I knew the unit didn’t sample on its own, but I didn’t know it was iOS only. That’s pretty stupid. They should have at least given you a way to just connect usb to a windows machine. I still think it’s a cool device, but I have no plans of ever getting an Apple product.
The KORG volca sample is a fun-looking sample “sequencer” – it can play back, modify, and mangle pre-recorded samples in a step sequencer. But it requires a dedicated iOS app to do the actual sampling.
That makes for a mixed bag, straight out of the gate. As KORG says:
“The new volca lets you recapture the excitement of the first generation of samplers, in which any sound — vocals, spoken words, ambient sound, or glitches — becomes material for your creations!”
– right, but then it leaves out one of the best things about those hardware samplers, namely – sampling.
With that disappointment out of the way, the volca sample otherwise is full of some cool ideas. Let’s have a look at what it can do.
The heart of the beast is the sound parameters, which you can then map to individual steps:
Sample select, start point, length, hi cut
Pitch: speed, envelope, attack, decay
Amplitude: level, pan, attack, decay
And you can motion-sequence each of these.
There’s also per-sample reverse and reverb, plus overall reverb mix and swing.
The “Analog Isolator” gives you bass and treble controls. (UK-style, that’s “Analogue Isolator” on the front panel.)
are partly responsible for this revival, but it’s cool… whatever the reason is.
Audio demo by 
