Sony may have abandoned the PS Vita, but homebrew is ready to keep it alive. And the gorgeous handheld gaming console now gets a new identity as an all-in-one groovebox — with free, open- custom kernel plug-in. Meet DS-8 Drumstream, portable beatmaker
The devs over at Intermynd Instruments make a case for why they want to do this now:
Besides resuscitating an abandoned platform, we’re convinced that combining touch with physical controls is one of the best interfaces for music making. Touch is perfect for direct interaction, while buttons and sticks provide the tactile precision needed for sequencing and live performance. Together, they offer the best of both worlds in a way that neither approach can on its own.
The feature set is impressive:
- Sampling groovebox with drum, synth, chord and sample engines
- USB multichannel audio and MIDI via a custom, now open-source, kernel plugin
- BPM-synced scene launching for seamless arrangements
- Per-track snapshots with bpm-synced parameter morphing
- Pattern arranger, performance FX, parameter automation, probability and generative sequencing
And it all runs live on original PS Vita hardware. Those are actually not horribly expensive — especially since Switch Lite and PSP Vita start to look really good compared to RAMageddon new-console prices. But you can also give this a test drive on a Vita3k Emulator, or get really ambitious and start hacking together your own handheld with touchscreen and joysticks like you think you can top Sony.
That USB multichannel audio support is fully openomebrew devs. That means instant connections to computers and other devices that support the USB audio class, plus USB MIDI sync support for gadgets like the Teenage Engineering OP-XY
Basically, now your PS Vita is a USB audio and MIDI device, already with full support for:
- MIDI clock, Start, Continue, and Stop in both directions
- ten-channel, 48 kHz S16 audio from the Vita to the host
- stereo, 48 kHz S16 audio from the host to the Vita
I expected to see Claude there in the credits, but… nope! https://github.com/intermynd-instruments/psvita-usb-audio-midi
Product minisite — and they’re working on some other, non-PS-Vita stuff, too
Now let’s go back and imagine the PS Vita is new all over again:
