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Hello guys, another interminable 'Hey, has anyone tried this?-type question, this time specifically for OBNE Dark Star users. Everyone else: thank you for your patience.

I'm considering the Dark Star as a means of making a boring input signal sound more lively and textured, via the bitcrusher and particularly the *added harmonic info* pitch mode.

Is anyone out there using a Dark Star for drone purposes, especially in the bass register? How would it do in the role I describe?

I haven't used mine for exactly what you are describing, but the bit crusher and pitch modes are super engaging to play with. I was using mine in a band where my role was to fill out the sound and make things sound giant and textured, and the dark star's pitch mode really worked for that. I got a lot of 'oh wow I thought there was extra synth player up there" type comments. I mostly used octave up (I was playing a low tuned guitar and didn't want to fight the bass player's frequencies, but the octave down does sound really nice as well. I did find it hard to dial in specific intervals that sounded "good" outside of the octaves, however. ymmv.
all in all I dig it, and I think you might dig it too

Up until recently the Dark Star has lived exclusively on my bass board, the bitcrusher and delays settings sound great in the lower register and playing octaves can add a lot of texture. I mostly just use it for droney interludes between songs and personally like the pedal best with no dry signal at all for maximum drone, the pre-delay might annoy some in that context but you can adapt your playing to it. Not sure if its just me but I do find the output signal low on this pedal (I have the internal trim pot maxed out too).

Kasrkin wrote: Not sure if its just me but I do find the output signal low on this pedal (I have the internal trim pot maxed out too).

I guess I need to mess with the trim pot too. I've noticed a bit of volume drop but I assumed that was just a headroom issue, since I run my dirt and boost pedals unreasonably loud most of the time. for a lot of these types of pedals I honestly think the best move is to run it at max and throw it in a loop with a blend. The eqd afterneath is another one that the output signal is just too low compared to what gets fed into it, no matter where the blend is set.

Hi guys, thanks for intelligent responses. I've spent a couple of days listening to Dark Star demos and came *that close* to pulling the trigger, but just can't love it.

I think it was the Just Nick demo that finally turned me against it. I really like Nick's playing, which I've listened to for years, and I noticed the extent to which the pedal managed to impose its own character on his. I don't want to find myself posting YouTube clips titled 'Dark Ambient Experiment 6'. It's all very frustrating.

The only freeze-y pedal I really like is the venerable Raptio, which has the exciting ugly rough edges of a New Thing but doesn't seem to play well with modulators. Don't want to end up with five chained pedals in my bass drone channel. Grr.

What about the Drolo Stamme(n)? The Pitch Freeze can go really low on that one - and it has a ton of other great options. It's a little finicky to tune to a certain pitch on the fly and I have not played it with a bass. But I liked it with synths and it does play well with other stuff.

Thank you, Goldrausch, I will relisten. I'd discounted the Drolo box not because of its sound (which I like) but because of all the modes -- I tend to focus myopically when I'm playing and don't have the brain cells to control a complex box. But the Stamme[n] seems a lot less full of itself than the Dark Star.