RS053 Death Star xp2: Red Sound Dark Star

video upload by rejected synths

"Sometimes one seemingly smart idea is enough to kill a whole company: The DeLorean DC-12 looked great on paper (and in Back to Future) but buried DeLorean as a company, Jiucero soon went out of juice, when people realized that DRM juice was actually as bad an idea on paper as it was in reality and the Red Sound Dark Star, well it was probably a tad bit too ambitious for the company that created it.

Sure, Virtual Analog was the next big thing, when the Dark Star was being incepted. and sure, the Virus was another VA synth by a small company that still managed to very well. So at the time, creating their own take on a VA synth most certainly sounded like a sound idea for Red Sound and, again, on paper, it sounded like a great product: Eight voices, five part multitimbrality, very solid built quality, stereo audio ins, built in expandability and, at just below 500€, a price much lower than what others were asking for.

So how could it fail this hard even after the price was lowered to well below 200€? Was it really as bad and laggy as people seemed to agree it was? Or did it just fall victim to a bad reputation? After all, the internet was another ‘product’ on the rise at that time and with it, of course, came people hating on the poor Dark Star in forums all over the net.

Sure, the Dark Star can suck, it can be slow and laggy, but as I think I’ve showed time and again on this channel, ‘bad’ synths can also often rise above their reputation when you use them just right. And of course, thanks to it’s reputation as the ‘worst VA’ it’s still one of those rare cases where you can still find an old synth at very reasonable prices.

Curious? Well then go board the ship, we’re about to take off…"

Tracklist:

0:00 Intro
0:21 Introduction
1:36 Sound Engine
3:34 Demo Song Snippet
4:23 Controls and Connectors
5:58 P35 Fat Saw Bass
6:43 P07 Plank Spank
7:44 P09 Jupitous
8:34 P41 Flower
9:30 P15 Brightly
10:32 Demo Song 1: House Org
11:30 Demo Song 2: Trance Layer
12:47 Conclusion
14:35 Outro

RS053.1 Red Sound Dark Star 'No Talking Edition'


"This is a shorter 'No Talking' edit of my video about the Red Sound Dark Star for those who prefer 'pure' demos without comments."

Tracklist:

0:00 Tracklist
0:08 Factory Demo Snippet
0:42 P52 Fat Saw Bass
1:27 P07 Plank Spanker
2:28 P09 Jupitous
3:18 P41 Flower
4:14 P15 Brightly
5:06 Multi Demo 1: House Org
6:03 Multi Demo 2: Trance Layer
7:22 Outro

RS053.2 Red Sound Dark Star Factory Demo Songs


"Time for some bonus content again, I've created some visuals for the Factory Demo Song(s) of the Dark Star.

These can be accessed by holding Audition and pressing Modulation

Enjoy!"