Archive for July, 2008

Korg DS-10 (DS)

I borrowed a cable off someone in the office, used Windows Sound Recorder to record the output from the DS, then copied the resulting WAV file to my Mac and converted it to MP3 in iTunes. Lots of fun, that was. Why on earth doesn’t my iMac have a line-in socket? For pity’s sake, Apple. Sigh.

Anyway, I made a song called Jason and you can listen to it by clicking THIS LINK.

Korg DS-10 (DS)

Made my first “song” last night that I liked enough to keep. It’s called Ransom and it’s slow, with a lot of weird effects and suchlike. If I can find a cable and recording software to get music off the DS I may put it up for your pleasure.

Korg DS-10 (DS)

Back in about 1990, a friend of mine bought a second hand Roland SH-101 synth for £45. I was very jealous, despite the fact that I have no musical talent and wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with it.

Now, I’m never going to get an SH-101 (have you seen the prices these days?) but I do now have the Korg DS-10. Okay, so you tap away with the stylus instead of physically moving knobs and switches. And the sound quality isn’t as good. But, you know what? It’s £30 imported from Japan and it makes me feel good. It’s very limited in sequencing terms and seems to be designed as a live tool, but what you’ve got works very well and there’s lots of stuff to play around with. I don’t know the terms, I don’t know what I’m doing, I can only seem to make a horrible repeating racket, but it makes me happy.

It’s a toy, but it’s had a lot of thought put into it. It gives me a lovely feeling of being musical and creative even when I’m just making horrible noise. And, most of all, unlike homebrew music apps, it’s official. It’s an official Korg synth. This makes a world of difference to me, though I’m not sure why.

(It’s also all in English. Well, if you can call baffling acronyms and abbreviations English.)

PixelJunk Eden Demo (PS3)

Well, that’s a surprise. Didn’t know what this was, but it appears to be a mix of LocoRoco, Wik and Flow. Or something. Some frustration when you get really high only to miss a jump and fall all the way back down to the bottom of the level, but otherwise it’s completely lovely once you get used to the controls.

I am most definitely interested in the full version now.

Super Stardust HD (PS3)

Had to download a 255MB update before it would let me play it. I think it was just to add in trophy support – the PS3 equivalent of Achievements. Being rubbish at the game I didn’t actually manage to earn any. Well, it was part being rubbish and part the fact that I haven’t spent cash on the upgrade packs that add some extra game modes. Still, it’s a great shooter regardless of all that extra stuff.

Too Human Demo (360)

Seems to be okay, but it’s hard to tell given the sheer amount of incredibly tedious cut scenes you have to sit through. I like killing robot monsters, I like getting new equipment, I like getting new skills. I don’t like having to sit around doing nothing and I don’t like that it’s so dark that it’s almost impossible to play on a sunny day.