PadMe-DS - FM Chord Pad - Atmosphere Generator for NDS - Downloadable ROM - v0.8 (Beta w/ Updates)

Buying this ROM gives you access to updated versions through the same link provided when you make your purchase.

Sounds best on REAL hardware.

Demo ROM: https://github.com/HobbyChop/PadMe-DS
Demo ROM has one bank of chords (Classic), one bass pattern, no save state or presets, and no MIDI support and will not get additional features when they are released.

PadMe-DS

A touchscreen FM chord pad and groove instrument for the Nintendo DS. Tap the on-screen pads to play lush two-operator FM chords, drag the XY pads to morph the sound in real time, and let the built-in bass and sparkle generators fill out an evolving, atmospheric track. Runs best on real DS hardware from a flashcart, results may vary in emulators.

Sound engine

• Layered two-operator FM voice with an envelope you draw by hand on screen (attack, decay, sustain, release).
• Independent FM feedback for the chord, splatter, and bass, each on its own fader.
• Glide / portamento, overlapping chord tails, and a held-chord auto-modulation that slowly brings a sustained chord to life.
• 8-voice polyphony with smart voice stealing so chords and effects layer cleanly.

Play and perform

• 8 chord pads across 11 curated banks (jazz, ambient, lofi, neo-soul, house, blues, and more), plus key and transpose controls.
• Three XY morph pads (chord, splatter, bass), a 3-channel volume mixer, and independent hold latches for chord, splatter, and bass.
• A generative atmospheric sub-bass with selectable patterns, octave, glide, and note divisions down to one step every two bars.
• A beat-synced splatter that throws sparkling notes from the current chord, with controls for wildness, stereo spread, velocity, and length.
• Four top-screen visualizers (aurora, wave, ripple, spark).

Presets and save state

• 32 preset slots plus an automatic last-state, saved to the SD card so your setup survives a power-off and full patches recall instantly.

MIDI and CC

This is where PadMe-DS becomes a real controller. Through the mDS slot-2 MIDI cart it sends true MIDI out.

Chords, splatter, and bass each send notes on their own assignable MIDI channel, and any of the three can be switched off so you send only what you want.

Every parameter is also a MIDI CC. Move any fader, XY pad, envelope handle, toggle, or settings value and it streams out as a Continuous Controller, so your whole performance can be recorded and automated in a DAW.

Two-way clock sync. Slave PadMe-DS to your DAW or hardware clock and the bass and splatter lock to it, with an automatic fall-back to the internal tempo if the clock stops. Turn on Sync Out and it passes an incoming clock through to downstream gear, or generates its own clock so it can be the master.

Whether you want a pocket-sized ambient and liquid drum-and-bass machine, an expressive XY performance pad, or a quirky CC and MIDI controller for your studio, PadMe-DS packs a lot into a Nintendo DS. A free demo build is available so you can try it first.

MIDI CC map

Morph pads

• CC 74: Chord morph X
• CC 1: Chord morph Y
• CC 102: Splatter morph X
• CC 103: Splatter morph Y
• CC 104: Bass morph X
• CC 105: Bass morph Y

Volume mixer

• CC 7: Chord volume
• CC 16: Splatter volume
• CC 17: Bass volume

FM feedback

• CC 18: Chord feedback
• CC 19: Splatter feedback
• CC 20: Bass feedback

Envelope (ADSR)

• CC 73: Attack
• CC 75: Decay
• CC 70: Sustain
• CC 72: Release

Chord shaping

• CC 5: Glide time
• CC 84: Glide bend
• CC 91: Chord tail (release length)

Modulation

• CC 21: Mod amount
• CC 22: Mod rate
• CC 23: Mod sync (clock division index)

Splatter

• CC 24: Splatter density
• CC 31: Splatter wildness
• CC 85: Splatter velocity deviation
• CC 25: Splatter rate
• CC 26: Splatter octave
• CC 27: Splatter stereo spread
• CC 28: Splatter morph deviation
• CC 29: Splatter length
• CC 30: Splatter time

Bass

• CC 86: Bass pattern (index)
• CC 87: Bass octave (sent as value plus 64, so the range -4 to +2 maps to 60 to 66)
• CC 88: Bass glide
• CC 89: Bass time
• CC 90: Bass rate (note division index)

RAND tuning

• CC 92: Octave range
• CC 93: XY deviation
• CC 94: Random voice count

Clock and visual

• CC 96: BPM (tempo, scaled to 0 to 127)
• CC 95: Visualizer mode (index)

Toggles (0 is off, 127 is on)

• CC 109: Random
• CC 106: Chord hold
• CC 107: Splatter hold
• CC 108: Bass hold