Over the weekend, we shared information about a mod reader Darren Glen identified for the Korg Volca Beats. He noticed that there was an empty spot on the Volca Beats’ circuit board, and that modding the board by placing a capacitor in the empty spot resulted in a ‘crisper’ snare sound. Because of this, Glen speculated that the part may might have been left off by mistake during manufacturing.

We spoke with Korg about the board design and they confirmed that the Volca Beats is shipping as designed. “This was a purposeful design decision which gave us flexibility during voicing, and while that position does indeed exist on the board, it was not intended to be filled in the final production version.”

They added that “Tens of thousands of current Volca Beats owners have been pretty happy with what they bought.”

This highlights something very interesting about Korg’s recent analog instruments.

Korg wants their instruments to have their own sound. So, whether you like the snare sound on the Volca Beats or not, the drum machine ships sounding the way Korg intends it to.

But, unlike most instruments these days, if you don’t like the snare sound, or if you want to tweak the kick sound, or if you want to add individual audio outputs for each sound – Korg’s design makes these easy to mod. Continue reading →