 Jan 2016
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Mon Apr 04, 2016 7:08 am    Post subject: Volca FM and velocity Reply with quote

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.
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volcafmquestion



Joined: 03 Apr 2016
Posts: 7

PostPosted: Mon Apr 04, 2016 8:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.)
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totalcult



Joined: 08 Jan 2016
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Mon Apr 04, 2016 10:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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

Thanks.
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kjw



Joined: 15 Apr 2016
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 11:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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akozlov



Joined: 04 Dec 2015
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 9:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

kjw wrote:

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


The Velocity slider (and corresponding MIDI CC 41) definitely does *not* affect sounding notes, only the next ones.
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zombieman



Joined: 26 Apr 2016
Posts: 1

PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 2:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.


Last edited by zombieman on Sun May 08, 2016 7:24 am; edited 1 time in total
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JoyrexJ9



Joined: 12 Jan 2015
Posts: 28

PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 11:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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Dragan
Full Member


Joined: 03 Nov 2015
Posts: 103
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia

PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 12:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

JoyrexJ9 wrote:
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.


I don't think this is accidental, Korg is very much detail oriented brand, so it must be hardware/software limit. That velocity slider over there is not accidental either. I woudn't hope for a firmware update that can fix it.
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OpAmp
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Joined: 07 Jun 2013
Posts: 1173
Location: Brussels, BE

PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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kjw



Joined: 15 Apr 2016
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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JiggyWig



Joined: 28 Mar 2016
Posts: 15

PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 10:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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?
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kjw



Joined: 15 Apr 2016
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2016 9:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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
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totalcult



Joined: 08 Jan 2016
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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!
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jreign



Joined: 15 Apr 2016
Posts: 24

PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 8:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Glad Retrokits made a firmware rather than a whole new cable for the FM. Got this cable last week.
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hztirf



Joined: 30 Oct 2015
Posts: 18

PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 12:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jreign wrote:
Glad Retrokits made a firmware rather than a whole new cable for the FM. Got this cable last week.


+1
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