Purchased a Volca FM yesterday and, while it is clearly easier to program than my old DXs, there's still a hell of a lot of menu diving & cryptic LED display parameter names to get into the deeper parts of the synth.so I'm wondering if there's an iPad editor that somebody here would thoroughly recommend.Patch Base looks the best, from my initial searches. There's also a template for Lemur, but it looks ugly and cluttered, and I don't think it doubles as a librarian for dumping DX7 sysex files like PB does. Also, I read mention of a template somebody had made for TB MIDI Stuff, yet can't actually find it anywhere.Are there any other candidates I've not happened upon yet? Said:FYI Cuckoo shows off using Patch Base hereLooks cool & I'm considering getting it, but for the moment I've just been using Dexed on the desktop, or programming direct, it is kind of fiddly, but you can actually work quite quick when you get some familiarity with it.I have Dexed, and it's great.but I've long grown tired of using computer-based editors for my hardware synths. Might as well just be using plugins.and the mouse-clicking.Yeah, I was originally made aware of Patch Base from that Cuckoo vid.

1. Korg Pa Style Editor

It does seem like the best option, really. Said:Here's the for TB MIDI Stuff.Hmm.does this require the Missing Link hardware? Seems people can't get it to work without it.The Missing Link is built into TB Midi Stuff it's covered here on of their manual.I don't know if this would work for you, but if you already had TB MIDI Stuff or someone else had it and an FM Volca, it seems like it'd be worth a try to see if it worked or perhaps asking the developer of TB MIDI Stuff if it'd work for the Volca FM.

Editor/Librarian Software. When the Wavestation was released in 1990, personal computing was a different and more diverse world. This page lists all of the Wavestation editor and/or librarian software of which I'm aware, including many listings for older operating systems and programs which are no longer available - all the way up to Edisyn, which added Wavestation support in 2018.

The Missing Link is definitely send only in TB MIDI Stuff according to their manual and the Volca FM doesn't send out MIDI so bidirectional isn't an option. Said:Actually started to like the idea of Lemur for this. It's horrifically ugly, and I've no idea how easy it is to build custom controllers with, but there's a solid legacy behind it. And, if I can also use it to edit my microKorg, Wavestation, Octatrack & Blofeld again, that's a huge bonus. It might also mean I'm more inclined to grab some notoriously finick synths, such as the Miniak / Micron, Mopho or Tetra. Of course, I'll avoid if Liine have abandoned the app, so that needs looking into.The seems like it should be workable since it was specifically modified to work with the Volca FM which only uses bulk Sysex dumps rather than interactive Sysex according to the patch creator.

Korg Pa Style Editor

The Lemur app was last updated in December of last year and still works well. It will still work with the original iPad, how many app developers can say that about their offering? Thanks for the thread! My Volca FM will be arriving soon (hopefully - on backorder) and I was looking at Patch Base as a possible way to work with it.I actually have the Retrokits RK-002 cable that adds velocity ready to go.

Just need the darn Volca!Holy crap that video is 1 hour and 27 minutes? That's great - I'll have to sort through all of that when I have time.- You mentioned there is a delay when switching parameters. Do you just mean a lag time between the input on the iPad and the reflected change on the Volca FM? I'm not a live player so I could live with that, as long as you can save the changes you make as presets/patches and play them back.

Said:Anyone know if it's possible to strip out the velocity from note on messages and re-route to the CC for the velocity on the VFM, with any of the Midi control apps?Check out the app.Yes thanks, thought it may be possible via Midiflow or MidiBridge was wondering if anyone had tried, I'm really going to get a VolcaFM, but the lack of velocity was a silly omission IMO.Looking at MidiFlow does look you could do Controller Change - remap incoming note velocity to CC 41. I don't know MidiFlow well enough tho - maybe someone will chime in.

An edited version of this text also appears inSOUND ON SOUND magazine Vol.10 No.2 and 3. January 1995By Chris CarterMAKING THE MOST OF YOUR KORG WAVESTATION - PART ONE (and TWO)A CLASSIC IN IT'S OWN LIFETIME?There aren't many contemporary synth's that can be called classics, especially digital ones but I'm going to stick my neck out and state that personally I think that the Korg Wavestation - and in particular the A/D version - is one of those classic synths. Although the following article is intended for those of you who use a Wavestation A/D - or are going to - many of the techniques described can be applied to all versions.ON THE CREST OF A WAVEThe original Wavestation WS1 was released in 1990 for £1600 and broke with accepted tradition by not being a workstation but a dedicated synth without a drum kit or a regular on board sequencer. It arrived with a 61 note aftertouch sensitive keyboard, 32 oscillators and filters, 64 envelope generators and LFO's, 365 PCM waveforms, 2 multi-effects units and 24 bit processing. With 2 card slots for PCM, Program Data and RAM cards it was extremely well equipped. But this was no ordinary synth because as well as as the familiar synth+sample, PCM/oscillator-filter-amplifier engine it also used two systems known as vector synthesis and wave sequencing. These involve manipulating the raw PCM/oscillator sources with complex vector envelopes and wave tables to produce some very unique and extraordinary sounds and was said to be a programmers dream, well maybe.It has some exceptional on board ROM pre-sets that with just a couple of keys held down can sound like a complete demo tune rather than just a single instrument.

In fact the pre-sets were so good that it seemed like every TV show or ad composer was using a Wavestation. Those instantly recognisable pluck, chiff and chime wave sequences were everywhere and in that respect it had something in common with those classic but totally over used Roland D50 'one note tune' pre-sets.Two years later and an upgraded version, the EX was released with an additional 2Mb of PCM waveforms. These included some much needed piano, bass, and percussion, as well as some quirky voice snippets, 'industrial' noises and a complete drum kit. Also included were 8 more effects algorithms which contained some very usable vocoder FX. It was immediately followed by an enhanced rack mount version the A/D and apart from containing the new EX waveforms and extra effects the A/D also had a some other added features.

These were a very useful extra internal RAM bank with 50 more performances, the moving of the 2 card slots to the front and a smaller joystick for vector mixing. This made the joystick awkward to use but there wasn't space for a larger one.Inconveniently tucked around the back were two small rotary controls and level matching switches which gave control over audio signals going two jack input sockets that can accommodate mic or line signals, with a helpful pair of LED meters on the front panel to give some idea of the input levels. There were also two rear balanced XLR connectors for the 1/L & 2/R output channels. These were in addition to the 4 jack sockets already present and were ideal for interfacing with pro mixers. This is especially the case when using the A/D in a live situation, as there never seem to be enough DI boxes when you need them.A year later and the Wavestation SR was released and although physically smaller had an extra 8 internal ROM banks containing a 'Best Of' collection of more than 500 performances from the Korg ROM card library.

It also had a much smaller LCD screen and none of the extra audio inputs or outputs and as Korg put it, 'is ideal for the non-programmer'. As someone once said of the Roland D110 synth, 'trying to programme the Wavestation SR is like trying to decorate a hallway through a letter box', an absolute nightmare!but still it's a very powerful piece of kit. If you are using a WS EX or A/D you could get a WS SR to supplement your existing set up and believe me I have seriously thought about it!BLOW WAVEI've been using a WS A/D for about 2 years now and can safely say I am still as happy with it now as I was when I first got it.

Personally I thought that it was fairly effortless to get to grips with compared to some synth's. This must be partly due to the large LCD screen and function keys under it, a layout similar to the Akai S1000 and this makes navigating your way around a doddle. I can't say a beginner would necessarily find it easy to use, but after giving the instruction manual the once over most people find it quite logically laid out. One problem with LCD screens like these is they are highly reflective and you have to be careful where you rack them. It often happens that I get a very strong reflection from my keyboard on it and it can become very difficult to read. In a live situation especially this can be a real headache (pun intended).But to be quite honest for the first week or so after it arrived I did an awful lot of head scratching, manual reading and frantic phone calling to Korg. This was after I had edited all the factory pre-sets in the RAM banks beyond recognition and hadn't backed them up.

I foolishly assumed there was some sort of initialisation process that would restore them to their original state. I mean these were RAM banks, dim or what? Anyway there's a Wavestation 'Factory Reload' disc, #PSD01 price £6. 50 and a ROM card version, WPC00P price £45 that contain these banks.WIPEOUTA quirk that catches out almost everyone I know who first uses a Wavestation is that when you begin editing a wave sequence any changes you make are written to memory immediately without any undo available. There is none of that: 'are you sure', 'yes-no' safety net that you usually get when editing.

I recommend that if you are going to edit a wave sequence make a copy to work on or back-up first.A particularly confusing aspect of the WS operating system is that wave sequences and patches are not automatically linked to a performance when you save them and can appear to have changed when you load in a previous save, either from a RAM card or SysEx file. One of the reasons for this is that on the UTILITIES page (GLOBALUTIL) there are two different ways of transferring the internal RAM banks either internally or externally. Most people would think that to use the COPY option would be OK, but this is where the problem arises. Suppose you have a decent sounding performance setting in RAM Bank 3 that contains some patches also from RAM Bank 3. If you copy your performance data onto a RAM card using the COPY option the only information that gets copied would be the patch location numbers and not the actual patches. If you edit or even replace these patches with different ones the RAM card will assume that the patch numbers in those positions are still the original versions and you get a totally different sounding performance.

The only way to ensure that all your performances, including patches and wave sequences are saved correctly is by performing the following operation, with the UTILITIES page selected:from-RAM3(or 1, or 2)to CARDALLMOVE.This will physically move all the relevant information onto the RAM card intact, while still leaving the original data in the Wavestation. There are still problems though if your performances contain patches or wave sequences from RAM Banks other than the one your current performances are in.

In this case if you use the MOVE option it will only move patch data that's in the same RAM Bank and any other RAM Bank patches will only have their patch numbers copied. The only way around this problem that I could find was to make sure I have all the patches and wave sequences that are relevant to my current performances in the same RAM Bank. If they are not, then it is just a matter of moving them onto the same bank before you transfer anything to a RAM card.

It would help enormously if all 3 RAM banks could be transferred to a RAM card at the same time but for some reason they can't.When it comes to using MIDI SysEx dumps things are slightly different. On the SYSEX DATA TRANSMIT page (MIDISYSEX) there are a lot more options for transferring performances and patches etc. For a start there is the option to dump ALL, which does exactly what it says and transfers the entire contents of the A/D over MIDI. The only trouble is that the size of an ALL dump is 204k (138k for the keyboard version) and takes about 65 seconds to complete, so you should make sure that the device you are storing it on has a large enough buffer memory to handle this. Beware if you are going through a MIDI merge unit as some can only take a few kilobytes at a time. According to Korg the ALL option is intended to dump the contents of one Wavestation to another. A single RAM Bank dump from the A/D is 72k and only takes about 20 seconds to transfer over MIDI.

The saving problems mentioned above also apply to MIDI SysEx dumps of single RAM Banks, the difference is that you can transfer other RAM banks (containing any relevant/associated patches) at the same time.WAVING NOT DROWNINGThe first time I read about the WS A/D was in 1992 travelling down a German autobahn while on tour. We were being driven at about 90 mph by a totally loony Dutch guy called Frank who must have been really short sighted because he was always about 10 feet from the car in front. It was such a traumatic experience that to take my mind off his driving I tried to engross myself in a magazine. A news item on the WS A/D mentioned that it would have external audio inputs and this would allow external sounds to be treated the same way as PCM waves within a wave sequence. I thought that this was a brilliant idea and mistakenly assumed there would be some sort of sampling memory included, but this wasn't to be.