Run, I have a musical instrument and I’m not afraid to use it!

Well, calling it music is a slight exaggeration…

*Lotsa random links warning*

So I’m mad for all sorts of gadgetry and also have something for electronic music, but people who know me know that already. Recently I came in contact with a fair few musical gadgets and software and I’ve even attempted to make some myself (don’t hold your breath though). I’m totally in love with Yamaha’s Tenori-On as well as the Monome Midi controller. I loved to play around with Propellerhead Rebirth back in the day (would love to try a real TB-303 in real life too if I had the chance) and more recently Reason too. Talking to some people, who are into this kind of thing and subscribing to the RSS of blogs like Synthopia and Matrixsynth, now I also know that I don’t know sh*t about the topic really…

OK, so on to the DS, which as it turns out can be used for all sorts of music making. Not just games like Elektroplankton, Rhythm Tengoku Gold or Daigasso Band Brothers DX (and many others), but it can also be used as a MIDI controller or a tracker! Because these last two are homebrew projects, you need some way to be able to run this sort of software.

When I first heard of the Korg DS-10, I was immediately psyched for it, which led to ordering it through play-asia. The package was delivered by UPS about a week ago (where I found out that the UPS package scanners have an ABC keyboard instead of QWERTY, even the delivery guy had problems with that, yay for standardisation). In a few minutes it was all unpacked (sorry, no 20 minute unboxing video this time), headphones on, volume set to high!

I fired it all up, stylus sliding and tapping like a blur, knobs turning, patterns created, FX connected up and I came up with this:

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Hahaha, I bet you were expecting something pumping! I’m sorry, I just had to recreate this little melody from the Final Fantasy series; plus it also shows that the DS-10 is not only for acid house and Kraftwerk sounds…

The manual is in Japanese, but the cool thing is that the user interface is very intuitive (and all in English!), so it should be all fine. Basically there is a map screen (as seen on the top screen on my pretentious product shot) that shows all the modules you can use to make music and each module has its own screen too. There are two synths, each with its own effects patches, kaossilator pad, keyboard and sequencer. There’s also a drum sequencer with 4 different drum synths and fx patch. Most everything can be automated using the sequencers. With WIFI you can sync up to 8 DSes for maximum jam potential.

It’s amazing that something like this can fit on a DS, but of course it’s not perfect. The negative sides I’d say are the relatively awkward way of switching between modules sometimes, the noise level of the DS itself as well as the fact that the DS-10 doesn’t talk MIDI…

Alright, one more little piece of something I made up, the day after I got it:

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This is an excerpt from the 3rd song on my upcoming album, titled Solar Powered Ferret Fan, I’m sure it will be a smash hit …or not.

P.S.: Bonus! Check out Denkitribe’s work on YouTube! He has some very nice jams, using all sorts of weird instruments (mostly electronic), Korg DS-10 included (somehow I guess that his stuff could sell a lot more DS-10s than mine).