Minidrone (incl. Igor).
The Minidrone is a stripped-down version of the Drone Rainger. Its really fun to play over, and is a great foundation for improvisation, songwriting and dramatic live performance.
Its a deep and huge analogue synth, with modulation, made of up to three low-pitched triangle-wave oscillators mixed together.
Two of these oscillators are always in unison whatever the pitch – this is Drone 1 – though very slightly out-of-tune with each other. This creates beats between them, a slow, wide-band modulation that keeps the drone very listenable. The pitch is controlled by Pitch1.
Add in the other tone generator – Drone2 – and you can make any kind of musical interval between the drones; major and minor thirds, a fifth, octaves, or thick unison.
And all points in between – including tasty discordant chords, modulating fast and strangely
Drone1 and Drone2 are fully independently tuneable – with sweepable knobs – by tuner, or by ear (low volume is recommended for accuracy), with a range of approximately two octaves.
Igor
It comes with an Igor controller – a small pressure sensitive pad – which, when pressed, drops the overall pitch down a tone (two frets), rising back up on release. This creates a darkly atmospheric starting point for writing songs, riffs, or improvising
Press the 1/2Tone switch and this drop-down becomes only a semitone.
These two drop-down options actually make the pedal work in every kind of musical mode – dark and sinister, or happy up-beat ones, weird minor ones, blissed-out ones the Minidrone is very musical and inspiring to play over.
Low end
Theres tons of bass – 70Hz down to 30Hz (approximately) is the fundamental note from Drone1, which has chorusing harmonics, but with Drone2 added theres all kinds of tones and beats; the sound is deep and electro
Its like hitting a low note on some big-ass old synth (Korg MS-20? Yamaha CS-80??) and bending it!
But in Rainger FX minipedal format (our custom enclosure).
The Minidrone is true bypass, and loud.
Its an electric tamboura!
In a two-piece band its your low-end!
Through a window in the front panel you can see a motel scene inside – with car parks leading onto a busy road. Theres an eerie streetlamp glow – and the motel sign flashes whenever you press the Igor pad.
Using it
You mix the drones in with your clean guitar signal, which passes through the pedal – buffered, but unaffected. The pedal can be a handy boost when you turn off the drones volume – great for a solo-type signal bump.
Its designed to be used in series with other pedals (try a delay pedal after it), all plugged into a single guitar amp input.
- Massive synth bass tones!
- Internally-created sounds
- All analogue – including hypnotic slow modulation effect
- Does any kind of two-note chord
- 2 fret or 1 fret momentary pitch drop-down facility
- Includes Igor controller
- A great, clean instrument boost pedal!
- Another Rainger FX custom-made minipedal enclosure (no sockets on the sides!)
