Korg volca sample (original generation)

Korg announced the original volca sample in September 2014, with Japanese availability planned for late October. It established a portable sample-based branch of the volca family, later followed by the separately designed sample2.

Sources (14)

Source-led exhibition chapter

Korg volca sample — a small box for sounds gathered elsewhere

KORG / 2014 PRELIMINARY SHEETSOUNDS GATHERED ELSEWHERE

Explore the way samples become a pattern.

The original volca sample was a sample sequencer, not a recorder: sounds arrived from elsewhere, then became material for sixteen illuminated steps, ten parts and a performance surface.

The sound arrives before the performance

Korg’s original product material routes sampling through its iOS app rather than a microphone or line input. The first model has no direct audio capture: collect sound elsewhere, load it, then work with it in the box. That boundary distinguishes it from the later sample2 and its USB transfer.

A beat you can interrupt

Active Step, Step Jump and swing make the sixteen positions visible performance controls. A sample can be shortened, repitched, reversed, panned and moved through an envelope; motion sequencing records changing control decisions. This is a silent explanatory account, not a factory-pattern or audio reconstruction.

The transfer became an opening

Korg’s SYRO library documents a later developer route: samples and patterns encoded as an audio signal and received through SYNC IN. The Museum links that path without running a transfer or asking a visitor to play a data signal.

One album, handed over as parts

The 2015 OK GO edition supplied a curated set of 100 sounds from Hungry Ghosts. Its product imagery and audio remain links rather than local Museum media. Moe Shop’s later account keeps the generations distinct: long use of the original belongs here; his sample2 demonstration remains with the successor.

The complete original dossier, source register, visual archive, recording evidence and related routes remain below.

The machine in the record

Moe Shop / a working Volca Sample.

Moe Shop explicitly acknowledges using the original Volca Sample. It is a concise artist association rather than a named-song claim, but it gives the little sampler a credible place in a producer’s bright, detailed electronic palette.

Read Moe Shop Interview ↗

More records in the archive

The machine keeps turning up.

Moe Shop in Korg’s volca sample artist feature. — Moe Shop in Korg’s volca sample feature. The portrait accompanies the artist’s demonstration account; it does not show either volca sample model or a recording session.

Moe Shop / a volca sample demonstration

Moe Shop describes using his original volca sample to make a collaborative demo track from start to finish.

Read Moe Shop and the original volca sample ↗

01 // The original volca sample: a 2014 pocket sampler built around imported sounds, motion and compact song construction.

A Volca that started with other people’s sounds

The original volca sample made imported audio the centre of the small Volca format. It did not record sounds itself; players prepared material elsewhere, loaded it through Korg’s app and then treated the box as an immediate rhythm and pattern instrument. That boundary matters when the original is read beside the later sample2: transfer and playback are the original model’s documented identity, not direct sampling.

Sources (2)

02 // The original volca sample: a 2014 pocket sampler built around imported sounds, motion and compact song construction.

Small memory, wide possibilities

Ten sequences, six songs, motion recording and a sixteen-step pattern surface gave the original its distinctive working rhythm. Reverse playback, sample shaping and external sync let a player make a modest sound bank move surprisingly far from its starting point.

Sources (2)

03 // The original volca sample: a 2014 pocket sampler built around imported sounds, motion and compact song construction.

A developer-friendly afterlife

Korg opened the SYRO library in November 2014, inviting developers to make transfer tools beyond the original iOS app. Later firmware added AudioPocket loading, sample deletion and MIDI corrections, giving the small machine a longer life than its first transfer workflow suggested.

Sources (4)

04 // The original volca sample: a 2014 pocket sampler built around imported sounds, motion and compact song construction.

An album became a sound kit

The OK GO edition filled the volca sample with one hundred sounds from Hungry Ghosts, designed to let listeners reshape the band’s material. Moe Shop later discussed using the original model before demonstrating its successor. Those accounts show the first volca sample as a machine for carrying sounds into a new context.

Sources (3)

MUSIC HISTORY

On record

Moe Shop. Earlier original-model use explicitly acknowledged. Source ↗
Moe Shop — a volca sample demonstration. Moe Shop describes using his original volca sample to make a collaborative demo track from start to finish. Source ↗

Sources

The visual archive

Further visual evidence.

Sources for images shown earlier (2)

Additional visual sources (3)

Original publications and related image sources.

OK GO edition front, slant and rear views; certificate image ↗
Undated page · Korg product imagery · Product gallery and signed-card section
volca sample owner manual 2/2 ↗
Undated edition · Korg Inc. · PDF1, English operating panel and control diagram