If you saw our recent Volca Vibes episode where we took a look at the Retrokits RK002 active MIDI cable and the Volca Sample, you may have been impressed, as we were at the clever little microprocessor in the Retrokits MIDI cable that allowed you to play Volca Sample samples chromatically. It also lets you play all 10 samples from a regular keyboard. It does this by taking an incoming MIDI signal from a regular MIDI keyboard, and processing it in real time via some clever firmware inside the MIDI cable's processor.

Well Retrokits have now tackled the Volca FM - in our review, we were disappointed that it did not respond to velocity over MIDI - this being such a large part of the DX FM sound - its sensitivity to velocity. You can of course adjust velocity using the velocity fader and record this as part of a Motion Sequence. However, Retrokits have released a new Firmware for their Cable which maps this in real time using their cable.

Firmware is updated via dumping a .MID file into the cable, then editing is handled via Chrome's Web MIDI in the browser- all you need is an attached MIDI interface with the cable plugged in.

And it works...

More Information

• Retrokits.com
• Retrokits KFM Control Page

Retrokits Social

• Superbooth 2023: Retrokits - RK-8 11-May-23
• Superbooth 20HE: Retrokits RK006 - A Tiny Little MIDI Hub 25-Apr-20
• Synthfest 2019: Retrokits RK006 Micro MIDI Router 08-Oct-19
• Superbooth 2018: Retrokits RK005 USB Host and Client 08-May-18
• Not Your Ordinary MIDI Merger Or Splitter 04-Jan-17