Finland
Darkglass
Darkglass Electronics is a Finnish maker of bass guitar effects pedals, preamps, amplifiers and cabinets, based in Helsinki. It was founded in 2009 by Douglas Castro, a Chilean bassist and electronics graduate, with fellow Chilean bassist Hugo Villarroel as co-founder handling sales and artist relations.
- Founded
- 2009
- Products
- 2
Products
Filter all Darkglass gear
About Darkglass
Castro first came to Finland as an exchange student. Back in Santiago he built, modified and serviced gear for friends and worked on his own circuits in the evenings, then returned to Finland and refined the designs with help from a member of the band Stratovarius. Villarroel was one of his first customers, won over by the Microtubes B3K bass overdrive. The name comes from the forum username Castro used as a teenager to share his progressive-metal recordings.
The Microtubes drive pedals, among them the B3K, the Vintage and the B7K preamp, built the brand's name. The range later added the Duality fuzz, the Super Symmetry compressor, the Tone Capsule on-board bass preamp, the ADAM distortion, and Microtubes and Exponent amplifiers. Early pedal enclosures were milled from solid aluminium, with the metalwork done in Finland. Its players lean towards heavier music, with bassists from Meshuggah, Cannibal Corpse and Faith No More, though it also reaches players such as Paul Turner of Jamiroquai.
In May 2022 Korg USA, already its North American distributor, bought a controlling stake in Darkglass. Castro sold his share and left the company to managing director Marcos Barilatti. He is also the founder of the amp-modelling company Neural DSP.