michael nervOus's All Things korg ds-10 / Korg Gadget / chiptune/ portable devices: 2018

Sunday, July 22, 2018

A quick memoir on the ds 10's 10 year anniversary before I rush out the door to see Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Korg ds 10 turns Ten years old (in about a day) in Japan. It technically was not out for a few more months around the world but let's all celebrate Tomorrow-ish (time zones will make this weird as well). I remember when the software for the ds was announced. I could not wait so I put in for a pre-order on Play-Asia. I had used LSDJ and nanoloop when they first came out but this was different. I watched youtube everyday watching, what seemed like everyone with a ds, making music. Like finishing a giant cereal box of time the prize at the end finally was released to the US systems. I filled the card within days of nonsense music that I thought was great. I got on an internet radio station and played a song that I thought sounded great but soon realized that ppl were not making strange synths sounds with the ds 10 but making tracks that sound like they were made with the actual hardware. I'm not sure of the time frame of what came next but I wanted to meet everyone that was making ds 10 music so I made a community page to meet and share. I let everyone kinda do there own thing and there was no admin. anyway someone pointed out that Rutger had started the korg ds 10 forum. I immediately joined and now I felt like I was a part of something big. I had been searching on google and already had the NDS Adapter to back up sav files but soon learned chris had made software that would allow you to change songs on a backup to a pc (ds 10 sav tool). Over time there would be the Korg ds 10+ that allowed two decks (songs) to be loaded at once and the new features only worked on the dsi. Countless albums and ds 10 forum compilations came out using the ds 10 software. anyway like I said a quick memoir due to these two announcements. An album that is made by artists using the original ds 10 cart on ds lite hardware to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the Korg DS-10. Before the albums release a listening party on internet radio to enjoy it together. A live stream of the double album before the release on the internet radio station geek beat radio. It looks like the show will start around July 23 (Mon) 8am EST (9pm JST) and end around midnight Tokyo time. The album's digital release will follow immediately after. Once the album becomes public, it will be available at this link on bandcamp - A 2 cd compilation of artists from all over the world will be released Tomorrow in Japan. It will be available @Bandcamp. Back in late august/September users of the ds 10 started to submit applications to be a part of this project headed by: - Mugenkidou - Hotaruya - mistyminds The ds10th project as it was called was on the way and we all kept in contact through email like a virtual high school reunion. The only thing we had to do was use the original hardware and cart. For me I immediately thought I have to do that weird style I did when it first came out with some tricks I had picked up along the way with the community. Check out the site of the people that put this together here: