Fantastic Synth – KORG iDS-10 Review

Finally! The IOS version of the Nintendo DS-10 Plus synthesizer has arrived. This is a great-sounding synth app that emulates the general workflow, tone capbilities and vintage vibe of the classic Korg MS series of analog synths. In general, iDS-10 with Plus Mode (an In-App purchase) is based on but expands beyond what Nintendo DS-10 Plus can do . Overall, I am very pleased with this app, and after using it steadily since it's release, I give it 5 stars. iDS-10 without Plus Mode comes with 2 synths, a vocoder, and a 6-peice drum kit. Plus Mode provides 2 more synths and another vocoder. For comparison, Nintendo DS-10 Plus has 2 "decks" each containing 2synths and 4 drum parts, for a total of 4 synths and 8 drum parts. In the iDS-10 app, each synth has 2 oscillators, an amplifierr, a voltage controlled filter, an envelope generator, an fx section and a low frequency oscillator with patch bay for modulating synth parameters. The app comes with preset tones and drum kits to get you started. The vocoder can use text or recorded sounds to generate tones. The synths, vocoders and drum kits are used to compose up to 32 Patterns (of up to 64 steps each) that can be sequenced into Songs or played live. I've encountered a bug and several "missing" features, which hopefully the developer will address in future updates. The bug is an occasional glitch when playing a squence of patterns in the Song panel where the sequencer repeats a pattern instead of moving to the next one in the sequence. Features missing from iDS-10 (that were in DS-10 Plus) that I've requested include: 1) display of the Session and Tones that are currently loaded, 2) addition of 2 to 4 DS-10 type drum synth modules. Currently, iDS-10 has Drum Kits containing kick, snare, tom, 2 high hats, and a "percussion" instrument. Although these tones can be adjusted within certain limits, the drum synth modules in DS-10 Plus are much more flexible and can be used to generate a wide range of tonal and nontonal sounds. To summarize, this is an excellent synth app, and I would recommend it to both fans of Nintendo DS-10 Plus and to anyone who likes creating music on synths.
Review by Wild Type on KORG iDS-10.