Quickstart Guide

Create a project for your samples

There are 100 sample slots on your Volca. A project is a directory with 100 more inside it. You create this structure like so:

$ ~/py3-vs/bin/volcasample project --new

Creating project tree at ~/volcasamples

.......................................................... OK.

You’ll see that the volcasamples directory contains others named 00, 01, and so on up to 99.

Populate the project with your sound files

Place into each numbered directory a maximum of one audio file. You can record samples yourself, or take them from disks or sites online.

They must be in uncompressed PCM .wav format. Data should be 16 or 24 bit, sampled at a rate of 44.1 or 48KHz.

Check how big those files are

The Volca Sample allows only 40MB of audio and a maximum of 65s total playback time. So it’s likely not every file in your project will fit at once.

Use the program to audition your project. First, we’ll get a report on the relative sizes of those samples:

$ ~/py3-vs/bin/volcasample audition --silent

Auditioning project at ~/volcasamples

0000000000111111111122.....6666666666777777777788888888889999999999
0123456789012345678901.....0123456789012345678901234567890123456789
.::.:::.:..:     :    .....       :Iiiii:iIIiiiiiiiIiiiIiiiiiiiiiii

The output is truncated here. The program outputs a symbol for each of the 100 samples in the project. The symbols are as follows:

Symbol Size Sound
space Zero There is no audio in this slot
. Tiny The audio is momentary
: Small The audio is a short tone or reverberation
i Medium The audio has some length, like a repeated beat
I Large A lengthy sample
# Full A sample so big it cannot fit the Volca even on its own

The three lines of output will be the basis of how we define the subset of samples to be sent to the Volca. So let’s save it to a file for later:

$ ~/py3-vs/bin/volcasample audition --silent > ~/volcasamples/patch.txt

Check how those files sound

The audition command in its normal form will play to us each sample in turn. We can repeat this command to decide which samples to include and which to leave out:

$ ~/py3-vs/bin/volcasample audition

Auditioning project at ~/volcasamples

0000000000111111111122.....6666666666777777777788888888889999999999
0123456789012345678901.....0123456789012345678901234567890123456789
.::.:::.:..:     :    .....       :Iiiii:iIIiiiiiiiIiiiIiiiiiiiiiii

The output is the same as before but as each symbol appears, the sample it relates to is played. This takes longer than the --silent version of the command.

Define which files to send

Use a text editor to open the file we created earlier, eg:

$ vim ~/volcasamples/patch.txt

In order to make sure that our favourite samples get sent to the Volca, we leave unchanged the symbols which sit in those slots. But we have two options for the slots whose samples we don’t have use for:

  • Leave that slot unchanged on the Volca because we don’t think it’s taking much space
  • Delete the sample in that slot to free up space for the ones we like

In your text editor, change the symbol to a space if you want to preserve the sound which the Volca stores in that slot. Change the symbol to an X to delete it:

0000000000111111111122.....6666666666777777777788888888889999999999
0123456789012345678901.....0123456789012345678901234567890123456789
.::.:::.:..:XXXXX:XXXX.....XXXXXXX:Iiiii:iIXiiiiiiiIXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Save the patch file again when you have finished.

Create a patch for the Volca device

Direct your edited patch file into the patch command:

$ ~/py3-vs/bin/volcasample patch --silent < ~/volcasamples/patch.txt

The program will create a volcasamples.wav file which you must play into your Volca’s sync input. Alternatively, you can omit the --silent flag and the patch pattern will play immediately.