Volca Keys Sustain Issue, Faulty unit?

[Punkmati]

Hi I'm a new owner of a Volca Keys. I purchased in second hand a few days ago and some issue I found it's making me nuts . I'm a real newbie in the synth world.

Let me explain what it's happening. It something when the "Sustain" parameter is touched.
Sometimes when you change it, it likes the sequence stops, in fact the sequence is not stopped but you don't hear anything, and when you hit a note or stop/starts, everything starts to sound again.
Basically I just sequence some notes and apply some filtering, nothing really tricky but when I touch the sustains this happens. Sometime you can hear like a "whisper" of the sequence, like really low volume and when you hit a note it starts to sound normal again. Also sometime you change "Sustain" and nothing happens, no effects in the sound, but if you stop/start again or hit a note, you can hear the Sustain applied to the sounds.
I realize that this only happens on Unison, Octave, Fifth and Unison Ring modes(I can't remember what happens on Poly Ring mode). If you use Poly mode, it just sounds fine. Please help me, because I have no idea if this is a expected behavior, and if it is, what you should do? not apply sustain on those modes?

I read something in a old topic but It is not enough to me, in my case it sound like a issue in my unit.
http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=88009

[Spheric El]

If you just touch the sustain control and everything stops does sound a bit alarming .Pots can be damaged on these cheap devices sure (and they will jump to different settings- like always off maybe).
First clear your seq pattern with function and step 16 (high G) "clear All".
Then record a few isolated notes with gaps in between.
turn attack fully anti clockwise.Do the same for decay.
now use your sustain to change the volume from low to high and see if it behaves properly and predictably.

For full patterns there is "Step Trigger" ,which is Function + High C. Turn this on so your envelope is triggered on every step, then play with attack,decay & sustain to familiarize yourself. This may help to discover if Sustain is behaving itself.

[Punkmati]

If you just touch the sustain control and everything stops does sound a bit alarming .Pots can be damaged on these cheap devices sure (and they will jump to different settings- like always off maybe).
First clear your seq pattern with function and step 16 (high G) "clear All".
Then record a few isolated notes with gaps in between.
turn attack fully anti clockwise.Do the same for decay.
now use your sustain to change the volume from low to high and see if it behaves properly and predictably.

For full patterns there is "Step Trigger" ,which is Function + High C. Turn this on so your envelope is triggered on every step, then play with attack,decay & sustain to familiarize yourself. This may help to discover if Sustain is behaving itself.

Thanks for your help. So I did what you told, and everything looks fine. In fact I cannot reproduce what happen to me before doing the steps you told me. After a while something strange happened but it difficult to explain, I create a dense pattern, really noisy and start to turn every knob full clockwise. Sounded like a overload, I dont know this type of devices can have an overload but start to behave strange, like it didn't care about any change I made.

I think I am gonna to keep it but there is something strange about it. What it worry me the most, it's that I don't have any experience with synths so it is difficult to me realize if it's sounding and behaving like it suppose to be or it is in "crazy mode". So I turn off leave it a few minutes and play the same, and sounded different. This happened after a few hours of playing and only one time, but it is really strange.

[forsh]

quite a fer problems is power issues, if the batterys are bad or the psu is bad then this can cause problems

volcas are cheap but built very good, they have a digital controls .controlling analogue sounds


the controls are good ,and my keys does a similar thing if everything is full on clockwise ,it sounds bad

but I don't use 100% full power foot bad clockwise


hope this cheers you up a bit


chris

[Spheric El]

It is a capable.synth and confuses often to many before now (me too).
Check that step trigger is on. Check you attack/ decay (is turned down ,ie short).And sometimes tempo synced delays can warp the signal. Check this is turner down (feedback) if in doubt.

[Punkmati]

Thank you both of you for your time and info. I ended up learning some things.