Digisound
Digisound
Also known as: Digisound 80, Digisound Ltd, Digisound-80
UnclaimedDigisound was a small British synthesizer company founded in 1977 by Charles Blakey and based near Blackpool, England. The brand became known for its DIY modular synthesizers, with module designs published as construction articles in the British electronics magazines Electronics Today International (ETI) and Electronics & Music Maker (E&MM). After an initial 20000 series, Blakey launched th...
Digisound was a small British synthesizer company founded in 1977 by Charles Blakey and based near Blackpool, England. The brand became known for its DIY modular synthesizers, with module designs published as construction articles in the British electronics magazines Electronics Today International (ETI) and Electronics & Music Maker (E&MM). After an initial 20000 series, Blakey launched the flagship Digisound 80 modular system in February 1980, offering an affordable alternative to commercial modulars by selling PCBs, kits, and pre-built panels that could be housed as standalone units or in larger 9"x3" panel cases.
The Digisound 80 line was built around Curtis (CEM) integrated circuits — the same chip family used in synthesizers from Oberheim and Sequential — and exposed more of those ICs' capabilities than typical polysynth implementations. The module range included the 80-2 VCO (based on the CEM 3340), VCLFO, VC Mixer, Dual ADSR, VC Envelope Generator, Dual VCA, multiple VC filter types (Low Pass, High Pass, Band Pass, Phase Shift, State Variable), Dual Ring Modulator, Noise Generator with Sample & Hold, and a digital 4-to-16-voice polyphonic keyboard controller. The company also developed an 8-bit sample-playback module with multisamples, compression, and looping at a time when sampling was barely a commercial reality.
After Blakey's death in the mid-1980s, Tim Higham took over the business in 1987 and continued selling the existing range, but production wound down in the early 1990s as the supply of Curtis ICs dried up following On-Chip Systems' acquisition of the chip line. The Digisound 80 retains a following among DIY synth builders, and schematics, build guides, and an active history archive remain available through fan-maintained sites.
Digisound has 2 products cataloged on Equipboard, including Modular Synthesizers and Power Amplifiers. Their gear is featured by 1 artist, with the strongest followings in Electronic. Notable users include Aphex Twin.
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