Vintage Synth Explorer

Red Sound • Darkstar

British company Red Sound System's first synth, the Darkstar is a table-top 8-voice polyphonic synthesizer suitable for anybody who wants affordable analog sounds for use in most any style of electronic music. Analog sounds are created by DSP-based analog modelling which means you'll get reliable and clean analog-type synth sounds in an economical and professional instrument. The Darkstar features 2 oscillators per voice, 5-part multitimbral set-up, joystick mixing for oscillators, ring modulation, filter resonance and pink/white/blue noise generators.

Its unique look is modeled after RSS's other DJ tools. There are 14 knobs, all of which transmit MIDI data and provide instant hands-on access to the filters and envelopes. The two LFOs and two envelope generators provide plenty of modulation abilities for the oscillators, pulse-width and filter. The filter offers high-, low- and band-Pass filtering with a 12dB/oct slope. It's not spectacular, but it is fairly flexible since both the cutoff and resonance can be modulated by either LFO and EG for a wide range of filter-sweeping effects.

The DarkStar has a simple yet powerful upgrade system as well. By simply plugging-in an EPROM chip into a compartment on its underside you can get an entirely new synth such as a vocoder or mega-mono synth. The DarkStar certainly has some interesting concepts and good sounds at a very affordable price, though this low price may be noticed in the construction and design of the machine. Still it may just be too good to pass up if you're on a budget!

An optional upgrade kit converts the DARKSTAR into the VOCODA - a fully featured vocoder with five operating modes. Featuring 11-band filtering / noise generation, this simple EPROM chip D.I.Y. upgrade will allow you to combine external sounds (voice or loops) with an external sound source for classic vocoder sounds, that's the Standard Vocoder mode (1). Use the DARKSTAR's internal osc. and 'S' detector for true 'robotic' style vocoding (2). The Filter Mode (3) can be used to process any stereo signal through the 11-band stereo filter for cool filter sweeps. The Sequence-coder Mode (4) and Synthesizer Mode (5) use the 8-step formant sequencer to control the vocoder filters on external sounds or the internal oscillators. Additional MIDI envelope control, vocoder phrase step-recording, 15 preset vowels via sound palette, and more! Upgrade kit includes VOCODA decal for DARKSTAR.

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TheNexus

Posted 31 days ago

I have the Darkstar XP 2 and have to admit, that this machine is some sort of a two-edged blade.

On the one hand, it offers intuitive and quick sound editing, very great fx and sweeps (also because of the joystick) and some unique sound.

On the other hand, it tends to need a lot of fondling around with the sound when mixing and in addition - compared to my other synths, it has quite a weak output level.

But for that price you really get a neat synth, which offers a lot of possibilities, if you know how to handle it's disadvantages.

Gregor Samsa

Posted 159 days ago

Not entirely useful on an everyday basis, but I can't gt rid of it. Sounds pretty unique, ad I am able to get some very nice basses and pads out of it. Has a sort of 'hollow' quality to the sound, and you'll need some effects as this has none. But overall, for the $200.00 (or so) range of synths, it's a steal. It's not going to be your main synth however- if you're looking for that, look elsewhere. Nice complimentary unit. Multi-timbral mode is a bit of a pain (but does work), so I use it as a mono.

Jim Wicked

Posted 260 days ago

I've bought and sold four of these, and I still miss it. It's a great synth for learning on. Lots of knobs and minimal menu diving involved. I wouldn't dare use it for bass or leads as it has a very thin quality to its sound which can easily get lost in a mix. If you stack voices, you can gets some psychotic pads, though. The filter is very weak and feeble, but it's the weakness of it that makes the band pass filter actually a lot of fun and why I keep buying them over and over again. Nothing else sounds like this synth but honestly, you don't really want anything else to sound like it because it's so bad for the most part.

Rev

Posted 282 days ago

This is a FUN unit to have around for those of us who kind of got into synths in the interim-like when the sound engines were true-analog but the programming interfaces were all buttons and (gag) hex or decimal! For $200 new it gives you all the knobs and LEDs you could hope for (and as mentioned even a JOYSTICK!) and they all send SYSEX so you can record the changes. Conceiveably the darned thing could be a control surface for your DAW or a software synth if you wanted to do the work. This is maybe the perfect unit for hands-on learning of additive synthesis basics, especially for the aural-tactile cognitive aspects. The factory presets remind me of my beloved Poly 800. Be warned, at least on the original versions, all the inputs/outputs are RCA, not 1/4" phono.

Andru

Posted 289 days ago

This was the first synth I ever bought. I bought it with an MS2000R and the DS sadly sat unused for a year as the MS2000 was so much easier to use. Once I plugged it in again and started figuring out how to use it, this quickly surpassed the Korg for my main synth. Fat sounds, a ring mod stick that (once learned) can make beautiful sweeps and ripples. The only real downside is that it can be buzzy sounding sometimes and it can be surprisingly difficult to hunt it down (Hint: 99% of all frustration with this synth can be chalked up to being in the wrong timbre). There is also no volume control (I think it is because Red Sound was intending for this to be sequencer controlled). Bought the Vocoda chip, but it's one or the other and when you swap chips, you lose all your customized sounds.

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