KORG volca series

If this had been a late 70s BBC series, it would have been a Stylophone.

I signed on to do a solo drums & synth performance next month (along with a couple of other drummers), and I think I'm going to keep it simple and roll with just the Volca Keys, my old fave (and an old Tascam digital 4 track to play samples).

I explored the sequencer for the very first time to record some loops, and it's very cool but also pretty touchy and wonky. But you can put down a bassline and another part, and then I can get a lot of tweaky mileage just from adjusting the cutoff, delay, and tempo. That's about all I can handle live, while also playing drums.

I saw Russ Gabriel doing a live set at a festival with 3 Volca’s about 5 years ago, and it was as the equal (if not better) than the other people playing sets that weekend with gear many times the price. It helped that he played to the strength of the machines - loopy techno with lots of live tweaking.