Darryl Martin was born and initially educated in Perth, Western Australia before moving to the United Kingdom in 1986. Initially working as a musical instrument maker in Lancaster, England, in 1989 he moved to Edinburgh where he expanded into working with restoration and conservation of musical instruments. He also started a more academic approach to instrument research, working as a cataloguer and make technical drawings of instruments at the Edinburgh University Collection of Historical Musical Instruments in 1990. His PhD on English virginals at the University of Edinburgh was awarded in 2003.

In 2004 Darryl was appointed to the position of Lecturer, PhD supervisor, and Curator of the Musical Instrument Collections at the University of Edinburgh, and was made Principal Curator in 2012. In 2017 he moved to Copenhagen to work as a musical instrument Curator at the National Museum of Denmark, then moved to Ghent (Belgium) in 2019, teaching organology, restoration and conservation, and instrument making at KASK (the Royal School of Fine Art). In 2022 he commenced his present position as Conservator at the National Music Museum at the University of South Dakota, where he is also the Program Director of the Graduate Programs for Musical Instrument studies.