Making a Volca stand

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Fri May 14, 2021 2:16 pm

We had a freestanding set of drawers in the kitchen that collapsed under the weight of the world and a microwave the other week, and while it was mostly non-standard argos chipboard (because it was from argos), the top was a fairly decent piece of actual wood (well, glued strips, but still).

So after chucking the whole thing out into the yard to get rained on for a few days, I decided to do something with it.

I had to cut it out using a handheld circular saw so it's rough as tits but I've done a decent enough job with the orbital sander that it should matter too much. Getting the original varnish off was probably the hardest bit. I'm just waiting for a pot of wood stain to come in the post and then I'll be able to put it all together.

paul_ · Post by **paul_** » Fri May 14, 2021 2:40 pm

Nice one.

I bought stand/ears like that for 3 Roland boutique modules but then only ended up buying 2 so it always felt a bit weird. I have a beatstep just sort of sitting on the bottom for looks but the whole setup is GRATUITOUS. It was actually seeing someoneÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Volca setup that made me want it rigged up like that, though.

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Mon May 17, 2021 10:27 pm

Just need to sand the middle two shelves down to fit (they ended up too wide for some reason) but the construction is almost done.

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Mon May 24, 2021 10:22 am

All done. Decided not to varnish in the end because I couldn't be arsed. Basically.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Mon May 24, 2021 12:14 pm

Ooh, that looks great, much better than I was expecting. Somehow makes them all look a bit more proper too, and a bit less toy-like.

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Mon May 24, 2021 12:49 pm

Bacchus wrote:Ooh, that looks great, much better than I was expecting. Somehow makes them all look a bit more proper too, and a bit less toy-like.

Haha, thanks.

I love the stain. I wasn't sure what it was going to look like but I love it. There are all kinds of rough edges but thankfully I've managed to hide them all away round the back.

As for the Volcas, this setup overall consists of a sampler/drum machine, two analog synths with three oscillators each and a 6 operator FM synth, effectively a shrunken down DX7, and smashing them all together in one rack kind of highlights how powerful they can be as sound modules. I think it's changed the way I view them myself, since they do feel like little toys on their own, but they're suddenly more than the sum of their parts once you get them all working together.

BearBoy · Post by **BearBoy** » Mon May 24, 2021 1:46 pm

That looks great, Eric. Good work.

plopswagon · Post by **plopswagon** » Mon May 24, 2021 1:49 pm

Thanks for sending me down the modular synth rabbit hole.