With this post I want to share my wonderful new KORG volca studio with you. The plan was to build the ultimative and cleanest KORG volca studio I can dream of. A little „bedroom producer“ studio with that I can feel totally comfortable and where I just can make and live music
The second thing that was really important to me, is to have all that thoughtful arranged to get that perfect workflow and keeping this workflow alive Before I will write all the details I really want to show you a picture of my little studio, so here it is:
But one after the other. At first I want to answer the maybe upcoming question why I do all that and in this way
For this answer I need to tell you a bit about myself and “my way” first. So like for I think everyone in this forum music is my life! I play drums since I’m 5 years old and played drums live on stage in many clubs and on many events as a solo artist for more than 5 years. Many years ago the DAW FL Studio crosses my way and since the beginning I felt very comfortable with it So I watched many many tutorials and got input from some producer friends in that time. Round about 1,5 years ago I was ready, so I quit my normal dayjob and produce music as my “normal job”. Music for imagevideos, cinemaspots, audiobrandings etc. Everything with FL Studio and in a studio that is 20 minutes of walking away from home. There I work with Komplete Kontrol and many VST’s like ANA2, Nexus2 and many many Kontakt plugins. Seriously I totally love my job and every day is a new challenge. For example producing a 17 minute long background music till tomorrow 2pm. Everything must work and with all these VST’s it’s perfect to get to the finish line. Don’t get me wrong that is awesome but also exactly this was my problem. I loooove to make music and to work in that way but I also want to live music and enjoy making it as much as I can. I want to perceive music production even more consciously. I want to just jam around and feel the energy 
In all these years I really kept an eye on the KORG volca family. Turn real knobs, press real buttons, understand the synthesizer thing and simply expand my musical horizon.What I wanted is a small studio less than 10 meters away from my bed. A small setup that also allows me to play a melody that suddenly shooting through my head on Wednesday night at 3:40 am and capture it. After many Youtube videos it was clear that I definitely needed KORG volcas (thanks to "Spuckfunkel" at this point!: D). So I bought four KORG volcas (keys, bass, fm and beats) and immediately started to make music with them. Wonderful! That was exactly what I was looking for! So unbelievably great little machines! However, the jamming with volcas lying flat on the table annoyed me and so I looked for suitable stands. However, I did not like the wooden stands you get from eBay & Co. And the 4 volca racks at for example Thomann Store somehow didn't match my idea of arranging the volcas around me, so I looked for tablet holders for the desk ... damn not good ... I‘ve tried but it looked so stupid ... a few days later, when I was in front of my Macbook, I got the idea with the laptop stands. I think I tried ten different laptop stands until I came across Elekin laptop stands. They fit perfectly and also look great not to mention the price which, unlike most volca racks, is super cheap. I then sketched the rough idea for the complete set-up and drove a few hundred kilometers to the Thomann music store with a very good friend of mine.
I had a thousand questions like "How do I control all volcas with midi?", "What is my midiclock?", "How do I record everything?" etc. ... The colleagues at the store gave me great advice, but somehow they did just smiled a bit and doesn’t understand my drawings (I understand fully:D Felt a bit like Dr. Emmet Brown from Back to the Future hihi) ... However, one of the employees in the store studio department loved the idea of the whole project and helped me sooo much! Thank you so much for this!
With all kinds of equipment I bought that day, I put everything on the table in front of me and tried for hours and hours. What should be where and what makes sense? At some point I noticed that the laptop stands gave in a little and that the volcas slipped over time and especially after a jam session. So I put all volcas away and fix the laptop stands in the desired position with 2-component glue:
But why the hell so many cables? Sync in, sync out, power supply and all the multiplied with the number of volcas ... the whole thing would not be as clean as planned and there was only one solution for me: D As soon as it was clear what would be exactly where, I started to implement Level 2 of my plan, so to speak: D
After drilling 5 big holes into my table, I was able to lay all the cables down. As you can see in the picture, the volca family also getting a bit bigger
With every idea I had and every added part the huge cable salad under the table grew... Meanwhile I no longer counted how often I had clicked on the „buy now“ button in the Thomann online store
Now new problems: All the different power supplies and extension cables produce all sorts of humming sound noises in my audio signal ... So I bought 6 ground loop isolators to somehow get the problem under control. In addition, there were also angled jack cables, because I also planned to lead the cables of the effect devices down, too.
When everything on the top of the table was working as it should, I contacted the company myVolts with my project. They helped me so much and the solution was two power supplies with splitters and the possibility to connect 5 volcas to a single power supply. Maybe here is another upcoming question: why I didn't do everything with just two power supplies and the two volca mix in my set ... the volca mix cables are unfortunately very short and strangely I had even more humming sound with them in my audio signal. I know, that many volcas with batteries are less noisy than with a power supply, but running this set with batteries ... nononono
Well, at least I ordered everything from myVolts to finally eliminate the chaos under the table. I bridged the waiting for the upcoming delivery by attaching the LED lighting and the final power strip.When the delivery finally arrived, I was ready to go: D I also ordered the mickXer from myVolts. This bundles the audio signal from both volca mix + DAW Macbook pro. The thing is so awesome and also has a noise filter!
As you can see in the picture below, I really tried to do everything as clean as possible and spent a lot of hours wiring up the cables. The 4-way midi-through box also found its new place under the Macbook.
But still missing was the possibility to record the audio. This is now done with the help of the Behringer U-Control Audio USB interface. As you can see in the following pictures, I have also integrated three Logitech C920 HD Pro webcams into the set. There were all sorts of new problems to overcome, as the USB power supply was not sufficient for all the stuff + 3 USB webcams ... Unfortunately, the Macbook has only four free USB C inputs / outputs and one of them is used to load the Macbook itself, so only three remained. However, they are not enough for the cameras + midi keyboards ... After hours of try and error I found the simple solution: USB hubs with external power supply. I also integrated these into the set
As you can see I attached the cams to my right and left with flexible camera arms and the third one directly above me on the ceiling.
I think many are wondering why the hell I don't just record the whole thing with three cameras that are not connected to the set ... of course, would be an option, but after a music session I would have to load the video material onto the Mac first, then synchronize the recorded sound and cut the whole thing with Premiere Pro. I'm good in Premiere no question, but actually I want to make music and still produce good content for YouTube. By the way, I use the OBS software for this. Now I can record all three cams + sound with one click and concentrate fully on the music
Now we come to the point where I want to list up all the specs:
To my left KORG volca fm, bass and keys. Let’s call this the volca melody side. The three volcas all end up in the left volca mix. Here is also a ZOOM MS-70CDR effects pedal. On my right the volca rhythm side. KORG volca sample, kick and beats. These three land in the volca mix on my right. Here everything ends in a second MS-70CDR, too. The two MS-70CDRs unfortunately brought me a horrible humming noise in the audio line again because of USB power supplies ... But here, the myVolts colleagues were able to help me and so I was able to use the 5th connection of the splitter. As a MIDI keyboard I use the Arturia Keystep, which controls the midi splitter volca fm, bass, keys and kick shown earlier. The midi clock is the right volca mix on which all other volcas (apart from the second mix, of course ...) are synced in a midi chain. My 2018 Macbook Pro is in the middle above the keystep. This is where the Akai MPK mini Mark 2 is located. I use it to control the Mac and FL Studio. In the middle in front of the keystep is the Apple Magic Keyboard. on the far right of the right volca mix is the Magic Mouse and on the far left of the left volca mix is a volume control for the speakers. Here I would like to optimize and invest a little more in the future, but otherwise I am really absolutely satisfied with my small studio. After all the countless hours I am so happy that everything works! The first four videos are already online and the feedback on youtube (and hopefully here in the forum hihi) is really great! I am so happy to share the whole set, the videos and of course the music with you! This possibility and the great feedback really means the world to me !!! Thank you! I am also extremely proud that even KORG & MORE shared my set on their german Korg.de Facebook page and also sent me a very cool T-shirt. I really didn't expect that! Just wow! Thank you so much!!!
You can find the music videos here: https://www.youtube.com/ygravity. I will be so happy if you check them out
Here are the direct links to the videos:
Video 1: https://youtu.be/8Gc-Obi8Z6Y
Video 2: https://youtu.be/5t40xEFtZmI
Video 3: https://youtu.be/v2GV1u-Ihb4
Video 4: https://youtu.be/mohZEaShhYQ
And yeah! Many many more videos coming soon
By the way, what you see and hear is really all recorded live and not edited afterwards. And for all those who are surprised and think that the "YGRAVITY exclusive mix" voice is somehow familiar:
Many thanks at this point to Claudia Urbschat-Mingues (Angelina Jolie's German voice) for the great YGRAVITY intro vocals. I get goosebumps every time I hear your great voice in my music
Now we have arrived at the end of my post
Thank you very much for reading and I am looking forward to your answers Greetings and sorry for the bad english
Jules | YGRAVITY
PS: And for all those who are wondering what YGRAVITY means ... here is the explanation:
What does "YGRAVITY" mean? The question is WHY GRAVITY? If you have a dream don´t let anything or anyone stop you! Not even from the GRAVITY! Never give up because you are so worth it! That's what "YGRAVITY" means
