Sounds: The Korg DS10

Not too long ago I got myself a Korg DS-10, a feature rich music making software for the Nintendo DS.

It's basically a software emulator of the semi modular Korg MS-20 synthesizer, which was released by Korg in 1978. It's not just strictly emulating the MS20, but adds a lot of features which turn your DS into a nice little music production studio. For example the DS-10 features two synthesizer modules, which have two VCO's (instead of just one like the MS20), four drum modules, which relay on VCO's as well instead of using fixed drum samples, which in turn, allows to create sounds which aren't limited to pure drum sounds at all. It also has a feature rich step sequencer for the drums as well as the synths, each synth module can also be controlled via a Kaoss Pad touch screen emulation, and last not least it has an effect section (Delay, Flanger, Chorus) for all aforementioned modules as well as the master output.

I won't go into too much detail about the several modules, but this is quite a lot of features keeping the size and the limited hardware of the DS in mind.

Among all that, it's also possible to sync up to 8 DS units over Wifi which allows to create more complex arrangements, or use them for life performances.

Of course there are also some limitations. One is that there's a fix number of different patterns (16) you can use, and the sequencer allows to arrange a total length of 97×4 patterns. This limits the total length of a song depending on the used BPM (which can be set in a range between 50 and 250). So, it's not perfectly suited for fast Drum'n'Bass tracks as they'd end up quite short (around a 1.5minutes maybe ).

The IMHO biggest limitation, is that it's (at least I've found no information about that yet) not possible to sync the DS-10 to an external sequencer. I don't know how the DS-10 syncs with other DS's, but I suppose they rely on Midi over Wifi. Maybe it's possible to somehow spoof some traffic sent by a DS acting as master/slave (there has to be some initial shakehand) and then use sth. like DSMI to trigger the start/stop. If someone has an idea about how that could be accomplished please let me know .

The DS-10 is quite a nice gadget for sound fanatics who are into console sounds and it's definitely a lot of fun to play with it. Everyone who has a basic knowledge about synthesizers and step sequencers should be able to get nice sounds out of this box without reading the manual (which is, at least in the version I've ordered, completely in Japanese ), also Korg did a really good job with the user interface which is very intuitive and completely controlled by the touch screen.

To get an idea how the DS-10 sounds just check some videos on youtube (there are dozens of them).

Last not least: Here's the first short fun (and probably lame) track I've made using my DS-10. It's a short Drum'n'Bass track. The crackling bass sound is intentional. Keep in mind that there's only 4 drum sounds at a time, so you have to use the sounds in a clever way to get more sounds out of one single sound (by varying the pitch for example). This gets more complicated the faster you make the song, because you have only 16 steps per pattern, that means, the faster you make a song the more patterns you have to use to get a 4/4 measure in an acceptable length etc..

Note: Don't expect too much, I did not post process the track, this is the sound exactly as it comes from the DS-10. All patterns were used and the complete time-line of the sequencer (I simply ran out of space on the time-line that's why it ends so abrupt ).

Enjoy!

Download: chizm_techno-allah.mp3