CTRL-DS - MIDI Control Surface for NDS - Downloadable ROM (1.0.1B) - (08/05/2026)

CTRL-DS the MIDI control surface you draw yourself

Draw faders, pads and knobs on a DS touchscreen, point them at your

hardware, and play. No computer, no companion app, the editor is on the

device.

If your synth has one filter knob and forty menu pages. CTRL-DS gives it a

front panel.

Drag a rectangle on the grid, pick a control, point it at a CC, that's the

whole workflow, and it happens on the DS itself. No desktop editor, no sync

cable, no export step. Build a mixer on one tab, a performance page on the

next, a wall of drum pads on a third. Save sixteen complete surfaces to SD

and swap them like patch sheets.

Seven control types chosen because they genuinely work on a stylus:

faders (either direction), a full-size XY pad with optional 14-bit

resolution, vertical-drag knobs, spring-back faders for pitch bend,

momentary/toggle/radio buttons, steppers for waveform-style switches, and

labels so a panel reads like a panel.

LINK wires controls to each other: one fader can drive eight targets,

each with its own range and direction. Grouped moves, macros, inverse

morphs, no scripting language, just a source and its followers.

Value presets snapshot what every control is *set to* and send it all on

recall, which quietly turns CTRL-DS into a patch librarian for hardware

that has no memory of its own. Sixteen per surface, scoped to one tab or

all, with sixteen levels of undo.

The DS's own buttons are assignable too, sustain on a shoulder-free thumb,

a kick on A, transport on START. And the top screen is a full MIDI monitor:

every message sent and received, decoded in plain text, with a live meter

under your stylus. A silent instrument should prove it's working; this one

does, constantly.

It can be the clock master (24 PPQ, tap tempo), sit inline with soft thru,

and it opens on ready-made surfaces — a mixer, a synth panel with a macro

demo, drum pads, so the first thirty seconds are playing, not programming.

Feature list

• On-device layout editor: draw, move, resize, name; all with the stylus
• 7 control types vetted for a resistive touchscreen
• 16×10 grid, 8 tabs per surface, 32 controls per tab
• 16 surfaces on SD, versioned format that never mangles old saves
• LINK: macros, grouped moves, inverses, up to 8 followers per source
• Value presets with per-tab scope — a librarian for memory-less gear
• 16-level undo AND redo, always one tap away in the tab strip — covering
• layout edits, deletes, loads, and preset recalls alike
• 14-bit CC pairs on XY axes
• Assignable hardware buttons (CC / note / transport)
• Internal MIDI clock master with tap tempo and a visible 16-step beat row,
• or soft-thru inline operation
• Full MIDI monitor on the top screen, including a dropped-byte counter
• Jump or pickup fader behavior
• One-press MIDI panic

Requirements

- A DS handheld **with a slot-2 (GBA) port** and a flashcart

- The **mDS slot-2 MIDI cart** (sold separately)

- SD storage (the flashcart's card) for saving surfaces