ATTENTION EVERYONE
Yesterday I actually found THREE fully functional ROMs of the DS-10 Plus on [*edit* - a website I can't name according to the rules]! Totally by accident. (I assume posting links to ROMs is not allowed here tho?)
I'm not sure if either I just got lucky with compability on the latest twilight version, or if no one ever bothered to check out the ROMs at [that website]. Before that I had the same issue as everyone else here. I ran a DS10 Plus ROM on an old DSLite for years and got excited for the enhanced features when I recently got my hands on a DSi - only to find out that it doesn't work at all under twilight even in DS-mode. Always got the "missing binaries" message, then stuck in a black screen or more error messages. All other online sources seem to be the exact same ROM or a misnamed Korg M01, and most people on forums say that it's not possible to run it at all on a hacked DSi. I felt like it should be at least possible in regular DS-mode like on my DSLite, and gave it one last try by checking for other copies without any high expectations... and now I'm really glad that I did that.
A couple words on the added features:
- obviously and well known, the basic DS-mode adds a mute function in song mode where any instrument track of a pattern can be auto-muted at any position of a song, and there's also live editing during song playback without getting kicked out of song-mode
Now to the DSi enhanced features:
- It's not just that you get twice as many tracks/instruments, but you rather run two sessions at the same time. When opening a session you choose between single mode and dual mode. The single mode is functionally identical to what you get in DS-mode. In dual mode you get asked to pick two sessions, called Deck A and Deck B, which are run in sync while their respective parts can be accessed and edited by switching the A/B button on the top right. You can mix any two sessions, but other than that the patterns are always linked during playback, like A1-B1, A2-B2 etc., meaning you can't have pattern A-4 played back with B-12. You also need one save state for each session-part/deck, so a song with A-B parts needs two seperate save states, resulting in 18 single sessions for 9 dual sessions. If you click save it will only save the part currently viewed. The only unrelated, new thing saved for a session-part in dual mode are the song-related mute commands for the other part, which will be applied to any session/deck you combine it with. (all kinda seems like the developers were trying to change the original code as little as possible)
- Effects are seperated too, so you can run two seperate effects for A and B, like delay on A and flanger on B
- Making use of the added mute function in song mode you could actually have 32 different 6-track patterns per song
- You can also program TWO seperate songs in a Dual Mode session, A and B, of course with both of them using the tracks and patterns of both parts
- Some of the navigation in song mode is a little bit confusing at first. With song-mode activated, the A/B button in the main window switches the viewing/editing for the two song parts, while A/B in the song window switches the playback. The combined "A-B"-button in the song window plays both after another, which can double the song length to 200 pattern positions. Took me a little while to understand that; at first I thought the song mode is bugged playing patterns that aren't even clicked.
- Pro tip: Since live editing in song-mode works in the Plus version you could also use one of the song parts exclusively to loop, edit and compose +32-step patterns by having multiple patterns looped after another, all without messing with your "main"-song (Taken to an extreme you could have four 256-step patterns, or a single 1024-step pattern in a dual session).
- Again, the A and B parts (both patterns & songs) have to be saved seperately during a session, otherwise they get lost.