The MP3Death netlabel has done the Nintendo Korg DS-10 a great service by releasing Cheap Dirt, a 20-track album by DS-10 Dominator (aka Rutger Muller). The DS-10 is a port of a proper Korg synthesizer, which has been fully reproduced as a cartridge for the ubiquitous portable Nintendo gaming system. And no one has previously made available such a wide range of fully considered DS-10 music as Dominator has here.
While much of Cheap Dirt consists of party-ready techno, there’s some heady listening: the downtempo industrial sway of “Sea Son” (MP3), the 8-bit dance noise of “Garage Party” (MP3), and the clanging thrills of “Dubstep Gives Me Food” (MP3).
Muller says of the release’s conceptual purity: “No post-processing of the audio has been done. All sounds are synthesized, there’s no sampling involved.” Get the full set at archive.org. More at mp3death.us and rutgermuller.nl.
The Korg DS-10 cartridge runs on the Nintendo DS and the newly released Nintendo DSi. I’m looking forward to what folks with the new Nintendo DSi do with the DS-10, given that the DSi has some advanced internal sound-transformation tools. The DS-10 includes the ability to create a master-slave relationship between multiple DS machines. The DSi’s sound-tweaking tools mean that a second machine will now also be able to capture segments of the music and allow the musician to alter them. This is especially promising.
Wow, I’m reviewed. Thank you.
ps. The name is ‘DS-10 Dominator’ hehe.
Glad to have. It’s a great example of the DS-10’s potential. If you fiddle with the DSi at all, I’d like to see what you come up with.
I’ll fix the name. Sorry about that.
Marc, my kid Wilson has been saving up for the DSi and the only way I’m letting him get it is if he lets me play the DS-10 on it. Of course if and when anything serviceable comes out of it, I’ll put it on DRD.
http://www.ds10dominator.com is up, new album coming january!