To Volca or not?

[Doctor Carrot]

So after ten years or so not producing anything I've kind of got the bug again. I never used to do much anyway, was more pissing about on Reason circa 2005 and even then I only produced with a mouse and drawing stuff in. The best I did was win the music contest on here one month . Anyway, I'd like to mess around with it again.

I don't really wanna get too serious with it. At the moment I'd like to just mess around with samples and make on the fly stuff that I can maybe do a set with at a mate's bbq that incorporates entire songs as well. In the future I'd also like to make some synth based sound track type stuff, think the soundtrack for It Follows and records put out by the Italians Do It Better label.

I've seen and heard the volcas on youtube and I really like what I've seen and heard. I'm leaning towards the sample and FM volcas as they seem more suited to what I wanna make and versatile enough to explore beyond that should I wish to. Volcas are also very much in my price range and they, most importantly, look like loads of fun to play with and very hands on. However, I'm very aware that since the last time I had a go at producing a whole world of apps have been released, in fact apps didn't really exist in any meaningful form when I did it last. I'm therefore wondering whether investing in a tablet and a midi controller might be a better option? Again, it would have to be the same sort of price range so an ipad isn't really possible. I'm guessing I'd have to use some sort of DAW at some point if I wanna make tunes on the volcas which, presumeably, I can sequence them in. What's the least fuss free one of them you'd reccommend also? Cheers

 

[SpookyFrank]

I had a look at the volca drum machine because I wanted something more hands on than software but the range of sounds isn't great.

If you're gonna be using a DAW to cobble stuff together anyway I'd recommend getting a midi controller because IIRC the volca synths can only recieve midi signals but not send them to anything else.

 

[Doctor Carrot]

I had a look at the volca drum machine because I wanted something more hands on than software but the range of sounds isn't great.

If you're gonna be using a DAW to cobble stuff together anyway I'd recommend getting a midi controller because IIRC the volca synths can only recieve midi signals but not send them to anything else.

Yeah the Volca sample made the drum machine a bit redundent I think. I'm not sure I even will use a daw really, I've been looking at recording without a computer and seems it's not exactly impossible. I'd probably need to buy more kit but I'm in no rush to get it all now. I'm a terrible procrastinator and easily distracted and when I was producing on reason years ago I found myself just fucking around, playing the same loop overand over and being overwhelmed by the array of reverbs, elays etc available, more so when I started messing around with VSTs, glitch was particularly fun . I feel having hardware will restrict me in a good way and be less distracting, plus it gets me away from a damn screen all the time!

Anyway still just in the thinking about it mode at the moment. If I was to go the DAW route do you recommend any tablet and apps that aren't Apple? I can't really afford that now or do you reccommend just going the laptop route again and getting a DAW with controller, again any reccommendations? Cheers for your reply, SpookyFrank

 

[SpookyFrank]

I know what you mean about software being distracting, lately I've recording evrything using a loop pedal because it restricts what I'm able to do.

You could always try an open source DAW which will be free for one thing and less packed with bells and whistles for another.