Korg iDS-10, Portable Synth Studio From Nintendo DS to iPhone

Some seven years after it was originally released for Nintendo DS, the Korg DS-10 portable synthesizer studio has had a make-over… and by make-over we don’t just mean there’s been cosmetic changes, but some seriously powerful and fun feature.

iDS-10's Synth 2

The iDS-10 “combines a cutting-edge analog synthesizer, voice synthesizer, and analog drum machine inspired by motifs from the original KORG DS-10. This iPhone app gives you a hand-held system to easily create electronic music, which requires persuasive sound with a minimal number of notes.”

There’s a lot to this synth studio and we’re sure glad Korg has brought this over to the iPhone.. as is our reviewer currently testing every part of this app. The voice synthesizer will certainly appeal to many users. Just type in your lyrics and it’ll turn them into a synth voice. Alternatively, you can use the iDS-10’s Voice Synthesizer as a conventional vocoder by using the iPhone’s microphone (and we assume) any supported external microphones too.

Hear some tracks created with Korg's iDS-10 app:

Did we mention there’s an analog drum synth, a smart keyboard and KAOSS mode for step-recording, 32 patterns, collaborative production, and something called the “Mystery Bingo”? This later feature appears to be locked until the user continues playing it.

We already love the voice synth.

One thing that appears to be missing that we’d love to see in a future update is MIDI support…