Best for: budding beatmakers
Here, we’re going off-piste for an instrument designed to scratch a different percussive itch. Rather than being an electronic drum kit with pads and tactility, here we have a drum machine – a programmable beat factory with an entirely different toolset and interface, and with some fun functionality as a result.
Drum machines like the Roland TR-808 were initially designed as at-home accompaniments for practicing musicians, but were ‘misused’ into notoriety by early hip-hop and electronica pioneers. Korg’s Volca Beats is a compact unit that trucks in this same tradition, utilising a unique mix of analogue synthesis and digital samples to provide ten tweakable sounds which can be played, sequenced, looped and otherwise affected to your heart’s content. Six core drum sounds – including kick, snare, toms and hi-hats – are produced via analogue synthesis, imbuing them with warmth, life and versatility that is practically impossible to find in conventional electronic drum set samples.
Each analogue voice has parameters for you to fiddle with, enabling you to dramatically change the timbre of each sound. Four further sounds are digitally sampled, but their character can be changed by adjusting the speed at which they play (giving you access to downpitched, bit-crushed sounds to elevate your beats). There’s a sixteen-step sequencer for programming drum loops, and eight memory banks for saving your work.
The Volca Beats is functionally rich beyond these basic sounds and functions, too, with a stutter effect which can be applied to individual drums or the whole loop – and a ‘motion record’ feature which allows you to record changes to parameters into your beat. What’s more, the Volca Beats squeezes all of this into a plastic case barely the size of a VHS tape. Between this and its internal 9V battery clip, the Volca Beats becomes one of the most portable drum machines you’ll ever meet.
It might not meet the criteria for drummers looking to hone their practice, but it is an extremely accessible entry point for people looking to experiment with beat-making outside of their computer – and could be a gateway instrument to an exciting new world of analogue synths and electronic music production.
