Old Blood Noise Endeavors Dark Star V2

The Dark Star V2 is the second mono version of the Dark Star, a pad reverb made by Old Blood Noise Endeavors. Where a conventional reverb pedal adds space around your playing, the Dark Star treats reverb as a generative texture: a long, dark reverb tail that can be pitch shifted, delayed or bit crushed, turning a single note or chord into a slow-moving pad. Premier Guitar notes that the stereo Dark Star "follows the mono Dark Star and Dark Star V2," placing the V2 as the middle step in the line's history¹.

Old Blood Noise Endeavors describes the Dark Star as "a lo-fi reverb aimed at slow attack and pad generation," with three modes that "introduce pitch shifting, delay, and bit crushing to the core voice of long, dark reverb"². Pedal of the Day characterized its voices as "dark pitch shifted, delayed, and bit crushed reverb"³.

A dark pad reverb with pitch, delay and crush

The core of the Dark Star is a long reverb decay, and the three modes determine what happens inside that tail. A three-way toggle selects between Pitch, Delay and Crush modes²:

• Pitch: the reverb is modulated by pitch shifting, so the tail drifts up or down from what you played.
• Delay: additional delay is introduced into the reverb, layering repeats under the wash.
• Crush: a bit crusher degrades the reverb, giving the tail a lo-fi, digital-breakup character.

Guitar World interviewed Sarah Lipstate of Noveller, a Dark Star user, who said "it's pretty easy to tell the difference by ear between the two Dark Star modes: delay and pitch"⁷. The maker positions the pedal as something more than an effect at the end of a board: "This is a reverb to go first in your signal chain, and almost an instrument of its own"².

The controls

The compact Dark Star keeps its control set small. Each mode has its own shaping knobs, with CTRL 1 and CTRL 2 doing the mode-specific work²:

The Mix knob running to 100% wet matters for a pad pedal: at full wet the pedal outputs only the processed reverb, which is what turns a struck chord into a sustained drone. The expression jack extends this further, letting a pedal sweep the mode-specific control or the trail length while you play².

The hold switch is the performance control. Old Blood Noise Endeavors says "a hold switch allows infinite trails while the pedal is on," and describes it as a way to momentarily max out whichever knob is assigned to expression². In practice that means holding the switch either sustains the reverb indefinitely or slams the assigned parameter to its maximum, depending on the internal setting.

Power: 9V, 110mA

The compact Dark Star requires a 9V DC center negative power supply through a 2.1mm jack, capable of 110mA, and the supply is not included².

The stereo edition that followed draws considerably more: 350mA at 9V DC center negative, also on a 2.1mm jack⁸.

History and versions: Dark Star, V2 and Stereo

The Dark Star line runs from a compact mono pedal to today's large stereo edition⁹¹¹⁰:

JHS Pedals' history of Old Blood Noise Endeavors records "the Dark Star pad reverb, released at the tail end of 2015"⁵, while Delicious Audio dates its launch to 2016⁴. The original compact Dark Star was retired in early 2024, when Old Blood Noise Endeavors let the Dark Light circuit live on as an option of the original design⁶, though the maker notes the compact Dark Star "is still available through any of our" dealers worldwide².

The stereo edition, released in 2024, is a substantial redesign rather than a simple stereo reissue. Guitar Pedal X describes how "where you previously had 3 separate and independent modes of operation - Pitch / Delay / Crush," the new edition lets you use all those textural elements together, with more options and a far higher degree of granularity than the compact original¹¹. Delicious Audio likewise notes the Stereo version "released in 2024" and allows blending all three modes at once¹⁰. It lists at $329.00 on the maker's product page⁸, with stereo in and out, analog dry through, trails or true bypass switching, presets, expression control over every knob, and MIDI control over every element⁸. Its control set is much larger, including Filter, two independent pitch shifters with a -2 octave to +2 octave range, Crush, Lag pre-delay, Multiply feedback, Decay, Volume, Mix and a Spread control that pans left and right in opposite directions¹².

There is also a Dark Paw, a B's Music Shop exclusive described by RockBoard's PedalPedia as a reimagining of OBNE's Dark Star V3¹³.

What reviewers said

Premier Guitar's review of the stereo edition found that "stereo is where this iteration of the Dark Star, which follows the mono Dark Star and Dark Star V2, really comes alive"¹. Guitar.com's Richard Purvis reviewed the Dark Star Stereo and was more mixed on its hardware, writing that the "second footswitch could have been put to better use," though the pedal carries a multi-purpose second switch assignable to preset toggling⁹.

Guitar Pedal X's coverage of the stereo launch was enthusiastic about the line as a whole: "The original Dark Star was a long term fan favourite, but this new edition is something quite a bit more!" and "Sounds superb in the various demos"¹¹. Delicious Audio added the Dark Star to its Best Reverb Pedals for Ambient and Shoegazer list⁴, and Guitar.com's buying guide named the Dark Star Stereo its best compact reverb⁴¹⁴.

For players comparing the compact mono pedals against the stereo edition, the choice comes down to simplicity against control: the mono Dark Star and V2 offer one mode at a time on a small board footprint, while the stereo Soundscape blends Pitch, Delay and Crush simultaneously with presets and MIDI⁸¹¹.

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