Korg Forums

[CoffeeVolca]

Hey everyone, I'm desperate for somebody to help me understand how to get my Keystep and Volca's to play nice.

I'll try to be as concise as I can, however I am a complete novice with all of this, so please be considerate

I've set the Keystep to the Korg '1 pulse' setting in the MIDI Control Centre-
MIDI short message is set on the Volcas
Switches on the Keystep are set to 'internal' for clock.
The Keystep and Volcas are on same MIDI channel-1.

Now here are my issues I'm experiencing:

It will play notes through the Keystep, no worries there- although you cannot change the octave range via the Volca- it does adjust through the Keystep no problem.

The keyboard play function never works (shift+Oct+ button) so can't play over a sequence. The Mod ribbon also produces no effect.

Arpeggiator mode on the Keystep doesn't result in any change.

However, this isn't the main issue. When I press record to create a sequence, I will press play and the sound that is produced (tempo, rhythm etc) does not match what I played.

This is compounded further, when I stop the sequence and try to play a note again, the sound produced (same on Keys and Bass) is best described as extremely short in duration and the sound produced is muted.

This remains regardless of what I try to do such as record a new sequence, until I turn the Volca off and on again.

I'd really appreciate anyone's help with this; I've seen so many people rave about the Keystep and the Volcas, and used flawlessly in producing sequences- so I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong .

[megamarkd]

Hi CoffeeVolca and Welcome!

I think there may still be a bug with keyboard play on the KeyStep but I don't remember exactly.

Regarding using the Sync In socket. There are actually two standards for clock sync on the Volcas; 1pulse-per-step and 2pulses-per-step. I've not clocked my Volcas using my KeyStep for awhile and can't remember which configuration I used, but I have done it.
Go into the global menu on your Volca as you would for enabling MIDI Short Messages and check the LED status of step 8. That is the clock sync setting. On is 1pulse-per-step and off is 2pulses (default). Have a play with that and the two settings for the KeyStep and you should find the winning combo. Make sure that you whatever setting you end up on for your Volca you are running the KeyStep to is also what you set your second Volca to.

I'm not sure of any of the other issues, I only run the percussion Volcas so I only really know about synchronising them.
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Stuff I'm using: Umm right now, well there's a Volca Drum, a Micro Freak, an ADX-1, a Pulse, a Blofeld, a UNO Drum, KeyStep/Beatstep Pro/Keystep Pro (one of each), a Circuit, a LiveTrak L-12 and this nonsense: The Brief-case as it was about a bit over a year ago (the the complete ridiculous GAS monster collection here)and here

[CoffeeVolca]

Thank you so much for replying megamarkd!

I'll give these a try this week and see what happens. Ahh, didn't know about the bug with the mode, so will do some reading.

Expect a reply with my findings.

[CoffeeVolca]

I've managed to get some success with the arpeggiator now working whilst the Keys is in play mode, and discovered that if the sound cuts after stopping a sequence it can be sorted by adjusting the sustain switch on the Volca to re-engage.

Still no Keyboard play functionality and no ability to sequence create from the Keystep record function, only from the Volca record.

However, it's steps in the right direction Thanks for the initial help again megamarkd, I'm a little less frustrated.