Red Sound Systems was a British manufacturer of DJ tools and synthesizers, originally incorporated in 1996. The company first made its name in DJ circles with BPM-detection hardware, including the Voyager 1 Beat Xtractor and the more compact Micro BPM headphone amp/BPM counter, which gave DJs a hardware tempo readout independent of the mixer. That work expanded into the Federation BPM FX Pro, a flagship unit that paired Red Sound's tempo-tracking with four DJ-oriented effects and MIDI control.

In 1999 the company released its first synthesizer, the DarkStar — a desktop, 8-voice virtual analog with two oscillators per voice, joystick oscillator mixing, ring modulation, multiple noise sources, and a five-part multitimbral architecture. An optional Vocoda upgrade kit converted the DarkStar into a multi-mode vocoder with 11-band filtering. The DarkStar was followed by the DarkStar XP2 and the larger Elevata synthesizer, alongside the SoundBITE XL sampler/groovebox.

The company sat in the budget end of the virtual-analog and DJ-tool market, frequently reviewed by Sound On Sound and Future Music. The DarkStar in particular has had a polarized afterlife online, with users either dismissing it or championing it as an idiosyncratic, character-rich synth — which has helped sustain a small but persistent secondhand following on Reverb and similar marketplaces.

Red Sound has 9 products cataloged on Equipboard, including Audio Samplers, Synthesizers, and Guitar Amplifier Cabinets. Their gear is featured by 8 artists, with the strongest followings in Electronic. Notable users include Four Tet, Chris Liebing, and Marco Carola.