Breaks-DS - NDS Drum Loop Glitch Sampler - Downloadable ROM - V4.0 (07/22/26)

breaks-ds

Drum loop glitch sampler for the Nintendo DS.

breaks-ds is homebrew software for the Nintendo DS for chopping up and glitching drum breaks live. You load 2 bar loops, spread them across pads, and recut them in real time with the touchscreen and buttons. The tools include stutters, gates, tape stop, reverse, turntable scratching, live section rearrangement, a play-order sequencer, a per pad mixer, and a set of post mix effects. Audio runs through a variable rate streaming engine, so pitch and tempo move together like a turntable, and switching between loops happens seamlessly on the beat.

Included

200 drum break loops (WAV) are bundled and ready to play. You can add your own at any time.

Samples

Plays WAV loops placed in breaks-ds/loops/ on the SD card (8, 16, 24, or 32 bit, mono or stereo, any sample rate). Loops are decoded on the DS, so no PC converter is needed.

Loops sit on a 2 bar (8 beat) grid. A BPM control vari speeds playback from 80 to 200 BPM, turntable style, so pitch follows tempo.

Per pad quality: load each break at LO (11.9 kHz, 8 bit), HI (23.8 kHz, 16 bit), or MAX (32.8 kHz, 16 bit). The buffer is sized to the source rate, so a low rate sample does not waste memory.

A live kit memory meter shows how much is used and refuses any load that would run past the limit.

The tabs

The bottom screen is organized into six tabs along the top edge:

PLAY -- the main performance page: transport, rate, the pads, the filter / crush / volume controls, and the glitch tools.

SAMPLE -- browse the SD card and load a break onto a pad, at the quality you pick. Preview before you commit.

EDIT -- fine tune the sample on a pad: pitch, loop / wrap point, and front / back trim, plus the per pad MIX console (gain, pan, stereo widen).

PATT -- the play order sequencer: build a sequence of pads that advances one step per loop.

SETTINGS -- master volume, MIDI clock sync mode, MIDI note / CC input and its channel filter, and SYNC ALIGN.

KITS -- save, recall, and delete your kits (your pad selections) to the SD card, with on screen naming.

Performance

8 break pads (switchable between 4 and 8). Each pad is set to latch (tap to make it the main break) or momentary (active only while held). Pad changes flip seamlessly, quantized to beat, bar, phrase, or free (immediate).

Hold to apply controls that stack on top of each other: beat locked gate (half, quarter, eighth, or sixteenth note), beat repeat (stutter), tape stop, reverse, ring modulation, overdrive, tremolo, tape warble (wow / flutter), and live section rearrangement on the directional pad (hold a direction to repeat and reorder loop sections). The physical START key toggles the transport (start when stopped, stop when playing).

The gate subdivision and the beat repeat size are set by the A and B sliders.

Effects (post mix)

The FX tab is four Kaoss style XY pads, each riding an effect pair:

- CUT/RES: the resonant filter (low pass, high pass, band pass, notch) -- cutoff across, resonance up.

- RING/DRIVE: ring modulation rate across, overdrive amount up.

- CRUSH/TREM: bitcrush amount across, tremolo depth up (a gentle wobble at the bottom to a full chop at the top).

- ENV/STUT: a hold to play chop and roll surface -- gate subdivision across, beat repeat size up.

Every pad has a LIVE/SET switch. LIVE plays the effect the moment you touch the pad; SET only dials in how the effect will sound when you fire it from its button. The PLAY screen carries a mirror of any one pad (pick it on the strip at its edge), so your favourite effect is never more than a thumb away. A master volume with a MUTE, and a one tap RESET FX that returns everything to dry.

Per pad mixer

The MIX console (on the EDIT tab) levels each pad independently, so a naturally quiet break can be brought up to sit with the rest:

- GAIN: per pad volume.

- PAN: place each pad in the stereo field.

- WIDE: a low cost Haas stereo widener that spreads a pad without using much CPU.

All three are real time -- drag while the loop plays and you hear it move. The mix is saved with the kit.

Play order sequencer (PATT)

Build a sequence of up to 32 steps, each step a pad, and breaks-ds advances one step every loop -- a hands free way to march through an arrangement. Switching is seamless and quantized like a manual pad change. The pattern is saved with the kit. Turn it on or off from the PAT button on PLAY.

The top screen

A live output oscilloscope, which effects are active, a beat indicator, and the current break name, tempo, sample rate, and bit depth.

Save and recall

Save, recall, and delete kits (your pad selections, per pad edits, mixer levels, and pattern) to the SD card with on screen naming. Destructive actions ask first, and every save / load / delete flashes a confirmation. The master output level is also kept between sessions.

Loading your own samples

Exactly 2 bars (8 beats). breaks-ds fits everything to a 2-bar / 8-beat grid. Other lengths still load but get time-stretched to fit, which warps the feel.

Trim to the downbeat. First sample = beat 1, no lead-in silence, cut right on the loop point. The 8 beats then line up with the slice grid, so chops / rearrange / beat-repeat land on the beat. (You can also nudge the trim on the EDIT tab after loading.)

WAV. 8/16/24/32-bit, mono or stereo, any sample rate, it's decoded on the DS, no PC converter needed.

Recommended

Mono, 16-bit, 44.1 kHz is the clean default (the engine is mono, so stereo just gets summed).

Make it around 170-174 BPM if it's drum & bass. 174 is breaks-ds's native "1.0x", so a 2-bar loop at ~174 plays at its real pitch by default; the in-app BPM control then vari-speeds it turntable-style (pitch follows tempo) from there. Any tempo works, it just gets re-pitched relative to 174.

Unique, sensible filename. Kit save/recall matches pads by filename, so keep them distinct and not absurdly long.

Drop the WAV into breaks-ds/loops/ on the SD card.

On the SAMPLE tab, pick a per-pad quality when you load it: LO (11.9 kHz/8-bit, grittiest, smallest), HI (23.8 kHz/16-bit), or MAX (32.8 kHz/16-bit). The buffer is sized to the source, so a low-rate file won't waste RAM at a high tier.

MIDI (needs a slot-2 MIDI cart mDS)

Clock sync as slave (follow an external clock at 1:1, half, quarter, or double time) or master (send clock plus start and stop). Two breaks-ds units can be chained master to slave, and SYNC ALIGN on SETTINGS trims the link latency so they lock tightly.

Note and CC input: incoming notes trigger pads and glitch / dressing effects, and CCs control the filter, crush, delay, master volume, pitch, the gate / stutter amounts, and the dressing effects -- with a channel filter (omni or 1 to 16). Full map below.

Installing

1. Copy the included breaks-ds folder to the root of your DS flashcard's SD card, so the path is breaks-ds/loops/ with the WAV loops inside.

2. Copy breaks-ds.nds to wherever you launch homebrew from on the card.

3. Launch breaks-ds.nds.

What you need

A Nintendo DS or DS Lite (also runs on DSi and 3DS) with a flashcard that supports SD access. This is needed to read the loops and to save kits.

Optional: a slot 2 MIDI cart for clock sync and MIDI input.

An SD card (R4 etc) is required, since the loops and ROM live on the card.

Notes

This is homebrew software, not an official Nintendo product.

Loops play on a fixed 2 bar grid. Other lengths still load but get time stretched to fit.

The audio engine is mono (the per pad pan and stereo widener place that mono signal in the stereo field for output).

The top of the master volume range (about 25 percent over unity) will clip peaks on already loud material.

MIDI map

breaks-ds takes MIDI in through a slot 2 MIDI cart. Open the CONFIG tab and turn on NOTES + CC IN. The channel filter next to it is either OMNI (every channel) or a single channel from 1 to 16. Clock sync as slave or master can run at the same time.

Note numbers are listed below. Middle C is note 60. Some software labels middle C as C3 and some as C4, but the note numbers are the same on every device.

Pads

Notes 36 to 43 trigger pads 1 to 8 as momentary. The pad plays while the note is held and returns to the main break when you let go.

Notes 48 to 55 trigger pads 1 to 8 as latch. The pad becomes the main break and stays there until you change it.

A pad only responds once a loop is loaded onto it on the SAMPLE tab.

Glitches and dressing (held while the note is on; they stack with each other and with the pads)

• Note 60 reverse
• Note 61 tape stop
• Note 62 gate
• Note 63 beat repeat
• Note 64 rearrange right
• Note 65 rearrange left
• Note 66 rearrange up
• Note 67 rearrange down
• Note 68 ring modulation
• Note 69 overdrive
• Note 70 tremolo
• Note 71 tape warble
• Note 72 filter (held; engages at the CUT/RES pad's cutoff and resonance)
• Note 73 bitcrush (held; at the CRUSH/TREM pad's amount)
• The four rearrange notes combine just like the directional pad, so hold more than one for diagonal patterns. The gate subdivision and the beat repeat size follow the ENV and STUT amounts (or CC 26 and 27).

Control change

• CC 16 filter cutoff (also switches the filter on)
• CC 17 filter resonance
• CC 18 bitcrush amount
• CC 19 reset effects (on a value of 64 or higher)
• CC 20 filter mode (sweeps low pass / high pass / band pass / notch / off across the range)
• CC 21 master volume
• CC 22 pitch / playback rate (64 = normal speed; below = slower and lower, above = faster and higher)
• CC 23 to 25 unassigned
• CC 26 gate subdivision (slowest chop at 0 up to sixteenth notes at the top)
• CC 27 stutter size (beat repeat fragment length)
• CC 28 tape warble (0 = off, higher = deeper; engages while above 0)
• CC 29 ring modulation (on a value of 64 or higher)
• CC 30 overdrive (on a value of 64 or higher)
• CC 31 tremolo (on a value of 64 or higher)

Per pad mixer (the MIX console)

• CC 32 to 39 set pad 1 to 8 gain (the per pad level; 64 is unity).
• CC 40 to 47 set pad 1 to 8 pan (0 left, 64 centre, 127 right).
• CC 48 to 55 set pad 1 to 8 stereo widen depth (0 = off, rising to the widest at 127, in four steps).

A pad's mix changes live if it is the pad currently playing; otherwise the value is stored and applies the next time you select that pad. The mix is saved with the kit.

Good to know

All MIDI input is ignored until NOTES + CC IN is on in SETTINGS.

The ring modulation, overdrive, tremolo, and tape warble effects also live on the face and shoulder buttons; over MIDI they latch on (note held, or CC 28 to 31), and RESET FX (or CC 19) clears them.