Play Kraftwerk on the DS

I remember the late 1970s and the initial sounds of keyboard bands. Before Depeche Mode and the Human League I remember my brother playing Warm Leatherette and TVOD by The Normal. Great stuff but one day he came home with a 12" single of a German band called Kraftwerk and I was attracted to the somewhat harsh/angular sounds that were really quite infectious. They became the huge band that we all now know with Trans Europe Express being my particular favourite.

Now you can have a go at recreating your own Kraftwerk song as this chap has done by using the Korg DS-10 Synthesizer for the DS.:

Apparently it's quite a complex interface but I wonder how secondary music departments might be disposed to trying this out?

Here it is in action...

...and here's a fill list of the detailed features:

• 2 patchable dual-oscillator analog synth simulators + 4-part drum machine.
• 6-track/16-step sequencer – connect wirelessly to play up to 8 units simultaneously or exchange sounds and songs.
• Delay, chorus and flanger sound effects available from the mixing board.
• 3 note-entry options: touch-control screen, keyboard screen, matrix screen.
• Sequence keyboard and KAOSS Pad, allowing intuitive note input and control using the Nintendo DS Touch Screen and Stylus.
• Unlimited range of sound creation thanks to an authentic synthesizer sound editing environment with an installed patch-panel

The sound output from a DS is really quite something so I look forward to hearing what can be created with this. I'm not doing the robotic movements though.

Comments

[John Daly]

FWIW, this is the Japanese-language version of 1982's Taschenrechner (Pocket Calculator in English) off of the Computer World album.

You can compare against the original at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=f1jsZL4KvPU - whoever did this has got it pretty much nailed on.

A really, really powerful tool - it would nice to see synthesisers being taught in school along with more traditional instruments - I wonder if this is a good way in, as it's a fraction of the price of a hardware synth.