Korg DS-10 - Planar Filler

The Korg DS-10 is an amazing little piece of software for the Nintendo DS. I made this during my ~3 hour flight from Seattle to Dallas because I was determined to sit down and make something, anything, that at least vaguely resembled a song, instead of just noisily jamming out on it. This was more an experiment with synth settings and drum loops than anything else, as the melody is overly repetitive and kind of grating after a while =X

It's also my first YouTube upload! I dubbed a higher quality version of the song over the video's audio track. The mp3 by itself can be found here, for those who are interested:
http://files.filefront.com/Planar+Fillermp3/;12796558;/fileinfo.html

Portability is the Korg DS-10's greatest strength. The fact that you can make music like this while flying 7.5 miles above the Earth is pretty sweet.
Unfortunately, it pays the price in flexibility. You're limited to sixteen patterns, each of which contains no more than sixteen steps. Each pattern holds two synthesizers and a drum sequencer which controls playback of four additional, albeit slightly simplified, synthesizers for things like the kick, hi-hat and snare. You could use those four channels for more lead synth sounds, if you wanted, at the cost of one of your drums.
The main sequencer mode of the software allows you to chain those patterns together, with a maximum count of 100. Of course, you can only work with those sixteen, pre-created patterns you were working on in the editor mode, so...it doesn't leave as much room for variety as might be desired. Fortunately, you can save a good number of songs to the cart, each with their own pattern bank. You can also save and load synthesizer presets, an essential feature for something like this. I've spent a good amount of time compiling a bank of synth presets so you have a palette of sorts.

Wheh! That turned out to be more of a write up of the Korg DS-10 than I initially anticipated. There's plenty of more information available online for those interested.

I think that for my next attempt at a song I'm going to start it off with a punch and follow the typical chiptune style, favoring melody and compactness over structure. It seems more suited to the strengths of the DS-10.
It also works great as a live instrument! Two of my friends and I will frequently hook up to a mixer, enable the multiplayer mode and just start jamming out. I'd love to see someone play a couple of these things in a live setting, instead of the more traditional (and expensive!) hardware setups.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• korg
• ds-10
• planar
• filler
• synthesizer
• electronica
• nintendo
• ds

[AMiGa1voiCE]

That Was Great .

I Was Impressed With That Softwar In The DS ( Where Can I Find That ) .

[97src]

Simple but awsome

[JeffVoss]

Holy crap, you're right. Now I must go play some EJ2.

[ZenomBeatmop]

The first 3 notes of pattern 5 remind me of 'Anything But Tangerines' from Earthworm Jim 2. I like the synth. Got this the other day but can't make anything decent yet.

[LPChip]

Certainly not bad indeed. :)

The only comments I would have would be that I just don't like the typical drum sounds I hear in most DS songs. If you want to get some inspiration, check out my songs. :) I even give out the settings for the drums in my latest song called Whitin A Deep Forest. Secondly a small tip: Don't feel bad if you repeat a part that you played earlier. Just make sure that it fits. :)

[essenceofsias]

Nice work, I really liked this considering the limitations.