Hi! Quick update on the custom firmware for the volca drum. Still chipping away at it, not ready to ship yet, but I figured I'd share what's already working so far.

What's done so far

• Reverted the FUNC + SWING and FUNC + TEMPO behavior to the defaults. Shoutout to u/zeknife for pointing out that changing this didn't make much sense. I completely agreed, so I rolled them back to how they originally worked.
• QPI keeps the harmonic relationship between layers. With Layer 1/2 and quantize (QPI) on, nudging PITCH used to destroy the harmonic relationship between them. Now, that relationship is preserved.
• GLD: motion glide is now optional. New entry in Global Settings. Turn it off and your recorded motion snaps from step to step instead of gliding into the next value — for anyone who always wanted their motion sequences stepped rather than smoothed.

And a couple more things...

I'm adding a new sound-shaping option per part that I'm not ready to fully detail yet — let's just say the palette of tones you can get out of a part is a lot wider than before.

There's also another feature in the works that I'm keeping under wraps for now. If you think about the volca fm, you might be able to guess what it is. It's something a lot of people have been quietly hoping for since the volca drum first came out.

More on both once they're actually working end to end.

No ETA yet, still testing on hardware between changes. Will post again once it's ready.

Also, a huge thank you to everyone for all the kind words!
I'm just a broke university student and don't own many other synths, so modding other gear isn't really something I can tackle right now...

(btw, can't really say much out loud about this, but if you check my GitHub profile you might find something that'd make my day.)

While playing around with the volca drum, I discovered some really cool undocumented features in Step Jump mode. I call it Step Jump Lock and Auftakt.

Here’s how to trigger them:

1. Enter STEP JUMP mode.
2. Press and hold down any step.
3. While holding the step, press and hold the STEP JUMP button.

From here, you have two different outcomes depending on which button you release first:

1. Custom Start Step (Auftakt) If you release the STEP JUMP button first, the step you were holding starts blinking. Next time you hit play, the sequence starts exactly from that step instead of step 1.
2. Step Jump Lock If you release the step first, it blinks and the sequencer locks onto it, ready to loop the next time you hit play. While a normal step jump requires you to physically hold the button down, this trick basically acts as a latch, making it completely hands-free. You can select multiple steps at the same time, trigger it on the fly while the sequence is running, and even exit Step Jump mode without losing the lock.