If you dream of beautiful textured drones and long for the sweet-sounding analogue synths of the 70s and 80s all over everything you play yet you are stuck as a guitar player then the folks at Rainger FX truly have concocted the perfect pedal for you. The Minidrone pedal is a two-pitch all analogue triangle-wave tone generator that sits inline on your pedalboard creating some of the most organic-sounding synth drones you could ask for. With additional pitch manipulation on the fly thanks to the included Igor pressure-sensitive pad it’s an instrument in itself.
Here’s what Rainger FX say about the Minidrone:
The Minidrone is a stripped-down all analog version of the Drone Rainger. It’s really fun to play over, and is a great foundation for improvisation, songwriting and dramatic live performance.
It’s 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 – Drone1 – 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:
The Minidrone 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…
Flip 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.
There’s tons of bass – the tone is deep and electro. It’s 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 (custom enclosure). It’s an electric tamboura! In a two-piece band it’s your low-end!
The Minidrone is true bypass, and loud. You mix the drones in with your clean guitar signal, which passes through the pedal – buffered, but unaffected. It’s designed to be used in series with other pedals, all plugged into a single input.
Accommodation:
Through a window in the front panel you can see a motel scene inside – with car parks leading onto a busy road. The car headlamps light up. There’s an eerie streetlamp glow – and the motel sign flashes whenever you press the Igor pad.
