Nintendo DS doubles as wireless MIDI keyboard / controller

Joining the nearly endless amount of Nintendo DS hacks already in the wild is TobW's DS Sampling Keyboard, which "uses the DS's microphone and touchscreen" to interface with a software-based sampling keyboard. A close contender to join our Music Thing series, this wonderous hack takes advantage of the wee machine's excellent X / Y-axis controls as well as its built-in WiFi to beam the MIDI commands wirelessly. The program has been tested with Wifi, GBAMP, and M3, so "it should work on pretty much anything," and provides a much less expensive alternative to those dedicated offerings. While musical gizmos are always more effective when seen heard rather than just heard about, be sure to click on for a front row seat to the YouTube demonstration.

[Via MusicThing]

[monkeysgobananas @ Nov 27th 2006 3:52AM]

cool, first to comment :), thats uber cool!

[Matt @ Nov 27th 2006 3:53AM]

interesting, i like it!

[Rus @ Nov 27th 2006 7:31AM]

That's very very cool ... and highlights what an Apple PDA/iPhone/Tablet would have potential for

[morgan @ Nov 27th 2006 8:45AM]

That's freakin awesome. This alone makes me want to get that ds-xtreme card to run homebrew stuff.

[Peter Kirn @ Nov 27th 2006 12:08PM]

Wait, there's more!

As of yesterday, Collin and Tob released the software, so you can now download this onto your own homebrew-ready DS. It's open source, so programmers can build on this idea. And you can not only send MIDI *from* the DS, you can receive MIDI -- in other words, you can integrate the internal Nintendo synth into your existing music setup, wirelessly. So you could have your music software triggering MIDI clips triggering the chiptune sounds of the DS:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/11/26/dsmidiwifi-free-download-turn-your-nintendo-ds-into-a-wireless-synth-and-midi-controller/

Also, this has not only musicians excited, but VJs, as well. You can use the MIDI out to control visuals as well as music. And another solution is in development called ndsvisuals that will allow scratching of video, triggering video clips, ordering video clips visually on the DS, etc., etc. It's unfortunately not available for download yet, but it's built on the same wifi library for DS homebrews:

http://createdigitalmotion.com/2006/11/27/the-wireless-gaming-visualist-and-the-nintendo-ds/

Very excited to get all of this up and running.

Tobias notes that in fact the DS-Xtreme (DS-X) chip will now run this app and his NitroTracker music app, so that could be a great way to go.

Peter

[jesse @ Dec 7th 2006 1:45PM]

Hmmm, I wonder if someone will take it further by making a midi to ds interface where we could plug in a midi keyboard controller and use the ds as a wireless midi interface. sure would beat those $300 wireless interfaces and it would be cool to run around playing your keyboard without yet another cable.