VolcaShare is an online patch database and content management system for the Korg Volca Bass and Korg Volca Keys synthesizers. It also syncs patches from the browser directly to the synthesizer via WebMIDI.
📝 Persistence: Create, read, update, and delete patches for the Bass and Keys.
⚡️ Sync patches via WebMIDI: Allows your browser to send control messages to your Volca instead of having to manually change each and every parameter.
🔐 Authentication: Users can log in in order to change or delete their patches.
🙈 Privacy: Registered users can keep a secret stash of patches that aren’t shared the general public.
🔊 Audio samples: Users can listen to samples of synth patches on browse and detail pages and provide audio samples for their own patches.
🎹 Sequence support: VolcaShare allows users to save sequences of notes to accompany their synth patch, just like the Volcas allow you do with their built in sequencer.
👀 Discoverability / Ranking: Tags can be used to categorize and navigate patches. A sorting algorithm based on completeness and freshness places more relevant patches higher on browse pages.
🔀 Patch randomization: Change parameters randomly with the click of a button. (Especially good mileage using the Keys with MIDI sync up.)
🥸 Emulators: Tweak knobs and make fun sounds and patterns directly in the browser, while bored at work, or on your phone on the toilet - wherever.
Volca Bass Emulator: A JavaScript implementation of a three-oscillator monosynth with a 16-step sequencer.
Volca Keys Emulator: A JavaScript implementation of a three-oscillator polysynth with a single EG and lots of ways to mess with VCO pitch.
This application is built on these key frameworks/libraries:
- Ruby on Rails is the server-side MVC system.
- MongoDB database using Mongoid ODM.
- HTML, CSS and Javascript ES6 make the patch forms imitate the behavior of their physical counterparts. Individual views are served by the Rails server (as opposed to a single page application solution).
- Web Audio API is used for sound in the Volca Bass Emulator.
- Bootstrap for responsive design support and layouts.
- Webmidi for sending MIDI signals via the browser.
git clone git@github.com:waterjump/volca-share.git
VolcaShare currently runs on ruby 2.7.5 and uses rbenv for ruby version management.
While in the project directory, run rbenv local to set the ruby version configured in the repo. If you don't have this version of ruby, you can install it with rbenv install 2.7.5. You will also need the bundler gem.
This app requires node 17.6.0 (with npm 8.5.1) and uses nvm to manage node versions.
nvm install 17.6.0
brew tap mongodb/brew
brew install mongodb-community@5.0
brew services start mongodb/brew/mongodb-community
Make a copy of the secrets.yml.sample:
cp config/secrets.yml.sample config/secrets.yml
Generate values and add them to the newly generated secrets.yml file.
RAILS_ENV=development bundle exec rake secret
This will give you a long string of letters and numbers that can be used as the secret_key_base value.
Repeat for test environment as well.
It's easiest just to do a project wide search for 'recaptcha' (case insensitive) and remove all matching lines. If you want to configure your own recaptcha account for this app, you can do this on your own.
npm install
bundle install
bundle exec rails s
Then visit http://127.0.0.1:3000/ in a web browser.
bundle exec rspec
Please open a GitHub issue.
March 13 2016 - Repository created
November 2016 - VolcaShare.com launched
January 25 2017 - Sequence support on bass patches
August 8 2018 - Sort by quality
February 21 2020 - Volca Keys support
August 15 2020 - Volca Bass Emulator launched
April 10 2022 - Volca Bass Emulator step sequencer added
see LICENSE.md