Volca Bass Distortion Mod

How To Add an Overdrive Knob to the Korg Volca Bass

This mod makes a lot of sense because the final amp stage is a mosfet style transistor, and these distort extra tube-like when overdriven, which is what we do with this knob.

You’ll see it was a bit trickier than the good old days with quite a bustling city of tiny #SMD parts to tangle with going down in there. But if your are patient and get that little resistor hot and off of there, without so much force that you bump another part off too, then you’re golden.

Put fresh solder on the pads where the resistor was, make sure you got the pad hot enough to have the solder stick as a hill and not a ball. Tin the wires. Get in there and just melt them together. If it’s solid, you could see, I could lightly tug on it. This was with a lowest-price Amazon iron at about 70% power setting.

R164 is written on the board sideways just above it. The resistor itself is marked 103, meaning 10k. Your 5-10k audio pot goes in place of that resistor. With the knob facing you, the left lug would short to the center lug.

Thanks to Darren Glen who’s YouTube video taught me this mod.
( here’s his video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1q4AeqDtCI )

Before you comment about the knobs touching, you must know, they touch only when the volume is turned nearly all the way down. This never happens.

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